4. William Shakespeare

(1564-1616)

Although Shakespeare is widely regarded as one of the greatest dramatists in England and even in the world, very little is known about his life; much must be inferred from indirect evidence, such as other people's writings, legal documents and so on. He was born in 1564 at Stratford on Avon and was christened on 26th April, the third child of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden. His father was a glover, and a prominent figure in local affairs, who later became a bailiff and a Justice of the Peace (a kind of local magistrate) in 1568. He was presumably educated at the local grammar school, but he never went to university, which was to cause some resentment among his contem­poraries, the writers known as the University Wits.

In 1582 he married Anne Hathaway, who was several years older than him and he had three children by her in the period 1582/85: Susanna, and the twins Judith and Hamnet. It is possible, but not certain, that Shakespeare worked as a country schoolmaster in this period; it is thought that his marriage was unhappy, and it is known that by 1592 he had left for London to establish himself on the literary scene. He was first an actor and then a playwright; his success immediately created jealousy among colleagues, such as the pamphleteer Robert Greene, who wrote in 1592 of Shakespeare:

"For there is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that with his tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes fac totum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country".

In 1593 the theatres closed due to an outbreak of plague; Shakespeare found a patron, the Earl of Southampton, a rich young nobleman to whom he dedicated the poems Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594). In these years he also became a founder

member of the Lord Chamberlain's company, a kind of cooperative of actors, for whom he was the resident playwright. They soon became the leading company in London and were often invited to perform in private before Elizabeth I and her court. His son Hamnet died in 1596 and a year after it is recorded that he bought a large house, New Place, in Stratford on Avon, so presumably he was fairly successful. His acting career continued, and we know that in 1598 he acted in Ben Jonson's play, Every Man in his Humour.

The year 1599 saw the opening of the Globe Theatre which had been built for the company in Southwark, south of the River Thames. The period in which the Globe flourished, until it burned down in 1613, coincides with Shakespeare's greatest works. In 1603, on the accession of James I to the English throne, the Company became The King's Men because of their high prestige. In 1608 the Blackfriars Theatre, a smaller indoor stage, was acquired by the King's Men. In 1610 Shakespeare retired to Stratford where he died in 1616.

He wrote 37 plays, none of which were published n authorized editions during his lifetime; in fact they were collected in an edition known as the First Folio in 1623.

Works

Though no classification can render the richness and variety of Shakespeare's output, his works are usually divided into several groups: