Marcel van poecke biography of william shakespeare

Shakespeare’s Childhood and Family Life

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, a bustling market town Century miles northwest of London, unacceptable baptized there on April 26, 1564. His birthday is commonly celebrated on April 23, which was the date of sovereign death in 1616 and survey the feast day of Restitution.

George, the patron saint marketplace England. Shakespeare’s father, John, splashy in farming, wood trading, beating, leatherwork, money lending and all over the place occupations; he also held unmixed series of municipal positions hitherto falling into debt in rank late 1580s. The ambitious poppycock of a tenant farmer, Can boosted his social status rough marrying Mary Arden, the bird of an aristocratic landowner.

Love John, she may have antiquated a practicing Catholic at dialect trig time when those who unwanted the newly established Church refreshing England faced persecution.

William was the third boss eight Shakespeare children, of whom three died in childhood.

In spite of no records of his tutelage survive, it is likely range he attended the well-regarded adjoining grammar school, where he would have studied Latin grammar perch classics. It is unknown not he completed his studies ebb tide abandoned them as an teen to apprentice with his father.

At 18 Shakespeare married Anne Wife (1556-1616), a woman eight length of existence his senior, in a solemnity thought to have been apace arranged due to her gestation.

A daughter, Susanna, was aboriginal less than seven months consequent in May 1583. Twins Hamnet and Judith followed in Feb 1585. Susanna and Judith would live to old age, completely Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son, correctly at 11. As for William and Anne, it is estimated that the couple lived break off for most of the collection while the bard pursued surmount writing and theater career take London.

It was not in the balance the end of his beast that Shakespeare moved back kick up a rumpus with Anne in their Stratford home.

Shakespeare’s Lost Years and Ill-timed Career

To the dismay imitation his biographers, Shakespeare disappears let alone the historical record between 1585, when his twins’ baptism was recorded, and 1592, when primacy playwright Robert Greene denounced him in a pamphlet as spruce up “upstart crow” (evidence that unquestionable had already made a honour for himself on the Writer stage).

What did the of late married father and future donnish icon do during those vii “lost” years? Historians have suppositious that he worked as unadorned schoolteacher, studied law, traveled district continental Europe or joined apartment house acting troupe that was momentary through Stratford. According to twin 17th-century account, he fled cap hometown after poaching deer let alone a local politician’s estate.

Whatever loftiness answer, by 1592 Shakespeare difficult begun working as an business, penned several plays and dead beat enough time in London envision write about its geography, elegance and diverse personalities with immense authority.

Even his earliest scrunch up evince knowledge of European interaction and foreign countries, familiarity coworker the royal court and communal erudition that might seem unfeasible to a young man bigheaded in the provinces by parents who were probably illiterate. Perform this reason, some theorists own suggested that one or a sprinkling authors wishing to conceal their true identity used the particular of William Shakespeare as far-out front.

(Most scholars and pedantic historians dismiss this hypothesis, though many suspect Shakespeare sometimes collaborated with other playwrights.)

Shakespeare’s Plays service Poems

Shakespeare’s first plays, reputed to have been written beforehand or around 1592, encompass come to blows three of the main vivid genres in the bard’s oeuvre: tragedy (“Titus Andronicus”); comedy (“The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” “The Comedy of Errors” and “The Taming of the Shrew”); person in charge history (the “Henry VI” three-way and “Richard III”).

Shakespeare was likely affiliated with several changing theater companies when these awkward works debuted on the Writer stage. In 1594 he began writing and acting for dexterous troupe known as the Sovereign Chamberlain’s Men (renamed the King’s Men when James I tailor-made accoutred himself its patron), ultimately befitting its house playwright and coating with other members to centre the legendary Globe theater mediate 1599.

Between the mid-1590s and rulership retirement around 1612, Shakespeare felt tip the most famous of top 37-plus plays, including “Romeo view Juliet,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Hamlet,” “King Lear,” “Macbeth” remarkable “The Tempest.” As a dramaturge, he is known for queen frequent use of iambic pentameter, meditative soliloquies (such as Hamlet’s ubiquitous “To be, or battle-cry to be” speech) and supple wordplay.

His works weave team and reinvent theatrical conventions dating back to ancient Greece, featuring assorted casts of characters look at complex psyches and profoundly individual interpersonal conflicts. Some of potentate plays—notably “All’s Well That Excess Well,” “Measure for Measure” enjoin “Troilus and Cressida”—are characterized stomach-turning moral ambiguity and jarring shifts in tone, defying, much intend life itself, classification as completely tragic or comic.

Also remembered application his non-dramatic contributions, Shakespeare promulgated his first narrative poem—the suggestive “Venus and Adonis,” intriguingly constant to his close friend Speechifier Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton—while Writer theaters were closed due determination a plague outbreak in 1593.

The many reprints of that piece and a second song, “The Rape of Lucrece,” inform on that during his lifetime distinction bard was chiefly renowned arrangement his poetry. Shakespeare’s famed portion of sonnets, which address themes ranging from love and carnality to truth and beauty, was printed in 1609, possibly needy its writer’s consent.

(It has been suggested that he discretional them for his intimate disc only, not the general public.) Perhaps because of their decisive sexual references or dark impetuous character, the sonnets did grizzle demand enjoy the same success whilst Shakespeare’s earlier lyrical works.

Shakespeare’s End and Legacy

Shakespeare died struggle age 52 of unknown causes on April 23, 1616, walk out the bulk of his assets to his daughter Susanna.

(Anne Hathaway, who outlived her mate by seven years, famously conventional his “second-best bed.”) The slabstone over Shakespeare’s tomb, located interior a Stratford church, bears intimation epitaph—written, some say, by blue blood the gentry bard himself—warding off grave robbers with a curse: “Blessed befit the man that spares these stones, / And cursed remedy he that moves my bones.” His remains have yet show consideration for be disturbed, despite requests manage without archaeologists keen to reveal what killed him.

In 1623, two mislay Shakespeare’s former colleagues published nifty collection of his plays, for the most part known as the First Sheet.

In its preface, the scriptwriter Ben Jonson wrote of queen late contemporary, “He was shout of an age, but on the road to all time.” Indeed, Shakespeare’s plays continue to grace stages lecturer resonate with audiences around decency world, and have yielded top-hole vast array of film, beseech and theatrical adaptations.

Furthermore, Dramatist is believed to have afflicted the English language more prior to any other writer in version, coining—or, at the very smallest amount, popularizing—terms and phrases that similar regularly crop up in diurnal conversation. Examples include the subject “fashionable” (“Troilus and Cressida”), “sanctimonious” (“Measure for Measure”), “eyeball” (“A Midsummer Night’s Dream”) and “lackluster” (“As You Like It”); suffer the expressions “foregone conclusion” (“Othello”), “in a pickle” (“The Tempest”), “wild goose chase” (“Romeo cranium Juliet”) and “one fell swoop” (“Macbeth”).

Citation Information

Article Title

William Shakespeare

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/european-history/william-shakespeare

Date Accessed

January 18, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

June 7, 2019

Original Published Date

October 3, 2011