Biography of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest writer of the English language, one
of the greatest in all of Western literature, and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. He
penned 34 plays, 154 sonnets and an assortment of other poems. He is the most quoted
writer in the English-speaking world and is often referred to simply as ‘The Bard’. Unusually
for a playwright, he excelled in comedies, tragedies and histories, and his plays combined
popular appeal with complex characterisation and philosophical depth.
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William Shakespeare was born in April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon to John and Mary
Shakespeare. Although the exact date of his birth is not known, we do know that he was
christened on the 26th. And because christenings at the time were generally held within a
few days of birth, it is customarily assumed his birthday was the 23rd. This date provides
a convenient piece of symmetry because Shakespeare died on 23rd April, 1616.
His father was a rustic tradesman who built himself up a large business and respectable
position in society. His mother, Mary Arden, came from more considerable stock. John
had in fact been born the son of an industrious yeoman and a tenant of Mary’s father.
Relations between the couple may not have been intolerable, but there was definitely an
element of discord between them on account of their differing social status. Mary would
often reproach her husband for his coarse manner and lack of grace, and pine for the
privileges of existence she had been obliged to forfeit because of their marriage.
William himself had been preceded by two sisters, both of whom had died at early ages,
and was followed by three brothers and two more sisters, the last of which perished at
the age of seven.
But just as John Shakespeare was reaching the peak of his career, suddenly and
inexplicably his fortunes took a turn for the worse. Soon he was in a great debt, had
spent his wife’s inheritance, and was even in trouble with the law for breech of the peace.
He never lost his happy demeanour, however, and at the height of his troubles was to be
found in his house of business, rosy cheeked and smiling, extolling the merits of his eldest
son. “Will is a good and honest Fellow,” he was heard to say, “with whom I never hesitate
to crack a joke”.
There is no official record of where William received his education but, as the son of a
prominent citizen, most probably he would have been enrolled in Stratford’s excellent
grammar school. The Elizabethans, like the Victorians, were ardent educationalists and
illiteracy at the time was probably less prevalent than it was in the early nineteenth
century when the old social structure was crumbling under the stress of industrial
revolution.1
Stratford was not a backward or provincial borough and almost certainly Shakespeare and
his family would have swelled the crowds at one of the Queen’s elaborate pageants in the
area. Indeed, such an experience is said to directly inform one of the scenes in A
Midsummer Night’s Dream.
At the age of 18 Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, who was 26 and three months
pregnant. The couple sired a daughter, Susanna in 1583 and then a pair of twins, Hamnet
and Judith, in 1585. The boy, Hamnet, died in 1595.
Quennell, Peter. Shakespeare: The Poet and his Background, Penguin 1969, pp18-19.
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No-one really knows what Shakespeare did in the late 1580s but by 1592 he had left
Stratford under something of a cloud and journeyed to London to write plays.
By 1594 he was also an actor and part-owner of a play company known as the Lord
Chamberlain’s Men, taking its name from its aristocratic sponsor, Lord Chamberlain.
The troop became popular enough that after the coronation of James I in 1603 the
monarch adopted them and they became known as the King’s Men.
In 1596 Shakespeare moved to the parish of Bishopsgate (EC2) and by 1598 he was one of
London’s leading actors and had appeared in a play written by Ben Johnson. From here on
his name started to appear on the title page of the plays he was writing, presumably as a
selling point.
During his time in London Shakespeare grew quite rich, buying a property in Blackfriars
and then the second largest house in Stratford, New Place.
Shakespeare’s last two plays were composed in 1613 after which he retired to Stratford.
He died on April 23rd (May 3rd on the Gregorian calendar – England was still operating the
Julian calendar at the time), the same day as the famous Spanish writer and author of
Don Quixote, Cervantes.
Shakespeare is buried at the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon and his grave is
marked by a bust of him posed in the act of writing. Every year on his birthday a new quill
pen is placed in the writing hand of the monument.
