William Shakespeare
What’s the big deal?
 Born in 1564, he was an English playwright, poet,
actor, favorite dramatist of queens and kings,
inventor of words, master of drama, and arguably
the most famous writer of all time.
 His 36 plays and 154 sonnets left behind the
evidence of a brilliant mind, a wicked sense of
humor, a deep sensitivity to human emotions, and
a rich classical education.
What do we know about the man?
 In the 400 or so years since Shakespeare died, there have been plenty of
rumors about the Bard and the personal experiences that may have
inspired his works.
 We don't know much about Shakespeare's inner world—he left behind no
tell-all confessionals—but we know a lot about his outer world, and that is
perhaps even more important to understanding his genius.
 Shakespeare came of age during the Renaissance, a flourishing of arts,
culture, and thought that took place in the middle of the last millennium.
 All across Western Europe, ideas on everything from God to the nature of
the universe were shifting. In England, it was a time of great literary and
dramatic achievement, encouraged by Queen Elizabeth I and her successor
James I. It was the perfect environment for a gifted dramatist to thrive.
The Renaissance
What is a BARD?
In medieval
Gaelic and
British culture
a bard was a
professional
poet.
THE BARD
What did he do for you?
 Shakespeare changed the English language,
inventing dozens of new words we still use today. His
plays have been translated into more than 80 other
tongues.
 Diverse audiences all still recognize the timeless
elements of the human experience as depicted by a
young Englishman 400 years ago.
GREED*LOVE*HATE*DECEPTION*JEALOUSY
Words Coined By Shakespeare
 The English language owes a great debt to Shakespeare.
 He invented over 1700 of our common words by changing nouns into
verbs, changing verbs into adjectives, connecting words never before
used together, adding prefixes and suffixes, and devising words wholly
original.
accused addiction advertising amazement arouse assassination backing
bandit bedroom beached besmirch birthplace blanket bloodstained
barefaced blushing bet bump buzzer caked cater champion circumstantial
cold-blooded compromise courtship countless critic dauntless dawn
deafening discontent dishearten drugged dwindle epileptic equivocal elbow
excitement exposure eyeball fashionable fixture flawed frugal generous
gloomy gossip green-eyed gust hint hobnob hurried impede impartial
invulnerable jaded label lackluster laughable lonely lower luggage lustrous
madcap majestic marketable metamorphize mimic monumental moonbeam
mountaineer negotiate noiseless obscene obsequiously ode olympian
outbreak panders pedant premeditated puking radiance rant remorseless
savagery scuffle secure skim milk submerge summit swagger torture
tranquil undress unreal varied vaulting worthless zany gnarled grovel
William
Shakespeare
was born 23
April 1564 in
Stratford-uponAvon, an small
English market
town located
about 100 miles
northwest of
London along
the banks of the
River Avon.
Shakespeare’s
Birthplace
CHILDHOOD
 William's father, John Shakespeare, was a prominent local citizen who served
as an alderman and bailiff (important roles in local government).
 His mother was Mary Arden Shakespeare.
 William was the fourth of the Shakespeare’s eight children, only five of whom
survived to adulthood.
 By the age of four or five, young William Shakespeare was enrolled at the King's
New School in Stratford, a grammar school run for the benefit of the sons
(tough luck, daughters) of civil servants like John Shakespeare.
The Classical Education
 It's impossible to overstate how important this classical education was
to Shakespeare's development as an author—and indeed, how
important literature in general was to the development of Renaissance
England. In continental Europe (particularly Italy), the Renaissance
was a triumph of the visual arts—think of Leonardo da Vinci or
Michelangelo or Raphael.
 England's Renaissance, however, was one of words. The advent of the
printing press meant that more people had access to books than ever
before. Classical texts were being translated and distributed at an
unprecedented rate.
 Queen Elizabeth I and her successor, King James I, were both big fans
and patrons of literature. Under their rule, writers like Shakespeare,
Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Edmund Spenser, and John Milton
were able to thrive.
