Main article: William Shakespeare's life
Early life
William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer.[8] He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptid there on 26 April 1564. His actual date of birth remains unknown, but is traditionally obrved on 23 April, Saint George's Day.[9] This date, which can be traced back to an 18th-century scholar's mistake, has proved appealing to biographers, since Shakespeare died 23 April 1616.[10] He was the third child of eight and the eldest surviving son.[11]
Although no attendance records for the period survive, most biographers agree that Shakespeare was probably educated at theKing's New School in Stratford,[12] a free school chartered in 1553,[13] about a quarter-mile from his home. Grammar
schoolsvaried in quality during the Elizabethan era, but grammar school curricula were largely similar, the basic Latin text was standardid by royal decree,[14] and the school would have provided an intensive education in grammar bad upon Latin classicalauthors.[15]
John Shakespeare's hou, believed to be Shakespeare's birthplace, in Stratford-upon-Avon.
At the age of 18, Shakespeare married the 26-year-old Anne Hathaway. The consistory court of the Dioce of Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. The next day two of Hathaway's neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded the marriage.[16] The ceremony may have been arranged in some haste, since the Worcesterchancellor allowed the marriage banns to be read once instead of the usual three times,[17]and six mo
nths after the marriage Anne gave birth to a daughter, Susanna, baptid 26 May 1583.[18] Twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptid 2 February 1585.[19] Hamnet died of unknown caus at the age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596.[20]
After the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592. The exceptio is the appearance of his name in the 'complaints bill' of a law ca before the Queen's Bench court at Westminster dated Michaelmas Term 1588 and 9 October 1589.[21]Scholars refer to the years between 1585 and 1592 as Shakespeare's "lost years".[22] Biographers attempting to account for this period have reported many apocryphal stories. Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeare’s first biographer, recounted a Stratford legend that Shakespeare fled the town for London to escape procution for deer poaching in the estate of local squire Thomas Lucy. Shakespeare is also suppod to have taken his revenge on Lucy by writing a scur
rilous ballad about him.[23] Another 18th-century story has Shakespeare starting his theatrical career minding the hors of theatre patrons in London.[24] John Aubrey reported that Shakespeare had been a country schoolmaster.[25] Some 20th-century scholars have suggested that Shakespeare may have been employed as a schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton of Lancashire, a Catholic landowner who named a certain "William Shakeshafte" in his will.[26] Little evidence substantiates such stories other than hearsay collected after his death, and Shakeshafte was a common name in the Lancashire area.[27]
London and theatrical career
"All the world's a stage,
and all the men and women merely players:
they have their exits and their entrances;
and one man in his time plays "
—As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7, 139–42[28]
It is not known exactly when Shakespeare began writing, but contemporary allusions and records of performances show that veral of his plays were on the London stage by 1592.[29] By then, he was sufficiently well known in London to be attacked in print by the playwright Robert Greene in his Groats-Worth of Wit:
...there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with hisTiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, suppos he is as well able to bombast out a blank ver as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.[30]
Scholars differ on the exact meaning of the words,[31] but most agree that Greene is accusing Shakespeare of reaching above his rank in trying to match university-educated writers such as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe and Greene himlf (the"university wits").[32] The italicid phra parodying the line "
Oh, tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide" from Shakespeare'sHenry VI, Part 3, along with the pun "Shake-scene", identifies Shakespeare as Greene's target. Here Johannes Factotum—"Jack of all trades"— means a cond-rate tinkerer with the work of others, rather than the more common "universal genius".[31][33]
Greene's attack is the earliest surviving mention of Shakespeare’s career in the theatre. Biographers suggest that his career may have begun any time from the mid-1580s to just before Greene's remarks.[34] From 1594, Shakespeare's plays were performed by only the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a company owned by a group of players, including Shakespeare, that soon became the leadingplaying company in London.[35] After the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, the company was awarded a royal patent by the new king, James I, and changed its name to the King's Men.[36]
