SHAKESPEAREAN BIOGRAPHY: Students' Approaches

William Shakespeare is the English playwright and poet who is recognized in much of the world as the greatest of all dramatists and the most widely quoted author in history, details about whose life are sketchy, mere surmise based upon court or other clerical records. For someone who lived almost 400 years ago, a surprising amount is known about Shakespeare’s life. Indeed we know more about his life than about almost any other writer of his age.

There are still significant gaps, and therefore much supposition surrounds the facts we have. His parents, John and Mary (Arden), were married about 1557; she was of the landed gentry, he a yeoman-a Glover and commodities merchant. By 1568, John had risen through the ranks of town government and held the position of high bailiff, similar to mayor. Although the exact date of Shakespeare’s birth is unknown, his baptism on April 26, 1564, was recorded in the parish register of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, a prosperous town in the English Midlands. Based on this record and on the fact that children in Shakespeare’s time were usually baptized two or three days after birth, April 23 has traditionally been accepted as his date of birth.  The Shakespeare also died on April 23, 52 years later, may have resulted in the adaptation of this birth date.

William no doubt attended the Stratford grammar school, the King’s New School in Stratford where his parents lived, and would have studied primarily Latin rhetoric, logic, and literature. Shakespeare’s writings show that he was well acquainted with the Latin poet Ovid as well as other Latin works, including comedies by Terence and Plautus, two much-admired Roman playwrights. William most probably serve as a schoolmaster for the Hoghtons, a Catholic family in Lancashire between his baptism and his marriage.  At age 18(On November 27, 1582), William married Anne Hathaway, a Warwickshire farmer’s daughter eight years his senior. Their first daughter (Susanna) was born six months later (1583), and twins Judith and Hamnet were born in 1585.

Shakespeare’s life can be divided into three periods: the first 20 years in Stratford, which include his schooling, early marriage and fatherhood; the next 25 years as an actor and playwright in London; and the last five in retirement back in Stratford where he enjoyed moderate wealth gained from his theatrical successes. The years linking the first two periods are marked by a lack of information about Shakespeare, and are often referred to as the “dark years”; the transition from active work into retirement was gradual and cannot be precisely dated.

John Shakespeare had suffered financial reverses from William’s teen years until well into the height of the playwright’s popularity and success. In 1956, John Shakespeare was granted a coat of arms, almost certainly purchased by William, who the next year bought a sizable house in Stratford. By the time of his death, William had substantial properties, both professional and personal, which he bestowed on his theatrical associates and his family.

Shakespeare  probably left school at 15, which was the norm, and took some sort of job, especially since this was the period of his father’s financial difficulty. Numerous references in his play suggest that William may have in fact worked for his father, thereby gaining specialized knowledge or teaching.

At some point during the “dark years,” Shakespeare  began his career with a London theatrical company-perhaps in 1589-for he was already an actor and playwright of some note in 1592. Shakespeare apparently wrote and acted for Pembroke’s Men, as well as numerous others, in particular Strange’s Men, which later became the Chamberlain’s Men, with whom he remained for the rest of his career.

William Shakespeare

When, in 1592, the plague closed the theaters for about two years, Shakespeare turned to writing book-length narrative poetry. Most notable were “Venus and Adonis” and “The Rape of Lucrece,” both of which were dedicated to the earl of Southampton, whom scholars accept as Shakespeare’s friend and benefactor despite a lack of documentation. During this same period, Shakespeare was writing his sonnets, which are more likely signs of the time’s fashion rather than actual love poems detailing any particular relationship. He returned to play writing when theaters reopened in 1594, and published no more poetry. His sonnets were published without his concert in 1609, shortly before his retirement.

Amid all of this success, Shakespeare suffered the loss of his only son, Hamnet, who died in 1596 at the age of 11. But Shakespeare’s career continued unabated, and in London in 1599, he became one of the partners in the new Globe Theater built by the Chamberlain’s Men. When Queen Elizabeth died in 1603 and was succeeded by her cousin King James of Scotland, the Chamberlain’s Men was renamed the King’s Men, and Shakespeare’s productivity and popularity continued uninterrupted. He invested in London real estate and, one year away from retirement, purchased a second theater, the Blackfriars Gatehouse, in partnership with his fellow actors. His final play was Henry VIII, two years before his death in 1616.

Incredibly, most of Shakespeare’s plays had never been published in anything except pamphlet form, and were simply extant as acting scripts stored at the Globe. Only the efforts of two of Shakespeare’s company, John Heminges and Henry Condell, preserved his 36 plays (minus pericles, the thirty-seventh) in the First Folio. Hemings and Condell published the plays, they said, “Only to keep the memory of so worthy a friend and fellow alive as was our Shakespeare”. Theater scripts were not regarded as literary works of art, but only the basis for the performance. Plays were a popular form of entertainment for all layers of society in Shakespeare’s time, which perhaps explains why Hamlet feels compelled to instruct the travelling Players on the fine points of acting, urging them not “to split the ears of the groundlings,” nor “speak no more than is set down for them.”

Present copies of Shakespeare’s plays have, in some cases, been reconstructed in part from scripts written down by various members of an acting company who performed particular roles.

Shakespeare’s plays like those of many of the actors who also were playwrights, belonged to the acting company. The performance, rather than the scripts, was what concerned the author, for that was how his play would become popular-and how the company, in which many actors were shareholders, would make money.

William Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616, and was buried two days later in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church where he had been baptized exactly 52 years earlier.

Key Points:

• Students' approaches to Shakespearean biography vary widely.
• Some students focus on the historical record, while others are more interested in the literary and cultural significance of Shakespeare's life.
• Some students use biographies to learn more about Shakespeare's plays, while others use them to understand the man himself.
• There is no one right way to approach Shakespearean biography, and the best approach for a student will vary depending on their interests and goals.
• Some students may be interested in learning about Shakespeare's family background, education, and early career.
• Others may be more interested in his personal relationships, his religious beliefs, or his political views.
• Still others may be interested in the creative process behind his plays, or the impact of his work on later generations of writers.

Ardhendu De

References

William Shakespeare : the poems : Prince, F. T. (Frank Templeton), 1912- : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. (n.d.). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/williamshakespea0000prin

Shakespearean Criticism, Volume 110 : Criticism of William Shakespeare’s Plays and Poetry, from the First Published Appraisals of Current Evaluations : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. (n.d.). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/shakespeareancri0000unse_f6s8

The complete works of William Shakespeare, with a full and comprehensive life; a history of the early drama; an introduction to each play; the readings of former editions; glossarial and other notes, etc., etc., from the work of Collier, Knight, Dyce, Douce, Halliwell, Hunter, Richardson, Verplanck, and Hudson. Edited by George Long Duyckinck : Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. (n.d.). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/completeworksofw00shakuoft