 All of those men read the same books Shakespeare did while they were
growing up. These classical texts formed the collective knowledge of a
Renaissance audience.
Who did he marry?
 Anne Hathaway
 On 28 November 1582, the Bishop of Worcester issued a marriage
license to "William Shagspere" and "Ann Hathwey." This confirmed
the marriage of William Shakespeare, then 18 years old, and Anne
Hathaway, the 26-year-old daughter of a local farmer.
 Later that year the couple baptized their daughter, Susanna. Two
years later, Anne Hathaway gave birth to twins, a son named
Hamnet and a daughter named Judith.
No records exist of what Shakespeare was up to between 1585 and
1592, a period often referred to by Shakespeare scholars as the "Lost
Years." Some early biographies speculated that he was forced to flee
Stratford after he was caught poaching deer on a neighbor's
property. Other theories hold that he was employed as a butcher, a
teacher, or a clerk in a local attorney's office.
Anne Hathaway’s House
The Playwright
 Sometime during the Lost Years, Shakespeare moved to London to pursue
a career as an actor and playwright (his wife and children stayed behind in
Stratford).
 London was, by modern standards, a nasty, filthy, disgusting dump. Raw
sewage ran in the streets. There was no way to get clean water.
 Public spaces closed down every few years while bubonic plague rolled
through—the outbreak that shut down theaters in the late 1590s was
considered a minor one, since only 5 percent of the city's population died.
 It was a coarse, rough place, but for a young Englishman in love with the
stage, it was the only place to be.
London in the 1600s
He’s Famous
In 1594, Shakespeare joined the Lord Chamberlain's
Men, a theater troupe sponsored by a baron named
Henry Carey, a.k.a. Lord Chamberlain. Shakespeare
also purchased shares in the company, making him a
manager and co-owner.
Over the next few years, with Shakespeare as chief
dramatist, the Chamberlain's Men became one of the
most popular theater companies in London and a
favorite of Queen Elizabeth.
The King’s Men
 Queen Elizabeth died in 1603, ending the Elizabethan era. Her
successor, King James I was equally enamored of Shakespeare's
troupe.
 The players changed their name to the King's Men and performed
before the royal court a whopping eleven times in a single year. In
1608, the troupe moved their primary playing house from the Globe
to the indoor Blackfriar’s Theatre in London.
 The golden age of the King's Men was coming to an end. During a
1613 performance of Henry VIII—possibly the premiere—disaster
struck the Globe. Fireworks fired off to mark the king's entry on
stage sparked the thatch roof, and the wooden Globe burned to the
ground in less than an hour.
THE GLOBE
THE OLD
THE NEW
He’s Dead
 Sometime between 1610 and 1613, Shakespeare left London and moved back to
Stratford, where his wife and married daughters had been living all the while.
 He had made his name and a successful career, and settled into a retirement
that turned out to be rather short. By the spring of 1616, Shakespeare fell ill
with some kind of illness; his precise ailment has been lost to history. On 23
April 1616, his 52nd birthday, William Shakespeare died.
 He was buried in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford, the same place he was
baptized. As one final testament to his famous wit, he had his tombstone
inscribed with a rather hilarious curse:
"Good friend for Jesus sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here!
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones”
Cult of Shakespeare
 Thus began the Cult of Shakespeare. In the 400 years since his death,
Shakespeare has been read, performed, translated and studied more than any
other writer.
 Our understanding of the Bard's life story has undergone some changes over
the years. Once all of the people who knew Shakespeare personally had died, a
version of his life story circulated that was more myth than fact.
 Until the late 18th century, Shakespeare was rumored to have been a barely-
literate genius son of a poor farmer who made his way to London and somehow
produced his matchless body of work.
 Thanks to this unlikely biography, some scholars began to question whether
William Shakespeare even wrote "Shakespeare's" plays in the first place.
Several candidates have been put forth as possible "real" authors of
Shakespeare's works, including Queen Elizabeth.

Virtual Tour / Shakespeare's Globe
Video Summary
http://www.biography.com/people/williamshakespeare-9480323/videos