THE BACKGROUND TO SHAKESPEARE

The Life of Shakespeare (1564-1616)

William Shakespeare, player, playwright and poet, is the most widely known author in English Literature. In the course of his fifty-two years he wrote some thirty-seven plays and a number of poems which have made him probably the most famous author in the world. Unfortunately, some of the details of his life story are obscure to us, and it is sometimes stated that we know very little about Shakespeare. In a way, this is not true. A great deal more is known about Shakespeare than about any other dramatist of his time with the exception of Ben Johnson and George Chapman. The fact that there are a number of things unknown about Shakespeare is merely typical of the age in which he lived-an age in which dramatists were not very highly thought of, and written records were very few, uncoordinated and subject to loss and destruction over the years. Besides, the Elizabethans were more interested in the plays than in the biographies of playwrights. As a result, we know little about the lives of most dramatists of the time.

According to records, William Shakespeare was baptized in Holy Trinity Church at Stratford-upon Avon on April 26, 1564 and buried there on April 25,1616. The Shakespeares were prosperous and locally important family. William was the oldest of six children. His father John Shakespeare, the son of a farmer, had moved to Stratford as a young man , and there built for himself a successful business life as a glover and a dealer of wool., timber and other commodities. John Shakespeare was a prominent in local affairs until when, it seems , he fell into debt. William Shakespeare, therefore, should be thought of as the son of a leading citizen of an important market town. William Shakespeare's mother Mary Arden, came from a higher social background, being the daughter of a gentleman and a rich landowner. Having some aristocratic connections, she brought her husband both social standing and land. Stratford, about a hundred miles northwest of London , was a prosperous market town. A great deal is known about Stratford at that time, which enables us to guess something of Shakespeare's boyhood there. The town had a Grammar school. William Shakespeare most probably attended this school and received a good education in Latin. Grammar schools were organized to prepare their students for one of the universities, and in Stratford the masters were university graduates. The education they gave was narrow, but thorough. It included some history and religious instruction, but was based chiefly on Latin and the arts of language such as grammar, logic, rhetoric and oratory or what we call 'public speaking'. It is supposed that Shakespeare read a number of Latin authors, including Ovid and probably Plautus, whose comedies he imitated when he started to write for the stage. William Shakespeare did not go to university and so did not have the type of education which many contemporary playwrights had. But he was, no doubt, an intelligent and talented man, and after moving to London he cultivated himself through his relationships with various kinds of people including the writers and intellectuals of the time.

During Shakespeare's boyhood Stratford was regularly visited by touring players including the best companies in England. The plays they brought were moralizing works on Biblical or Classical themes, very dull compared with what Shakespeare himself would write. But acting was a profession which was quite esteemed. The players were received in the town hall by leading citizens, including, no doubt, Shakespeare's father. For the rest, we can imagine that Shakespeare was busy with the usual activities of a boy in a country town. Thus he was acquiring intimate knowledge of the countryside and its rural people, which is reflected in his plays.

We do know that Shakespeare married Anne Hathway, daughter of a yeoman farmer, in 1582 when he was eighteen and she was twenty-three. He had three children: Susanna, Hamnet and Judith: the last two were twins. We cannot be certain how Shakespeare supported his family during his times. He may have been involved in his father's diminishing business or he may, as some traditions suggest, have been a schoolmaster.

The Shakespeares' first child was Susanna, christened on May 26th, 1583, and twins arrived in January, 1585. They were baptized on February 2 of that year and named after two very close friends of William -- the baker Hamnet Sadler and his wife, Judith. The Saddlers became the godparents of the twins and, in 1598, they, in turn, named their own son William. Not much information is known about the life of Anne and her children after this date, except for the tragic fact that Hamnet Shakespeare died of an unknown cause on August 11, 1596, at the age of eleven. By this time Shakespeare had long since moved to London to realize his dreams on the English stage -- a time in the Bard's life that will be covered in depth later on -- and we do not know if he was present at Hamnet's funeral in Stratford. We can only imagine how deeply the loss of his only son touched the sensitive poet, but his sorrow is undeniably reflected in his later work, and, particularly, in a passage from King John, written between 1595 and 1597:

Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost:

I am not mad: I would to heaven I were!

For then, 'tis like I should forget myself:

O, if I could, what grief should I forget!

Preach some philosophy to make me mad,

And thou shalt be canonized, cardinal;

For being not mad but sensible of grief,

My reasonable part produces reason

How I may be deliver'd of these woes,

And teaches me to kill or hang myself:

If I were mad, I should forget my son,

Or madly think a babe of clouts were he:

I am not mad; too well, too well I feel

The different plague of each calamity....

I tore them from their bonds and cried aloud

'O that these hands could so redeem my son,

As they have given these hairs their liberty!'

But now I envy at their liberty,

And will again commit them to their bonds,

Because my poor child is a prisoner.

And, father cardinal, I have heard you say

That we shall see and know our friends in heaven:

If that be true, I shall see my boy again;

For since the birth of Cain, the first male child,

To him that did but yesterday suspire,

There was not such a gracious creature born.

But now will canker-sorrow eat my bud

And chase the native beauty from his cheek

And he will look as hollow as a ghost,

As dim and meagre as an ague's fit,

And so he'll die; and, rising so again,

When I shall meet him in the court of heaven

I shall not know him: therefore never, never

Must I behold my pretty Arthur more. (III.iv.45-91)

After the year 1585 nothing certain is known of Shakespeare until 1592 when he emerges as an actor and rising playwright in London. He did not take his family with him, for he lived in bachelors' lodgings in London for the most of the rest of his life. What he did during these 'lost years' 1585-1592, has been much discussed, but nothing has been proved. At no phase in Shakespeare's  life are the rumours stronger and more numerous. According to these rumours he was for a while a country-school master; he was forced to leave Stratford as a result of getting into trouble for poaching deer; he rebelled at the prospect of being a glove merchant in Stratford for the rest of his life and ran away to London; he became a sailor ;  a soldier; a lawyer; a medical student; he joined a group of travelling players who had visited Stratford; he had a good business holding the horses of those who had came to watch plays at London's new theatres and so on. Some of these stories are possible but unproved. Whatever the truth, Shakespeare had established a sufficient reputation for himself by 1592 to be the victim of an envious complaint from the dying dramatist Robert Greene (c. 1560-92), who remarked in jealousy that a new and largely uneducated dramatist (Shakespeare) was usurping the position which rightly belonged to those dramatists from university. Greene ignored Shakespeare for presuming to be equal of established London dramatists:

There is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that with his tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide supposes he is as well able to bombast* out a blank verse as the best of you, and.... as in his own conceit the only shake-scene in a country.

*bombastic: language that contains long and important sounding words chosen to impress other people rather than to express meaning clearly.

Shakespeare, in this passage, is referred to as an "upstart crow" who thought himself  'the only shake-scene in a country'. This is a reference to Shakespeare, the dramatist as well as to Aesop's crow who strutted in borrowed feathers. In the same way Shakespeare as an actor strutted in fine words not his own. That Shakespeare is meant is indicated not only by 'shake-scene', which is a term similar in sound to 'Shakespeare', but by the parody** of a line from one of Shakespeare's early plays Henry VI- ' O, tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide'. In the play this line is addressed by York to the fierce Queen Margaret. It is clear from this attack that Shakespeare was already well known both as an actor and as a playwright. By 1592, Shakespeare had acted and written , and there are a number of subsequent references to him as an actor. Documents  indicate that in 1598 he was a 'principal comedian', in 1603 a 'principal tragedian', and in 1608 he was one of the 'men players'.

**parody: a piece of writing, drama ,etc. that copies the style of someone or something familiar in a humorous or exaggerated way.

The theatres were closed, first through riots and then through plague from June 1592 to April 1594, and the theatrical companies were dissolved or driven to the provinces. During this period Shakespeare's long poems "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece"  were published and dedicated to Lord Southampton, who became Shakespeare's patron from 1594 on. The famous sonnets (published in 1609) were well known in manuscript in the later 1590s and all these poems established Shakespeare's reputation as a poet in his own time. Despite his reputation as a poet, Shakespeare seems to have almost entirely devoted himself to the theatre. In 1594, he was a member of a theatrical company called "The Lord Chamberlain's Men" .Until he retired to Stratford (in about 1611) he was with his remarkably stable company. From 1599, the company acted primarily at the "Globe Theatre" , in which Shakespeare held a one-tenth interest. Other Elizabethan dramatists are known to have acted, but no other is known to have been entitled to a share in the profits of the players. As Shakespeare became a shareholder in the theatrical company he enjoyed financial as well as professional success. From his acting, playwriting and a share in a theatre, Shakespeare seems to have made considerable money. (It should be noted that Shakespeare made a very good living as an actor, not as a playwright because playwrights received a smaller share of the theatre's income than they do now. They sold their scripts for very small sums to the actors who then divided the receipts among themselves.) Shakespeare as a successful businessman, put his money to work making substantial investments in Stratford real estate. In 1596, Shakespeare and his father were granted a Coat of Arms, an emblem of nobility, by the college of Heralds, and this meant that their status as "gentlemen"  was recognized. In the following year 1597, Shakespeare bought the second largest house at Stratford.

Shakespeare's first eight published plays did not have his name on them, but this is not remarkable. According to the fashion of the time, most of the dramatists did not have their names on their published plays. What is remarkable is that after 1598 Shakespeare's name commonly appears on printed plays- some of which are not his. Another indication of his popularity comes from Francis Meres, author of "Palladis Tamia: Wit's Treasury(1598)" . In this anthology, accompanied by an essay on literature, many playwrights are mentioned, but Shakespeare's name occurs more often than any other, and Shakespeare is the only playwright whose plays are listed. Indeed by 1598 Shakespeare was recognized as the greatest of English dramatists. Individual plays written by Shakespeare began to appear in print, and the publishers became aware of the value of Shakespeare's name on the title pages. 

