Shakespeare’s Biography.
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Shakespeare (1564-1616) Who was he?
Though William Shakespeare is recognized as one of literature’s greatest influences, very little is actually known about him. What we do know about his life comes from register records, court records, wills, marriage certificates and tombstone. Anecdotes and criticisms by his rivals also speak of the famous playwright, poet and an actor.
Date of birth? (1564)
William was born in 1564. We know this from the earliest record we have of his life: his baptism which happened on Wednesday, April the 26th, 1564. We don’t actually know his birthday but from this record we assume he was born in 1564. Similarly by knowing the famous Bard’s baptism date, we can guess that he was born three days earlier on St George’s Day, though we have no conclusive proof of this.
Brothers and sisters.
William was the third child of John and Mary Shakespeare. The first two daughters and William was himself followed by Gilbert who died in 1612 and Richard who died in 1613. Edmund (1580-1607), sixth in the line was baptized on May the third, 1580 and William’s oldest living sister was Joan who outlived her famous playwright brother. Of William’s seven siblings, only Judith and four of his brothers survived to adulthood.
William’s father.
From baptism records, we know William’s father was John Shakespeare, said to be a town official of Stratford and a local business man who dabbled in tanning leather work and whittawering which is working with white leather to make items like purses and gloves. John also dealt in grain and sometimes was described as a glover by trade.
William’s mother: Mary Arden.
William’s mother was Mary Arden who married John Shakespeare in 1557. The youngest daughter in her family, she inherited much of her father’s landowning and farming estate when he died.
The Bard’s education.
Very little is known about literature’s most famous playwright. We know that the King’s New Grammar School taught boys basic reading and writing. We assume William attended this school since it existed to educate the sons of Stratford but we have no definite proof. Likewise a lack of evidence suggests that William, whose works are studied universally at Universities, never attended one himself.
William’s marries an older woman. (1582)
A bond certificate dated November the 28th, 1582, reveals that an eighteen years old William married the twenty-six and pregnant Anne Hathway. Barely seven months later, they had his first daughter, Susanna. Anne never left Stratford, living there her entire life.
The Bard’s children. (1583 & 1592)
Baptism records show that William’s first child, Susanna was baptised in Stratford sometime in May, 1583. Baptism records again reveal that twins Hamnet and Judith were named after William’s close friends, Judith and Hamnet Sadler. William’s family was unusually small in a time when families has many children to ensure parents were cared for in later years despite the very high mortality rates of children and also their life expectancy in the 1500´s
The Bard as a poet.
Evidence that the great Bard was also a poet comes from his entering his first poem Venus and Adonis in the stationers´ Register on the 18th of April, 1593. The playwright registered his second poem The Rape of Lucrece by name on the 9th of May, 1594.
The Bard’s last words…
Written upon William’s Shakespeare’s tombstone is an appeal that he be left to rest in peace with a curse on those who would move his bones…
Good friend, for Jesus´ sake forbeare
To digg the dust enclosed here!
Blest be ye man that spares thes stones
And curst be he that moues my bones.
Translated this reads as:
Good friend, for Jesus´sake, forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here;
Blest be the man that spares these stones
And curst he that moves my bones.
Did Shakespeare write the 37 plays and 154 sonnets credited to him?
The evidence above proves William existed but not that he was a playwright nor an actor nor a poet. In fact recently some academics who call themselves the Oxfords argue that Stratford’s celebrated playwright did not write any of the plays attributed to him. They suggest that he was merely a businessman and propose several contenders for authorship, namely an Edward de Vere.
Jasmin Swainton 6ºB
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