The personal history of William Shakespeare is somewhat a mystery as there are only two primary sources that provide historians with a basic outline of his life. One source is his work; the plays, poems and sonnets. The other is official documentation, such as church and court records. However, these sources only provide little information on specific events that occurred throughout his life and even less on William Shakespeare himself.
William Shakespeare was born to John Shakespeare, a glove maker and tradesman, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer. William Shakespeare was baptised on April 26, 1564, at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. At that time, infants were baptised three days after their birth, thus scholars have come to the conclusion that Shakespeare was born on April 23 (or a date near), the same day on which he died at age 52. William had two older sisters, Joan and Judith, and three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard and Edmund. William Shakespeare would most likely have attended the local grammar school, King’s New School, where the curriculum would have emphasised a classical education of Greek mythology, Roman comedy, ancient history, rhetoric, grammar, Latin, and possibly Greek. Throughout his childhood, Shakespeare’s father struggled with serious financial debt. Therefore, he would not have attended any form of tertiary education.
At the age of 18, William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, a lady six years his senior. The consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. The couples first child, Susanna, was born in 1583, and twins, Hamnet and Judith, arrived in 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596. In the seven years following the birth of the twins, William Shakespere left few historical footprints until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592. The historical record concerning William Shakespeare during this period (1585-1592) is incomplete, contradictory, and unreliable; scholars refer to this period as his “lost years.” William Shakespeare reappears in 1592 as an “upstart crow” in Groats-Worth of Wit; a pamphlet by playwright Robert Greene.
It is not known exactly when Shakespeare began writing, but records of performances show that several of his plays were on the London stage by 1592. Between 1590 and 1592, Shakespeare’s Henry VI series, Richard III, and The Comedy of Errors were performed. When the theatres were closed in 1593 because of the plague, the playwright wrote two narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece and also probably began wiring some of his sonnets. By 1594, he had also written, The Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Love’s Labor’s Lost. Shakespeare also wrote several comedies during his early period: the witty romance A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the romantic Merchant of Venice, the wit and wordplay of Much Ado About Nothing, the charming As You Like It and Twelfth Night. Other plays, possibly written before 1600, include Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors and The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Having established himself as an actor and playwright, from 1594, Shakespeare became a shareholder in the Lord Chamberlains Men; a company owned by a group of players (including Shakespeare) that soon became the leading playing company in London. His plays were performed by only the Lord Chamberlain’s Men from then on. He remained a member of this company for the rest of his career, often playing before the court of Queen Elizabeth I. William Shakespeare went through one of his most prolific periods around 1595, writing Richard II, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Merchant of Venice.
Records of Shakespeare’s property purchases and investments indicate that the company made him a wealthy man. In 1597, he bought the second-largest house in Stratford, New Place. Two years later in 1599, William Shakespeare and his business partners built their own theatre on the south bank of the Thames River, which they called the Globe. By 1597,15 of the 37 plays written by William Shakespeare were published. 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. During King James’s reign, Shakespeare wrote many of his most accomplished plays about courtly power, including King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra.
In 1605, William Shakespeare purchased leases of real estate near Stratford for 440 pounds, which doubled in value and earned him 60 pounds a year. This made him an entrepreneur as well as an artist, and scholars believe these investments gave him the time to write his plays uninterrupted.
In 1609/1611, Shakespeare’s sonnets were published. Although unfortunately he did not live to see the First Folio of his plays published in 1623.
In 1616, with his health declining (depending on which source you are ready from, other suggest that he documented in his will that he was in ‘perfectly good health) William Shakespeare revised his will. Since his only son Hamnet had died in 1596, he left the bulk of his estate to his two daughters, with monetary gifts set aside for his sister, theatre partners, friends, and the poor of Stratford. A fascinating detail of his will is that he bequeathed the family’s “second best bed” to his wife Anne. Some scholars see the bequest as an insult to Anne, whereas others believe that the second-best bed would have been the matrimonial bed and therefore rich in significance. He died one month later, on April 23, 1616.
To the world, he left a lasting legacy in the form of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, and two narrative poems. William Shakespeare is today widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. He is also often called England’s national poet. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.
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