Shortly before 1599, Shakespeare had completed the cycle of history plays, dealing with the whole story of The Wars of the Roses, with "Henry V". It was followed by "As You Like It" and "Julius Caesar", the first of the maturer tragedies. In the next three years wrote "Troilus and Cressida", "The Merry Wives of Windsor", " Hamlet" and "Twelfth Night".

When Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603 and King James I  descended the throne, Shakespeare's company found a new patron in the new king. As the members of the company became James's Servants, they were called the King's Men. They now acted at court and prospered accordingly. In the early years of the 17th century, Shakespeare wrote the somber comedies, "All's Well That Ends Well", "Measure For Measure", and these plays were followed by "Othello", "Macbeth" and "King Lear". Then he returned to Roman themes with "Antonius  and Cleopatra" and "Coriolanus". 

Since 1601, Shakespeare had been writing less, and there were now a number of rival dramatists who were introducing new styles of drama, such as Ben Johnson, George Chapman, Thomas Dekker and Beaumont and Fletcher. In 1608, the King's Men acquired a second playhouse, an indoor theatre in the fashionable quarter of the Blackfriars. At private theatres, plays were performed indoors; the prices charged were higher than in the public playhouses, and the audience consequently was more select. Shakespeare seems to have retired from the stage about this time, because his name does not occur in the various lists of players after 1607. From time to time he visited Stratford, his native town. Then he began to live for the most part at Stratford, he was regarded as one of the most important citizens. He still wrote a few plays, and he tried his hand at the new form of tragi-comedy, a play with tragic incidents but a happy ending, which Beaumont and Fletcher had popularized.  He wrote four of these- "Pericles", "Cymberline", "The Winter's Tale" and "The Tempest" , the last of which was acted at Court in 1611. After 1611, Shakespeare seems to have retired to Stratford and to have visited London from time to time. 

Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616. Just before his death  he made his will to leave his property to his descendants. According to his will, a small part of his property went to his relatives and friends (including the three actors of the Globe Theatre: Richard Burbage, John Hammings and Henry Condel). The second best bed that he left to his wife has provoked much comment; perhaps, it was the bed that the couple had slept in, or it was the best being reserved for visitors. In any case, if Shakespeare had not excepted it, the bed would have gone with the rest of his household possessions to his daughter and her husband. An unattractive monument to Shakespeare's memory was erected on a wall near his grave in the church at Stratford. It says he died on April 23,1616. Over the grave itself are the lines, perhaps by Shakespeare, asking people to keep his bones undisturbed in the crowded burial ground as old bones were often removed to make way for the new: 

Good Friends, For Jesus' sake forbear

To dig the dust enclosed here.

Blessed be the man that spares these stones

And cursed be he that moves my bones.

To sum up, the bare facts of Shakespeare's life are that he was born to prosperous parents and made his way to London, leaving his family behind, and there he became a successful and prosperous actor, dramatist and businessman. He achieved as much fame as it was possible for a dramatist at that, and retired while still comparatively young to live a life of prosperous retirement in his hometown. The bare details of life- birth, marriage, death, involvement in law suits, purchases of land- are comparatively well documented. But owing to the insufficiency of these documents mainly confined to parish registers, records of Herald's College and of his theatrical company, his will and other legal papers, what we know about Shakespeare's life and personality is very limited. The things unknown about him are the numerous, e.g. we do not know about his boyhood; we do not know where and how he was educated; we do not know why and when he left for London; we do not know when and how his life in the theatre began; we do not know whether he was a protestant or a catholic; we do not know what made him stop writing plays when he was a middle aged man; we do not know of what he died; we do not know anything about his face or figure. On the other hand, of his attitude to his work and art, his feelings about the theatre, his loves, his hates, and his philosophy of life we have nothing, except the lines he wrote in his plays, which may or may not be based on actual experience and personal feeling. Meanwhile, it should be noted that not until fifty years had passed did writers begin to record their own lives, it was not until the eighteenth century that autobiography became at all common. Hence, it is not surprising that Shakespeare himself tells us nothing of his imaginative artistic life. As a result many scholars have tried to detect in the plays clues to Shakespeare's character and thoughts, but this is a very difficult thing to do. Shakespeare hides himself behind the characters he creates. His ability to imagine and to recreate some many different people with their different emotions and attitudes means that we can never be sure about his own convictions and sentiments when reading or watching his plays. Shakespeare the man eludes us. 

The things we do not know about Shakespeare are, indeed, so numerous as to give way to the rise of some stories about him such as Shakespeare was  but an ordinary player; the plays bearing his name were actually written by someone else using the name of Shakespeare,etc.( The authorship of his plays has been also attributed to some important persons of the Elizabethan period). Some scholars have gone so far as to claim that Shakespeare was an imaginary name, not a real person. Of course, this is all nonsense. We may know very little  about him: the evidence may be very little but it is strong enough to prove that a man named Shakespeare actually lived and wrote immortal plays.