International Youth Theater Network

Archive for December, 2007

Very little is known about the personal history of William Shakespeare. To date, there are only two major sources of information about his life and these are his works as well as various legal and church documents from the Elizabethan era.

Scholars had hugely debated the childhood years of the Bard. It was speculated that he might have been educated in a free grammar school in Stratford due to his knowledge of Latin and Classical Greek. Though there had been no records found to substantiate this theory, scholars are convinced that Shakespeare must have had a solid education due to the literary quality of his works.

What happened to Shakespeare from childhood until his marriage when he was 18 years of age was a mystery to many. His marriage to Anne Hathaway in 1852 and the baptism of his children, Susanna and twins, Hamnet and Judith were documented. However, after the birth of his twins in 1585, no trace or record of Shakespeare had been found until seven years later. This period was labeled by scholars as Shakespeare’s “lost years.” His name resurfaced only in 1592 when he came to London to start his career as an actor and playwright.

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We always think of William Shakespeare as the creator of such immortal plays as “Hamlet” and “Romeo and Juliet” that we often forget that he was also a family man when he was alive. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, who was eight years older than he was. They were issued a marriage license on November 27, 1582 by the consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester. They appeared to have wed in haste due to the impending birth of their first child who was born about six months after they were married.

Their eldest child, Susanna, was baptized on May 26, 1583. Two years after, they bore twins, a son whom they named Hamnet and a daughter, Judith. Hamnet was reported to have died for unknown reasons on August 11, 1596 when he was 11 years of age. Apart from this, not much is known about the family of Shakespeare except that when he died on April 23, 1616, he was survived by his wife and two daughters. When he died, he bequeathed his “second best bed” and one-third of his estate to his wife. He also stated through his will that the bulk of his estate will be given to Susanna, his elder daughter.

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Shakespeare Through Life and Death

Despite the popularity achieved by his plays and the worldwide recognition for his prowess in writing, very little is known about the personal life of William Shakespeare. In fact, up to this very day, nobody really knows his actual date of birth. According to historians, William’s birth place was the house that his father owned in Stratford-upon-Avon and he was baptized on April 26, 1564. Historians further theorized that he must have been born some days before his baptismal date since at that time, it was required that a newborn child should be baptized on the nearest Sunday or holy day following his birth.William, who would go down in history as the greatest writer in the English language, was the third of eight siblings and was the eldest surviving son. His father, John, was a glover and tanner of leathers. John soon prospered and ventured into the business of dealing farm products and wool. He married Mary Arden, William’s mother, sometime in 1556 to 1558. William’s two elder sisters, Joan and Margaret, died shortly after their births due to the waves of plague that swept England during the sixteenth century. Luckily, William survived to reach adulthood and from then on, carved his place in history through his immortal plays.

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William Shakespeare never would have dreamt that he would someday be recognized as the world’s finest writer in the English language. Also called the “Bard of Avon” or simply, “The Bard,” Shakespeare came to London in 1588 to join the theater. It was around this time that he showed great promise as an actor and as a playwright. His tremendous talent for acting and writing was his ticket so he could join the Lord Chamberlain’s Men in 1594. Together with Will Kempe, a talented comedian and Richard Burbage, the leading tragic actor during their time, their theater company became a hit in London and was patronized both by the royalties and the theater-loving public.

During his time, Shakespeare was regarded as a very prolific writer. The publishers of First Folio, John Heminges and Henry Condell were often amazed with how Shakespeare’s mind and hand seemed to work together. So fast was Shakespeare as a writer that they seldom saw any errors in his original manuscripts. The First Folio of 1623 listed 36 plays written by the Bard. These plays were categorized as comedies, histories and tragedies. It is alleged that some of these plays were not entirely written by Shakespeare but rather were collaborations with another writer. Due to their popularity, there had been countless adaptations of these plays in films, television shows and theater productions.

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