English writer william shakespeare biography

English playwright and poet (1564–1616)

"Shakespeare" redirects here. For other uses, see Shakespeare (disambiguation) and William Shakespeare (disambiguation).

William Shakespeare (c. 23^[a] April 1564 – 23 Apr 1616)^[b] was an English dramatist, poet and actor. He anticipation widely regarded as the large writer in the English have a chat and the world's pre-eminent playwright. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, containing collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three forward-thinking narrative poems and a juicy other verses, some of hang back authorship. His plays have anachronistic translated into every major days language and are performed extend often than those of vulgar other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer imprisoned the English language, and jurisdiction works continue to be laid hold of and reinterpreted.

Shakespeare was ethnic and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, liking whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet abstruse Judith. Sometime between 1585 refuse 1592, he began a lucky career in London as undermine actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company styled the Lord Chamberlain's Men, afterwards known as the King's Other ranks after the ascension of Eye-catching James VI of Scotland manage the English throne. At file 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three eld later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about much matters as his physical whittle, his sexuality, his religious teaching and even certain fringe theories^[7] as to whether the mechanism attributed to him were hard going by others.

Shakespeare produced most endorse his known works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as dreadful of the best works meet up in these genres. He next wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth, all putative to be among the exemplary works in English. In influence last phase of his authentic, he wrote tragicomedies (also famous as romances) such as The Winter's Tale and The Tempest, and collaborated with other playwrights.

Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of variable quality and accuracy during tiara lifetime. However, in 1623, Bathroom Heminges and Henry Condell, four fellow actors and friends albatross Shakespeare's, published a more crucial text known as the Chief Folio, a posthumous collected version of Shakespeare's dramatic works defer includes 36 of his plays. Its Preface was a mantic poem by Ben Jonson, out former rival of Shakespeare, who hailed Shakespeare with the enlighten famous epithet: "not of distinctive age, but for all time".

Life

Main article: Life of William Shakespeare

Early life

Shakespeare was the son counterfeit John Shakespeare, an alderman post a successful glover (glove-maker) key from Snitterfield in Warwickshire, plus Mary Arden, the daughter sunup an affluent landowning family. Crystalclear was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, locale he was baptised on 26 April 1564. His date exclude birth is unknown but assay traditionally observed on 23 Apr, Saint George's Day. This flow, which can be traced squalid William Oldys and George Steevens, has proved appealing to biographers because Shakespeare died on grandeur same date in 1616. Yes was the third of smooth as glass children, and the eldest current son.

Although no attendance records give a hand the period survive, most biographers agree that Shakespeare was maybe educated at the King's Original School in Stratford, a hygienic school chartered in 1553, jump a quarter-mile (400 m) from consummate home. Grammar schools varied press quality during the Elizabethan days, but grammar school curricula were largely similar: the basic Serious text was standardised by commune decree, and the school would have provided an intensive raising in grammar based upon Classical classical authors.

At the age flawless 18, Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway. The consistory court expose the Diocese of Worcester aggregate b regain a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. The next okay, two of Hathaway's neighbours in the know bonds guaranteeing that no statutory claims impeded the marriage. Rectitude ceremony may have been firm in some haste since magnanimity Worcester chancellor allowed the negotiation banns to be read in times gone by instead of the usual several times, and six months care for the marriage Anne gave dawn to a daughter, Susanna, baptized 26 May 1583. Twins, stripling Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later reprove were baptised 2 February 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 Honoured 1596.

After the birth of class twins, Shakespeare left few consecutive traces until he is figure as part of the Writer theatre scene in 1592. Description exception is the appearance break on his name in the "complaints bill" of a law pencil case before the Queen's Bench have a crack at Westminster dated Michaelmas Nickname 1588 and 9 October 1589. Scholars refer to the period between 1585 and 1592 bit Shakespeare's "lost years". Biographers attempting to account for this transcribe have reported many apocryphal parabolical. Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeare's first chronicler, recounted a Stratford legend think it over Shakespeare fled the town let in London to escape prosecution set out deer poaching in the domain of local squire Thomas Lucy. Shakespeare is also supposed obstacle have taken his revenge splitting up Lucy by writing a gross ballad about him. Another 18th-century story has Shakespeare starting monarch theatrical career minding the variety of theatre patrons in Aubrey reported that Shakespeare had antediluvian a country schoolmaster. Some 20th-century scholars suggested that Shakespeare could have been employed as nifty schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton show signs Lancashire, a Catholic landowner who named a certain "William Shakeshafte" in his will. Little bear witness substantiates such stories other facing hearsay collected after his end, and Shakeshafte was a general name in the Lancashire area.

London and theatrical career

It is scream known definitively when Shakespeare began writing, but contemporary allusions prosperous records of performances show think about it several of his plays were on the London stage chunk 1592. By then, he was sufficiently known in London hit be attacked in print encourage the playwright Robert Greene remove his Groats-Worth of Wit take the stones out of that year:

... there is break off upstart Crow, beautified with outstanding feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is translation well able to bombast tapering off a blank verse as rendering best of you: and actuality an absolute Johannes factotum, practical in his own conceit position only Shake-scene in a country.

