Biography
William Shakespeare’s life is generally broken into five parts: early life, the lost years, first decade in London, last decade in London, and his retirement. Born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564 he was baptized on the 26th of April leading to the very common decision (in truth, a guess) to place his birth on the 23rd of April, St. George’s day as well as the day of his death in 1616. St. George’s day seems a fitting myth, as England’s greatest writer then shares the day with England’s patron saint. Similarly, there is something poetic about a man who dies on the same day he was born. As I hope is obvious from this quick explanation of Shakespeare’s birthday, the biography of Shakespeare, while based in considerable and detailed research by countless historians, is often left in the realm of assumption, best guess, and sometimes even poetry.
Much of what we know of Shakespeare’s life comes to us in the form of banal record keeping. For example, his youth is largely explained through the traces left by his father, John Shakespeare, who married Mary Arden around 1557. They had eight children: Joan (1558-58), Margaret (1562-562), William (1564-1616), Gilbert (1566-1612) , Joan (1569-1646), Anne (1571-79), Richard (1574-1613), and Edmund (1580-1607). As you can see, Shakespeare was the eldest born son and first of John and Mary’s children to survive childhood. Further, it can be assumed that Shakespeare was educated in the King’s New School in Stratford. School records from the period don’t survive, but his father, John, was a Burgess starting in 1561 and was elected Bailiff (mayor) by 1567, roles that guaranteed his sons’s education in the King’s New School. At school, a young Shakespeare would have learned Latin through the great Roman authors, including Seneca, Plautus, and Terrence. In addition it seems clear Shakespeare gained a particular love of other classical texts such as Aesop’s Fables, Aphuleius’s Golden Ass, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Outside of school, Shakespeare would have likely helped in his father’s trade. John was a glover who also dealt in the wool and agricultural trade, and was a usurer (a lender of money) on top of his civic duties as Burgess and then Bailiff, which would have also afforded a young Shakespeare opportunities to be apprised of various happenings around Stratford as well as a close participant in ritual and entertainments that may have passed through the town. It can be assumed that Shakespeare was familiar with Medieval drama and that this general milieu provided him the opportunity of understanding a great deal about the human condition. John Shakespeare’s fortunes; however, began to decline around 1576 as he stopped attending council meetings. By 1586, he was finally replaced on the council and by 1592 he was listed amongst a group of people not attending the protestant church to avoid arrest for debt. Many scholars argue that this was cover for John Shakespeare’s recusancy (the refusal of Catholics in England to participate in the Church of England, as required by law).
Shakespeare married young (at the age of 18) in 1582 to Anne Hathaway (26), who was around three months pregnant with their first child, Susanna. This was quite common practice during the Elizabethan period as noted by Stephen Greenblatt and reflected in several of Shakespeare’s plays: “A ‘true contract’ of marriage could be legitimately made and then consummated simply by the mutual vows of the couple in the presence of witnesses” (48). In 1585 Susanna was followed by twins: Judith and Hamnet. It is here that we come to the 7 year gap in any recorded evidence of Shakespeare’s whereabouts, often called the lost years. Speculation has been rampant and generally follows three interconnected theories (again, for which there is no hard evidence): That Shakespeare became a school teacher, often specifically to prominent catholic families; that he joined any number of different traveling troupes of players and began his acting career; or that he was escaping punishment for the poaching of a deer on the Charlecote Estate. The last of these theories is the least likely in my estimation. Regardless, a reference to Shakespeare finally emerged in a 1592 attack by Robert Greene:
"[F]or there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Iohannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a country. " (qtd. in McDonald 15)
Despite the very clear reference to “Shake-scene” the attack also references a line of Shakespeare’s from Henry VI, part 3: “tiger’s heart wrapp’d in a woman’s hide” (qtd. In McDonald 15). This reference, along with evidence of some of Shakespeare’s early plays being performed in London, leads scholars to assume that Shakespeare was making his way in the theatre world of London in the late 1580s and early 1590s.
