William Shakespeare Born – HISTORY

William Shakespeare Born: According to tradition, the great English playwright and poet William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 23, 1564. It is impossible to be certain of the exact day of his birth, but church records show that he was baptized on April 26, and three days was a usual length of time to wait before baptizing a newborn baby. The date of Shakespeare’s death is, however, conclusively known: it was April 23, 1616. He was 52 years old and had retired to Stratford three years earlier.

Although few plays have been performed or analyzed as extensively as the 38 plays attributed to William Shakespeare, few details remain about the playwright’s life. This dearth of biographical information is mainly due to his position in life; he was not a nobleman, but the son of John Shakespeare, leatherworker and city bailiff. Events from William Shakespeare’s early life can only be gleaned from official records, such as baptismal and marriage records.

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He likely attended Stratford High School, where he is said to have studied Latin and read classical literature. He did not go to college but married Anne Hathaway at 18, who was eight years his senior and pregnant at the time of marriage. Their first daughter, Susanna, was born six months later, and in 1585 William and Anne had twins, Hamnet and Judith. Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son, died 11 years later, and Anne Shakespeare survived her husband, dying in 1623. Nothing is known of the period between the birth of the twins and Shakespeare’s emergence as a playwright in London in the early 1590s, but unfounded stories made him steal deer, join a group of itinerant gamers, become a schoolteacher or serve as a soldier in the Netherlands.

The first reference to Shakespeare as a London playwright came in 1592, when a fellow playwright Robert Greene wrote derogatoryly about him on his deathbed. It is believed that Shakespeare wrote the three parts of Henry VI at this stage. In 1593, Venus and Adonis was Shakespeare’s first published poem, and he dedicated it to the young Henry Wriothesley, the 3rd Earl of Southampton. In 1594, having probably composed, among other pieces, Richard III, The comedy of errors, and The Tamed Shrew, he became an actor and playwright for the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, which became the King’s Men after the ascension of James I in 1603. The company became the finest in England, in large part thanks to Shakespeare, who was its principal playwright. He also had the best actor of the day, Richard Burbage, and the best theater, the Globe, which was located on the south bank of the Thames. Shakespeare stayed with the king’s men until his retirement and often acted in small pieces.

READ MORE: Why William Shakespeare’s life is considered a mystery

In 1596 the company performed classic Shakespeare plays Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, and A midsummer night’s dream. In that year, John Shakespeare received a coat of arms, a testament to his son’s growing wealth and fame. In 1597 William Shakespeare bought a large house in Stratford. In 1599, after having produced his great historical series, the first and second part of Henry IV and Henry V, he became a partner in the ownership of the Globe Theater.

The beginning of the 17th century saw the first of his great tragedies, Hamlet. The next piece, The merry wives of Windsor, was written at the request of Queen Elizabeth I, who wanted to see another play that included the popular character Falstaff. Over the next decade, Shakespeare produced masterpieces such as Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, and Storm. In 1609, his sonnets, probably written in the 1590s, were published. The 154 sonnets are marked by the recurring themes of the mutability of beauty and the transcendent power of love and art.

Shakespeare died in Stratford-on-Avon on April 23, 1616. Today, over 400 years later, his plays are performed and read more often and in more countries than ever before. In a million words written over 20 years, he captured the full gamut of human emotions and conflicts with a precision that remains vivid today. As his great contemporary, the poet and playwright Ben Jonson, said: “He was not of an age, but forever”.

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