Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
Introduction
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare | Introduction
He was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He was an English playwright, poet, and actor He was an English playwright, poet, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist He was an English playwright, poet, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist.
how old was william shakespeare when he wrote hamlet
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Between 1589 and 1613 at the age of 49.
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who is he?
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Yorick, the dead jester whose skull Hamlet holds during this scene, is said to have been in the earth "three-and-twenty years," which would make Hamlet no more than seven years old when he last rode on Yorick's back. This view of Hamlet's age is supported by the fact that Richard Burbage, the actor who originally played the role, was thirty-two at the time of the play's premiere. However, a case has been made that at an early stage in "Hamlet"—with its apparent history of multiple revisions—Hamlet was presented as a sixteen-year-old. Several pieces of evidence support this view. Hamlet attends the University of Wittenberg, and members of the royalty and nobility (Elizabethan or medieval Danish) did not attend university at age 30.
Prince Hamlet | Hamlet's age
While this lack of records bars any certainty about his activity during those years, it is certain that by the time of Greene's attack on the 28-year-old Shakespeare he had acquired a reputation as an actor and burgeoning playwright.
Life of William Shakespeare | Lost years
After the Globe Theatre burns down in 1613 during a performance of Shakespeare's play "Henry VIII", William Shakespeare, aged 49, returns home to Stratford to rejoin his wife, Anne Hathaway. Shakespeare and Anne have a distant relationship, as he has spent most of their marriage working in London, and she is a down-to-earth country woman who cannot write. Their marriage has never recovered from the death of their son Hamnet, aged 11, in a plague outbreak in Stratford while his father was in London. Although they also have two daughters, Shakespeare regarded Hamnet as his favorite child, especially because of the poems which the child wrote before his death.
All Is True | Plot
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
William Shakespeare | Introduction
Additionally, a 30-year-old Prince Hamlet would clearly have been of ruling age. Given his great popularity (mentioned by Claudius), this would raise the question of why it was not he, rather than his uncle, who was elected to succeed to the throne upon the death of King Hamlet.
Prince Hamlet | Hamlet's age
Oxford was born in 1550, and was between 40 and 53 years old when he presumably would have written the sonnets. Shakespeare was born in 1564. Even though the average life expectancy of Elizabethans was short, being between 26 and 39 was not considered old. In spite of this, age and growing older are recurring themes in the Sonnets, for example, in Sonnets 138 and 37. In his later years, Oxford described himself as "lame". On several occasions, the author of the sonnets also described himself as lame, such as in Sonnets 37 and 89.
Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship | Age and lameness
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was an English poet, playwright and actor. William Shakespeare may also refer to:
William Shakespeare (disambiguation) | Introduction
In Act V, scene I of Shakespeare's" Hamlet", the First Gravedigger is asked by Hamlet at about line 147 and following, how long he has "been a grave-maker." His reply appears to determine the age of Hamlet in a roundabout but very explicit manner. The Gravedigger says that he has been in his profession since the day that Old Hamlet defeated Old Fortinbras, which was "the very day that young Hamlet was born." Then, a little later, he adds that "I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years." According to this logic, Hamlet must be thirty years old.
Prince Hamlet | Hamlet's age
He died suddenly in October 2010, aged 61.
William Shakespeare (singer) | Introduction
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was an English playwright and poet. Shakespeare may also refer to:
Shakespeare (disambiguation) | Introduction
Hamnet Shakespeare (baptised 2 February 1585 – buried 11 August 1596) was the only son of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, and the fraternal twin of Judith Shakespeare. He died at the age of 11. Some Shakespearean scholars speculate on the relationship between Hamnet and his father's later play "Hamlet", as well as on possible connections between Hamnet's death and the writing of "King John", "Romeo and Juliet", "Julius Caesar", and "Twelfth Night".
Hamnet Shakespeare | Introduction
Anne Hathaway (1556 – 6 August 1623) was the wife of William Shakespeare, the English poet, playwright and actor. They were married in 1582, when he was 18 and she was 26 years old. She outlived her husband by seven years. Very little is known about her beyond a few references in legal documents. Her personality and relationship to Shakespeare have been the subject of much speculation by many historians and creative writers.
Anne Hathaway (wife of Shakespeare) | Introduction
William Haughton (died 1605) was an English playwright in the age of English Renaissance theatre.
William Haughton (playwright) | Introduction
In her 1974 book, "Lancashire Legends", Kathleen Eyre claims that although "it may be no more than a fond hope" there is evidence that a "William Shakeshaft" (a common version of Shakespeare's name) was a youthful member of the "Hesketh Company of Players" who visited in about 1585. The date coincides with Shakespeare's absence from Stratford-on-Avon following a bout of deer-stealing from neighbouring parks, particularly that of Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote.
Rufford Old Hall | Shakespeare connection
Shakespeare Hirst (26 February 1841 – 20 May 1907) was an English actor, author, art collector and expert on the life and works of William Shakespeare.
Shakespeare Hirst | Introduction
In his "Remaines Concerning Britaine"—published in 1605, but finished two years previously and before the Earl of Oxford died in 1604—Camden names Shakespeare as one of the "most pregnant witts of these ages our times, whom succeeding ages may justly admire".
Shakespeare authorship question | Contemporary legal recognition
John William Richmond Shakespeare , is a retired British diplomat.
John William Richmond Shakespeare | Introduction
Twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised 2 February 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596. After the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592. The exception is the appearance of his name in the "complaints bill" of a law case before the Queen's Bench court at Westminster dated Michaelmas Term 1588 and 9 October 1589. Scholars refer to the years between 1585 and 1592 as Shakespeare's "lost years".