By 1593 the theaters in London were closed and Shakespeare looked elsewhere to practice his artistry (and make money) by publishing two narrative poems: Venus and Adonis and the Rape of Lucrece, both dedicated to Henry Wriothesley, the third earl of South Hampton, who apocryphally gave Shakespeare a thousand pounds for the poems. This sum is absurdly high (a few hundred thousand dollars in our day), and while it seems likely Shakespeare may have earned the patronage of South Hampton the amount of financial support was likely more modest. When the theater’s reopened in 1594, Shakespeare joined the acting company for which he would work the rest of his life: The Lord Chamberlain's Men (later the King’s Men when Shakespeare’s company came under the patronage of King James I, in 1603). The Lord Chamberlain’s Men performed at The Theatre and even began performing before Queen Elizabeth in 1594, going on to produce such plays as A Midsummer’s Nights Dream and Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare’s company became a success and Shakespeare himself began to develop the wealth that allowed him to purchase New Place in Stratford in 1597, the second largest house in the town, as well as renew his father’s previously failed effort to gain a coat of arms from the College of Heralds, making both John and William Shakespeare gentlemen. Importantly, Shakespeare’s growing wealth was not because of his success as a writer directly, but rather because of his status as a shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, receiving a share of the profits of the company after accounting for costs. In 1597, the lease on The Theatre came up and after a protracted legal battle, The Lord Chamberlain’s men tore down the Theatre (the lease was evidently only for the land) and built The Globe in a suburb of Southwark, which opened in 1599. At this point Shakespeare became one of ten housekeepers in the building and thus also collected on his company’s usage of the space.
Between 1600 and 1616 Shakespeare had two large shifts in the artistic direction of his work. Starting with Julius Caesar in 1599, Shakespeare entered his tragic phase leading to such works as Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear. Around 1608, he entered a romantic phase producing such works as Cymbeline and The Tempest. Importantly, we should not draw hard lines between the seeming emphasis of different portions of Shakespeare’s career, indeed, Coriolanus was likely written around 1608, and comic plays such as As You Like It and Measure for Measure were produced in the early 1600s. Instead, Shakespeare seems to add to his already impressive artistic arsenal, continually willing to modify older techniques and styles for the stage.
In 1603, Shakespeare and his company received the royal patronage of King James I, which undoubtedly influenced the themes, characters, and plots of his plays during this period (perhaps most notably in Macbeth, in which Shakespeare pointed at James I’s ancestor in Banquo and the themes of witchcraft, on which James I wrote a book). This is also the period in which Richard Burbage (Leading actor of the King’s Men) acquired the use of the Black Friar’s indoor theatre, of which Shakespeare was one of seven householders. Importantly, this theater became more profitable than The Globe as tickets were sold at a higher price and the venue attracted a higher class of patron. Throughout the period, the King’s Men regularly performed at court and now at two separate venues, which likely made up for the losses incurred as the plague shut down the theaters regularly between 1603 and 1610. Towards the end of his career, Shakespeare’s productivity began to slow from two new plays a year to ~1 new play a year. He once again started to collaborate more thoroughly with other playwrights, most notably John Fletcher, with whom he co-wrote his last works with The King’s Men (Henry VIII, The Two Noble Kinsmen, and the lost play, Cardenio). It is unclear exactly when Shakespeare’s involvement with the King’s Men officially ended (or if it did), but some believe he retired from the stage as early as 1611 (as a counterpoint, Shakespeare also bought a house in London, near the Black Friars in 1612).
Shakespeare died on April 23rd 1616, cause unknown. Regardless, an interesting story of Shakespeare’s death is provided by “John Ward, the vicar of Stratford in the mid-seventeenth century” who conjures a “story of a party in which Shakespeare, drinking with his literary friends Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton, contracted a fever that led to his death” (McDonald 22). Shakespeare was buried in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford with the following verse over his grave:
Good Frend for Jesus Sake Forbeare,
To Digg the Dust Encloased Heare:
Bleste be Ye man Yt Spare Thes Stones,
And Curst Be He Yt Moves my Bones.