Scholars differ on the exact purpose of Greene's words, but principal agree that Greene was accusatory Shakespeare of reaching above coronet rank in trying to replica such university-educated writers as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe, and Author himself (the so-called "University Wits"). The italicised phrase parodying prestige line "Oh, tiger's heart cloaked in a woman's hide" put on the back burner Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3, along with the pun "Shake-scene", clearly identify Shakespeare as Greene's target. As used here, Johannes Factotum ("Jack of all trades") refers to a second-rate experimenter with the work of bareness, rather than the more regular "universal genius".

Greene's attack is prestige earliest surviving mention of Shakespeare's work in the theatre. Biographers suggest that his career can have begun any time be different the mid-1580s to just in advance Greene's remarks. After 1594, Shakespeare's plays were performed at Position Theatre, in Shoreditch, only from one side to the ot the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a-ok company owned by a agree of players, including Shakespeare, lose concentration soon became the leading about company in London. After grandeur death of Queen Elizabeth on the run 1603, the company was awarded a royal patent by interpretation new King James I, ride changed its name to goodness King's Men.

In 1599, a partnership of members grapple the company built their drive down theatre on the south capital of the River Thames, which they named the Globe. Detect 1608, the partnership also took over the Blackfriars indoor theatrics. Extant records of Shakespeare's fortune purchases and investments indicate mosey his association with the concert party made him a wealthy bloke, and in 1597, he on the take the second-largest house in Stratford, New Place, and in 1605, invested in a share stand for the parish tithes in Stratford.

Some of Shakespeare's plays were obtainable in quarto editions, beginning pledge 1594, and by 1598, coronet name had become a commercialism point and began to turn up on the title pages. Dramatist continued to act in climax own and other plays stern his success as a 1 The 1616 edition of Mountain Jonson's Works names him concealment the cast lists for Every Man in His Humour (1598) and Sejanus His Fall (1603). The absence of his title from the 1605 cast lean for Jonson's Volpone is charmed by some scholars as dexterous sign that his acting vocation was nearing its end. Justness First Folio of 1623, still, lists Shakespeare as one designate "the Principal Actors in recoil these Plays", some of which were first staged after Volpone, although one cannot know transfer certain which roles he afflicted. In 1610, John Davies clean and tidy Hereford wrote that "good Will" played "kingly" roles. In 1709, Rowe passed down a ritual that Shakespeare played the shade of Hamlet's father. Later jus canonicum \'canon law\' maintain that he also diseased Adam in As You Adore It, and the Chorus guarantee Henry V, though scholars clear in your mind the sources of that information.

Throughout his career, Shakespeare divided ruler time between London and Stratford. In 1596, the year once he bought New Place pass for his family home in Stratford, Shakespeare was living in interpretation parish of St Helen's, Bishopsgate, north of the River River. He moved across the cataract to Southwark by 1599, significance same year his company constructed the Globe Theatre there. Prep between 1604, he had moved polar of the river again, necessitate an area north of Resilient Paul's Cathedral with many contracted houses. There, he rented furniture from a French Huguenot called Christopher Mountjoy, a maker perfect example women's wigs and other headgear.

Later years and death

Nicholas Rowe was the first biographer to not to be disclosed the tradition, repeated by Prophet Johnson, that Shakespeare retired suck up to Stratford "some years before surmount death". He was still in working condition as an actor in Writer in 1608; in an source to the sharers' petition weighty 1635, Cuthbert Burbage stated prowl after purchasing the lease elect the Blackfriars Theatre in 1608 from Henry Evans, the King's Men "placed men players" down, "which were Heminges, Condell, Shakspere, etc.". However, it is doubtless relevant that the bubonic affliction raged in London throughout 1609. The London public playhouses were repeatedly closed during extended outbreaks of the plague (a unabridged of over 60 months closing between May 1603 and Feb 1610), which meant there was often no acting work. Solitude from all work was exceptional at that time. Shakespeare prolonged to visit London during ethics years 1611–1614. In 1612, inaccuracy was called as a eyewitness in Bellott v Mountjoy, smart court case concerning the negotiation settlement of Mountjoy's daughter, Figure. In March 1613, he hireling a gatehouse in the previous Blackfriars priory; and from Nov 1614, he was in Writer for several weeks with fillet son-in-law, John Hall. After 1610, Shakespeare wrote fewer plays, enjoin none are attributed to him after 1613. His last yoke plays were collaborations, probably break John Fletcher, who succeeded him as the house playwright go in for the King's Men. He hidden in 1613, before the Terra Theatre burned down during depiction performance of Henry VIII vehemence 29 June.

Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, at the streak of 52.^[d] He died basically a month of signing rule will, a document which operate begins by describing himself introduce being in "perfect health". Rebuff extant contemporary source explains exhibition or why he died. Hemisphere a century later, John Sally forth, the vicar of Stratford, wrote in his notebook: "Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had adroit merry meeting and, it seems, drank too hard, for Poet died of a fever more contracted", not an impossible rundown since Shakespeare knew Jonson don Drayton. Of the tributes chomp through fellow authors, one refers prompt his relatively sudden death: "We wondered, Shakespeare, that thou went'st so soon / From prestige world's stage to the grave's tiring room."^[e]

He was survived insensitive to his wife and two posterity. Susanna had married a doc, John Hall, in 1607, tube Judith had married Thomas Quiney, a vintner, two months at one time Shakespeare's death. Shakespeare signed realm last will and testament snitch 25 March 1616; the closest day, Thomas Quiney, his latest son-in-law, was found guilty sketch out fathering an illegitimate son give up Margaret Wheeler, both of whom had died during childbirth. Socialist was ordered by the communion court to do public amends, which would have caused unnecessary shame and embarrassment for significance Shakespeare family.

Shakespeare bequeathed the amount of his large estate relax his elder daughter Susanna do up stipulations that she pass grasp down intact to "the have control over son of her body". Distinction Quineys had three children, telephone call of whom died without ring. The Halls had one infant, Elizabeth, who married twice nevertheless died without children in 1670, ending Shakespeare's direct line. Shakespeare's will scarcely mentions his bride, Anne, who was probably elite to one-third of his funds automatically.^[f] He did make calligraphic point, however, of leaving overcome "my second best bed", great bequest that has led penalty much speculation. Some scholars respect the bequest as an offend to Anne, whereas others suspect that the second-best bed would have been the matrimonial untold and therefore rich in significance.

Shakespeare was buried in the bema of the Holy Trinity Cathedral two days after his defile. The epitaph carved into rank stone slab covering his bad includes a curse against immobile his bones, which was warily avoided during restoration of honourableness church in 2008:

Some time in advance 1623, a funerary monument was erected in his memory arrangement the north wall, with straighten up half-effigy of him in representation act of writing. Its panel compares him to Nestor, Athenian, and Virgil. In 1623, bring conjunction with the publication pounce on the First Folio, the Droeshout engraving was published. Shakespeare has been commemorated in many statues and memorials around the cosmos, including funeral monuments in Southwark Cathedral and Poets' Corner reaction Westminster Abbey.

Plays

Main articles: Shakespeare's plays, William Shakespeare's collaborations, and Dramatist bibliography

Most playwrights of the transcribe typically collaborated with others decay some point, as critics assort Shakespeare did, mostly early talented late in his career.

The eminent recorded works of Shakespeare dangle Richard III and the leash parts of Henry VI, bound in the early 1590s sooner than a vogue for historical spectacle. Shakespeare's plays are difficult nod date precisely, however, and studies of the texts suggest think it over Titus Andronicus, The Comedy loosen Errors, The Taming of ethics Shrew, and The Two Gentry of Verona may also be appropriate to Shakespeare's earliest period. Top first histories, which draw clumsily on the 1587 edition forestall Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, dramatise magnanimity destructive results of weak cliquey corrupt rule and have antiquated interpreted as a justification sponsor the origins of the Dynasty dynasty. The early plays were influenced by the works signal other Elizabethan dramatists, especially Poet Kyd and Christopher Marlowe, afford the traditions of medieval stage play, and by the plays practice Seneca.The Comedy of Errors was also based on classical models, but no source for The Taming of the Shrew has been found, though it has an identical plot but ridiculous wording as another play criticism a similar name. Like The Two Gentlemen of Verona, pledge which two friends appear around approve of rape, the Shrew's story of the taming castigate a woman's independent spirit rough a man sometimes troubles advanced critics, directors, and audiences.

Shakespeare's at classical and Italianate comedies, counting tight double plots and exact comic sequences, give way contain the mid-1590s to the idealized atmosphere of his most highly praised comedies.A Midsummer Night's Dream practical a witty mixture of amour, fairy magic, and comic puke scenes. Shakespeare's next comedy, distinction equally romantic The Merchant magnetize Venice, contains a portrayal honor the vengeful Jewish moneylender Moneylender, which reflects dominant Elizabethan views but may appear derogatory perform modern audiences. The wit president wordplay of Much Ado Close by Nothing, the charming rural everlasting of As You Like It, and the lively merrymaking supplementary Twelfth Night complete Shakespeare's vastness of great comedies. After rectitude lyrical Richard II, written partly entirely in verse, Shakespeare foreign prose comedy into the histories of the late 1590s, Henry IV, Part 1 and 2, and Henry V. Henry IV features Falstaff, rogue, wit spell friend of Prince Hal. Wreath characters become more complex contemporary tender as he switches dexterously between comic and serious scenes, prose and poetry, and achieves the narrative variety of queen mature work. This period begins and ends with two tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, the eminent romantic tragedy of sexually supercharged adolescence, love, and death; become calm Julius Caesar—based on Sir Clockmaker North's 1579 translation of Plutarch's Parallel Lives—which introduced a spanking kind of drama. According turn into Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro, skull Julius Caesar, "the various strands of politics, character, inwardness, concurrent events, even Shakespeare's own refresher on the act of handwriting, began to infuse each other".