The exact date of authorship of much of Shakespeare’s work is not known, but generally his
plays are broken down into three distinct periods: early comedies and histories (such as A
Midsummer Night’s Dream and Henry IV); a middle period which includes his most famous
tragedies and ‘problem plays’ (Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet, and Trolius and Cressida); and the
later romances (The Tempest and The Winter’s Tale). Shakespeare’s Sonnets were first
published in their entirety in 1609, but were composed over a number of years during the
1590s.
There is also some controversy surrounding questions of who actually wrote Shakespeare’s
plays. This controversy extends from limited questions about whether or not Shakespeare, in
the atmosphere of communal writing and elaboration of ideas of London’s theatre scene in
the late sixteenth century, was in fact entirely responsible for every word of his productions,
to whether or not he wrote any of his plays and his name was not simply used as a front for
publicity sake. There is also the famous notion of ‘Shakespeare’s Sister’, an ethereal icon of
feminist theory put forward by Virginia Woolf.
During his lifetime Shakespeare was both popular and respected, but he was not considered
the supreme poet of his age. It was not until the nineteenth century that his reputation hit
the heights of the most celebrated dramatist ever to pick up a pen. This was in line with the
nineteenth century romantic reverence of the poet as prophet and genius, and also with the
burgeoning nationalism and imperialism of the age, to which such celebrities could be held up
as emblems of national pride.
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Shakespeare’s Life: Key points
His birth
We don’t know exactly when William Shakespeare was born, as births were not
registered in Tudor times. However, we can guess the date as being the 23rd April
( St George’s Day), because we know the date of Shakespeare’s christening and
Elizabethan babies were generally christened three days after they were born, due
to the very high mortality rate.
His family
Shakespeare’s mother, Mary, was an heiress who had married beneath her. His
father, John, was the son of a tenant farmer. After his marriage he bought a house
in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he set up as an animal trader and glove maker. He
became a wealthy and respected businessman, and was elected High Bailiff of
Stratford (the equivalent of mayor). Shakespeare was their third baby and the first
to survive. His two sisters both died, one at two months, one at one year, of Bubonic
Plague (Black Death). William had another five siblings, one of whom also died of the
Plague at the age of eight.
His home
Shakespeare’s family lived in a typical Tudor timber-frame house with a thatched
roof. Although it was quite large, there were no corridors – each room opened on to
another, so there was little privacy. This is why they had curtains around their beds!
The children would have shared a truckle bed to keep warm. Most mattresses were
made from straw, though some were stuffed with feathers. The floors were
generally covered with rushes. Herbs, vegetables and flowers were grown in the
garden. There would have been a rather unpleasant smell in the Shakespeare house,
as the animal skins used for glove-making were seasoned in vats of dog droppings!
Mealtimes were at 7am, 12 noon and 6pm and consisted of a variety of stews cooked
over an open fire. As Shakespeare’s family were quite well off, they could afford
bread made from wheat flour. They also ate from pewter plates rather than from
trenchers (wooden platters or slabs of bread) as did most ordinary folk.
At school
Shakespeare would have attended a Petty School from the age of four until he was
seven. In these schools the children learnt the catechism, how to behave well, e.g. to
respect their parents and say their prayers, as well as table manners, such as eating
small morsels at mealtimes and knowing how to use a knife and a napkin correctly!
Shakespeare would have learnt to read from a ‘horn book’ framed with wood and
covered with a thin layer of transparent horn. He would have learnt the alphabet and
then the vowels combined with each of the letters b, c and d, e.g. ba, be, bi, bo, bu,
etc. For writing he would have used a quill. The children made these themselves
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from the end of a sharpened goose feather which they dipped into ink wells made
from hollow horns. There were no desks, so writing was not easy!