Much of what we know of Shakespeare’s life comes to us in the form of banal record keeping. For example, his youth is largely explained through the traces left by his father, John Shakespeare, who married Mary Arden around 1557. They had eight children: Joan (1558-58), Margaret (1562-562), William (1564-1616), Gilbert (1566-1612) , Joan (1569-1646), Anne (1571-79), Richard (1574-1613), and Edmund (1580-1607). As you can see, Shakespeare was the eldest born son and first of John and Mary’s children to survive childhood. Further, it can be assumed that Shakespeare was educated in the King’s New School in Stratford. School records from the period don’t survive, but his father, John, was a Burgess starting in 1561 and was elected Bailiff (mayor) by 1567, roles that guaranteed his sons’s education in the King’s New School. At school, a young Shakespeare would have learned Latin through the great Roman authors, including Seneca, Plautus, and Terrence. In addition it seems clear Shakespeare gained a particular love of other classical texts such as Aesop’s Fables, Aphuleius’s Golden Ass, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Outside of school, Shakespeare would have likely helped in his father’s trade. John was a glover who also dealt in the wool and agricultural trade, and was a usurer (a lender of money) on top of his civic duties as Burgess and then Bailiff, which would have also afforded a young Shakespeare opportunities to be apprised of various happenings around Stratford as well as a close participant in ritual and entertainments that may have passed through the town. It can be assumed that Shakespeare was familiar with Medieval drama and that this general milieu provided him the opportunity of understanding a great deal about the human condition. John Shakespeare’s fortunes; however, began to decline around 1576 as he stopped attending council meetings. By 1586, he was finally replaced on the council and by 1592 he was listed amongst a group of people not attending the protestant church to avoid arrest for debt. Many scholars argue that this was cover for John Shakespeare’s recusancy (the refusal of Catholics in England to participate in the Church of England, as required by law).
Shakespeare married young (at the age of 18) in 1582 to Anne Hathaway (26), who was around three months pregnant with their first child, Susanna. This was quite common practice during the Elizabethan period as noted by Stephen Greenblatt and reflected in several of Shakespeare’s plays: “A ‘true contract’ of marriage could be legitimately made and then consummated simply by the mutual vows of the couple in the presence of witnesses” (48). In 1585 Susanna was followed by twins: Judith and Hamnet. It is here that we come to the 7 year gap in any recorded evidence of Shakespeare’s whereabouts, often called the lost years. Speculation has been rampant and generally follows three interconnected theories (again, for which there is no hard evidence): That Shakespeare became a school teacher, often specifically to prominent catholic families; that he joined any number of different traveling troupes of players and began his acting career; or that he was escaping punishment for the poaching of a deer on the Charlecote Estate. The last of these theories is the least likely in my estimation. Regardless, a reference to Shakespeare finally emerged in a 1592 attack by Robert Greene:
"[F]or there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Iohannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a country. " (qtd. in McDonald 15)
Despite the very clear reference to “Shake-scene” the attack also references a line of Shakespeare’s from Henry VI, part 3: “tiger’s heart wrapp’d in a woman’s hide” (qtd. In McDonald 15). This reference, along with evidence of some of Shakespeare’s early plays being performed in London, leads scholars to assume that Shakespeare was making his way in the theatre world of London in the late 1580s and early 1590s.
By 1593 the theaters in London were closed and Shakespeare looked elsewhere to practice his artistry (and make money) by publishing two narrative poems: Venus and Adonis and the Rape of Lucrece, both dedicated to Henry Wriothesley, the third earl of South Hampton, who apocryphally gave Shakespeare a thousand pounds for the poems. This sum is absurdly high (a few hundred thousand dollars in our day), and while it seems likely Shakespeare may have earned the patronage of South Hampton the amount of financial support was likely more modest. When the theater’s reopened in 1594, Shakespeare joined the acting company for which he would work the rest of his life: The Lord Chamberlain's Men (later the King’s Men when Shakespeare’s company came under the patronage of King James I, in 1603). The Lord Chamberlain’s Men performed at The Theatre and even began performing before Queen Elizabeth in 1594, going on to produce such plays as A Midsummer’s Nights Dream and Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare’s company became a success and Shakespeare himself began to develop the wealth that allowed him to purchase New Place in Stratford in 1597, the second largest house in the town, as well as renew his father’s previously failed effort to gain a coat of arms from the College of Heralds, making both John and William Shakespeare gentlemen. Importantly, Shakespeare’s growing wealth was not because of his success as a writer directly, but rather because of his status as a shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, receiving a share of the profits of the company after accounting for costs. In 1597, the lease on The Theatre came up and after a protracted legal battle, The Lord Chamberlain’s men tore down the Theatre (the lease was evidently only for the land) and built The Globe in a suburb of Southwark, which opened in 1599. At this point Shakespeare became one of ten housekeepers in the building and thus also collected on his company’s usage of the space.
