Williams Shakespeare: Cowards die many times before their deaths, the valiant never taste of death but once.
Within the class system of Elizabethan England, William
Shakespeare did not seem destined for greatness. He was not born into a family
of nobility or significant wealth. He did not continue his formal education at
university, nor did he come under the mentorship of a senior artist, nor did he
marry into wealth or prestige. His talent as an actor seems to have been
modest, since he is not known for starring roles. His success as a playwright
depended in part upon royal patronage. Yet in spite of these limitations,
Shakespeare is now the most performed and read playwright in the world.
Born to John Shakespeare,
a glovemaker and tradesman, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent farmer,
William Shakespeare was baptized on April 26, 1564, in Stratford-upon-Avon. At
that time, infants were baptized three days after their birth, thus scholars
believe that Shakespeare was born on April 23, the same day on which he died at
age 52. As the third of eight children, young William grew up in this small
town 100 miles northwest of London, far from the cultural and courtly center of
England.
Shakespeare attended the
local grammar school, King's New School, where the curriculum would have
stressed a classical education of Greek mythology, Roman comedy, ancient
history, rhetoric, grammar, Latin, and possibly Greek. Throughout his
childhood, Shakespeare's father struggled with serious financial debt.
Therefore, unlike his fellow playwright Christopher Marlowe, he did not attend
university. Rather, in 1582 at age 18, he married Anne Hathaway, a woman eight
years his senior and three months pregnant. Their first child, Susanna, was
born in 1583, and twins, Hamnet and Judith, came in 1585. In the seven years
following their birth, the historical record concerning Shakespeare is
incomplete, contradictory, and unreliable; scholars refer to this period as his
“lost years.”
In a 1592 pamphlet by
Robert Greene, Shakespeare reappears as an “upstart crow” flapping his poetic
wings in London. Evidently, it did not take him long to land on the stage.
Between 1590 and 1592, Shakespeare's Henry VI series, Richard
III, and The Comedy of Errors were performed. When the theaters were
closed in 1593 because of the plague, the playwright wrote two narrative poems, Venus
and Adonis and The
Rape of Lucrece, and probably began writing his richly textured
sonnets. One hundred and fiftyfour of his sonnets have survived, ensuring his
reputation as a gifted poet. By 1594, he had also written, The
Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Love's Labor's Lost.
Having established himself
as an actor and playwright, in 1594 Shakespeare became a shareholder in the
Lord Chamberlain's Men, one of the most popular acting companies in London. He
remained a member of this company for the rest of his career, often playing
before the court of Queen Elizabeth I. Shakespeare entered one of his most
prolific periods around 1595, writing Richard II,Romeo and Juliet, A
Midsummer Night's Dream, and The Merchant of Venice.
With his newfound success, Shakespeare purchased the second largest home in
Stratford in 1597, though he continued to live in London. Two years later, he
joined others from the Lord Chamberlain's Men in establishing the polygonal
Globe Theatre on the outskirts of London. When King James came to the throne in
1603, he issued a royal license to Shakespeare and his fellow players,
organizing them as the King's Men. During King James's reign, Shakespeare wrote
many of his most accomplished plays about courtly power, including King
Lear, Macbeth, and Antony
and Cleopatra. In 1609 or 1611, Shakespeare's sonnets were
published, though he did not live to see the First Folio of his plays published in 1623.
In 1616, with his health
declining, Shakespeare revised his will. Since his only son Hamnet had died in
1596, Shakespeare left the bulk of his estate to his two daughters, with
monetary gifts set aside for his sister, theater partners, friends, and the poor
of Stratford. A fascinating detail of his will is that he bequeathed the
family's “second best bed” to his wife Anne. He died one month later, on April
23, 1616. To the world, he left a lasting legacy in the form of 38 plays, 154
sonnets, and two narrative poems.
When William Shakespeare
died in his birthplace of Stratford-upon- Avon, he was recognized as one of the
greatest English playwrights of his era. In the four centuries since, he has
come to be seen as not only a great English playwright, but the greatest
playwright in the English language. Reflecting upon the achievement of his peer
and sometimes rival, Ben Jonson wrote of Shakespeare, “He was not of an age,
but for all time.”
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