At the age of eight Shakespeare went to the local grammar school, so called because
its main aim was to teach Latin grammar. Only boys were allowed to attend. In
summer, school started at six in the morning and ended at five; in winter the day
began one hour later and finished one hour earlier. There was school every day
except for Sunday, though Thursday afternoons were free. Shakespeare would have
had twice as many hours of schooling as today’s pupils! There were three exams per
week and lessons consisted almost entirely of the pupils repeating aloud what they
were supposed to be learning. The children were expected to speak Latin at all times.
If they were caught speaking English, they were punished. Punishments were usually
carried out on a Friday, when it was not unusual for a boy to receive fifty strokes of
the cane!
Boys normally went on to university after grammar school, but, because
Shakespeare’s father began to have financial difficulties at this time, Shakespeare
had to leave school at 14.
The ‘lost’ years
Very little is known about Shakespeare between 1578 when he left school and 1582
when he married Anne Hathaway. Anne was seven or eight years older than
Shakespeare and was pregnant when he married her. Shakespeare was only 18 at the
time and required his father’s permission to marry! They went to live in his father’s
house at Stratford. Even after his marriage all we know for sure about the next ten
years of his life is that he had three children baptised.
In London
It is not known why, in 1592, Shakespeare moved to London, to work as an actor.
There must have been a strong reason for him to leave his home and his family and to
choose to work with actors, who were at the time regarded as ‘low life’. Theatres
were a recent invention; most plays were still performed in the courtyards of inns,
which were not very respectable places. Shakespeare acted in many performances
and soon began to write his own plays, in which he often acted himself.
We know that Shakespeare’s play, Henry IV Part 1, was first staged in 1593.
Between 1585 and 1604 Protestant England was at war with Catholic Spain, so
patriotism was the dominant mood in the country. Shakespeare wrote nine plays
dealing with English history during this period. Writing plays was a dangerous
occupation, as playwrights could be arrested and tortured for expressing heretical or
traitorous ideas.
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Between 1592 and 1594 the devastation by the Plague was so great in London that the
theatres were closed down and the acting troupes left the city. Shakespeare turned
to writing poetry to maintain his income. When the theatres re-opened Shakespeare
began to write and act for a theatre company called the ‘Lord Chamberlain’s Men’. He
invested some of his money in the company and took a share in the profits. By 1613
he was rich enough to buy his own house near the Globe Theatre (built in 1597) in
which he also owned shares.
The theatres were very successful, attracting huge crowds of up to 3,000 people.
They not only showed plays but also acted as venues for bear-baiting, gambling and
prostitution. Many strict Protestants complained and in 1596 plays were banned from
the city of London and theatres were forced to move to the South Bank of the
Thames.
When King James of Scotland became King of England, he resented the power of the
Puritans in London and began to support the theatre, a form of entertainment which
the Puritans loathed. He became patron of Shakespeare’s company which was
renamed the ‘King’s Men’ and which now performed at court more than 13 times a year.
It was to please the King that Shakespeare wrote Macbeth.
His plays
Shakespeare wrote both tragedies and comedies. A comedy is a light-hearted story
with a happy ending. In many of Shakespeare’s comedies lovers have to overcome
obstacles or comical misunderstandings before being able to marry, e.g. Two
Gentlemen of Verona. In his tragedies, which are often dark and violent, the central
character suffers because of one key flaw in his nature, e.g. Macbeth’s ambition,
Othello’s jealousy. Shakespeare also wrote plays about Ancient Rome, e.g. Julius
Caesar, as well as adventures and fairy tales, such as The Tempest.
Back to Stratford!
In 1597 Shakespeare was wealthy enough to buy a big house with servants for his
family in Stratford – it was the second largest house in the town! He also bought
barns, cottages and a large area of land there. In 1610 he retired to Stratford
altogether, living from the income of his shares in the Globe and the Blackfriars
Playhouse.
Shakespeare died on his birthday, St George’s Day, in 1616. Thus both the birthday
and the death of England’s greatest ever writer fell on England’s National Day!
© Original resource copyright Hamilton Trust, who give permission for it to be adapted as wished by individual users
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