Between 1600 and 1616 Shakespeare had two large shifts in the artistic direction of his work. Starting with Julius Caesar in 1599, Shakespeare entered his tragic phase leading to such works as Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear. Around 1608, he entered a romantic phase producing such works as Cymbeline and The Tempest. Importantly, we should not draw hard lines between the seeming emphasis of different portions of Shakespeare’s career, indeed, Coriolanus was likely written around 1608, and comic plays such as As You Like It and Measure for Measure were produced in the early 1600s. Instead, Shakespeare seems to add to his already impressive artistic arsenal, continually willing to modify older techniques and styles for the stage.
In 1603, Shakespeare and his company received the royal patronage of King James I, which undoubtedly influenced the themes, characters, and plots of his plays during this period (perhaps most notably in Macbeth, in which Shakespeare pointed at James I’s ancestor in Banquo and the themes of witchcraft, on which James I wrote a book). This is also the period in which Richard Burbage (Leading actor of the King’s Men) acquired the use of the Black Friar’s indoor theatre, of which Shakespeare was one of seven householders. Importantly, this theater became more profitable than The Globe as tickets were sold at a higher price and the venue attracted a higher class of patron. Throughout the period, the King’s Men regularly performed at court and now at two separate venues, which likely made up for the losses incurred as the plague shut down the theaters regularly between 1603 and 1610. Towards the end of his career, Shakespeare’s productivity began to slow from two new plays a year to ~1 new play a year. He once again started to collaborate more thoroughly with other playwrights, most notably John Fletcher, with whom he co-wrote his last works with The King’s Men (Henry VIII, The Two Noble Kinsmen, and the lost play, Cardenio). It is unclear exactly when Shakespeare’s involvement with the King’s Men officially ended (or if it did), but some believe he retired from the stage as early as 1611 (as a counterpoint, Shakespeare also bought a house in London, near the Black Friars in 1612).
Shakespeare died on April 23rd 1616, cause unknown. Regardless, an interesting story of Shakespeare’s death is provided by “John Ward, the vicar of Stratford in the mid-seventeenth century” who conjures a “story of a party in which Shakespeare, drinking with his literary friends Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton, contracted a fever that led to his death” (McDonald 22). Shakespeare was buried in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford with the following verse over his grave:
Good Frend for Jesus Sake Forbeare,
To Digg the Dust Encloased Heare:
Bleste be Ye man Yt Spare Thes Stones,
And Curst Be He Yt Moves my Bones.
Additional Resources
Sources and Additional Reading
The above has been paraphrased and summarized from the following sources:
McDonald, Russ. "Chapter 1: Shakespeare, "Shakespeare," and the Problem of Authorship." The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare: An Introduction with Documents, 2nd edition (Bedford, St. Martin's, 2001) 11-24.
Greenblatt, Stephen, "General Introduction." The Norton Shakespeare: Early Plays and Poems 3rd Edition (W.W. Nortan & Company, New York, 2016) 44-74.
McDonald, Russ. "Chapter 1: Shakespeare, "Shakespeare," and the Problem of Authorship." The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare: An Introduction with Documents, 2nd edition (Bedford, St. Martin's, 2001) 11-24.
Greenblatt, Stephen, "General Introduction." The Norton Shakespeare: Early Plays and Poems 3rd Edition (W.W. Nortan & Company, New York, 2016) 44-74.