William Shakespeare | Early life
For several decades, some theorists have suggested that William Shakespeare placed his mark on the translated text of Psalm 46 that appears in the King James Bible, although many scholars view this as unlikely, stating that the translations were probably agreed upon by a committee of scholars. On the other hand, Shakespeare was in King James' service during the preparation of the King James Bible, and was generally considered to be 46 years old in 1611 when the translation was completed. There are a few extant examples of Shakespeare's actual signature, and as was customary at the time, with spelling being somewhat lax in those pre-standardized days, on at least one occasion he signed it 'Shakspeare', which divides into four and six letters, thus '46'.
Psalm 46 | Shakespeare's alleged involvement
At the age of 18, Shakespeare married the 26-year-old Anne Hathaway. The consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. Two of Hathaway's neighbours posted bonds the next day as surety that there were no impediments to the marriage. The couple may have arranged the ceremony in some haste, since the Worcester chancellor allowed the marriage banns to be read once instead of the usual three times. Hathaway's pregnancy could have been the reason for this. Six months after the marriage, she gave birth to a daughter, Susanna. Twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later.
Sexuality of William Shakespeare | Marriage
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was an English poet and playwright. He wrote approximately 39 plays and 154 sonnets, as well as a variety of other poems.
Shakespeare bibliography | Introduction
that Shakespeare "understood Latin pretty well: for he had been in his younger years a schoolmaster in the country", etc.
William Beeston | Later years
William Cartwright the younger was about eighty years old when he died; he was therefore born around 1606 or 1607. Nothing is known of his early life; it is reasonable to assume that he began his stage career under his father's tutelage. He was included with his father on a 1635 list of actors; apparently they both belonged to the King's Revels Men at that time. James Wright's "Historia Histrionica" (1699) maintains that the younger Cartwright was associated with the Salisbury Court Theatre — which may refer to his time with his father's troupe, or may indicate that he was with Queen Henrietta's Men in the 1637–42 period.
William Cartwright (actor) | Early career
Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, at the age of 52. He died within a month of signing his will, a document which he begins by describing himself as being in "perfect health". No extant contemporary source explains how or why he died. Half a century later, John Ward, the vicar of Stratford, wrote in his notebook: "Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting and, it seems, drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted", not an impossible scenario since Shakespeare knew Jonson and Drayton. Of the tributes from fellow authors, one refers to his relatively sudden death: "We wondered, Shakespeare, that thou went'st so soon / From the world's stage to the grave's tiring room." He was survived by his wife and two daughters.
William Shakespeare | Later years and death
He was 16 years old.
William Heirens | Early life
Hamnet Shakespeare (1585–1596) was the only son of English playwright William Shakespeare. Hamnet may also refer to:
Hamnet (disambiguation) | Introduction
William Shakespeare was an actor, playwright, poet, and theatre entrepreneur in London during the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean eras. He was baptised on 26 April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England, in the Holy Trinity Church. At the age of 18 he married Anne Hathaway with whom he had three children. He died in his home town of Stratford on 23 April 1616, aged 51. Though more is known about Shakespeare's life than those of most other Elizabethan and Jacobean writers, few personal biographical facts survive, which is unsurprising in the light of his social status as a commoner, the low esteem in which his profession was held, and the general lack of interest of the time in the personal lives of writers.
Life of William Shakespeare | Introduction
William Shakespeare is an 1864 work by Victor Hugo, written in his 13th year of exile. The title is misleading; the true subject of the work is the writers that Hugo considered "the greatest geniuses of all time."
William Shakespeare (essay) | Introduction
Nearly all academic Shakespeareans believe that the author referred to as "Shakespeare" was the same William Shakespeare who was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564 and who died there in 1616. He became an actor and shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later the King's Men), the playing company that owned the Globe Theatre, the Blackfriars Theatre, and exclusive rights to produce Shakespeare's plays from 1594 to 1642. Shakespeare was also allowed the use of the honorific "gentleman" after 1596 when his father was granted a coat of arms. Shakespeare scholars see no reason to suspect that the name was a pseudonym or that the actor was a front for the author: contemporary records identify Shakespeare as the writer, other playwrights such as Ben Jonson and Christopher Marlowe came from similar backgrounds, and no contemporary is known to have expressed doubts about Shakespeare's authorship.
Shakespeare authorship question | Case for Shakespeare's authorship
The historical record is unequivocal in ascribing the authorship of the Shakespeare canon to a William Shakespeare. In addition to the name appearing on the title pages of poems and plays, this name was given as that of a well-known writer at least 23 times during the lifetime of William Shakespeare of Stratford. Several contemporaries corroborate the identity of the playwright as an actor, and explicit contemporary documentary evidence attests that the Stratford citizen was also an actor under his own name. In 1598, Francis Meres named Shakespeare as a playwright and poet in his "Palladis Tamia", referring to him as one of the authors by whom the "English tongue is mightily enriched".
Shakespeare authorship question | Historical evidence
He names twelve plays written by Shakespeare, including four which were never published in quarto: "The Two Gentlemen of Verona", "The Comedy of Errors", "Love's Labour's Won", and "King John", as well as ascribing to Shakespeare some of the plays that were published anonymously before 1598—"Titus Andronicus", "Romeo and Juliet", and "Henry IV, Part 1". He refers to Shakespeare's "sug[a]red Sonnets among his private friends" 11 years before the publication of the Sonnets. In the rigid social structure of Elizabethan England, William Shakespeare was entitled to use the honorific "gentleman" after his father's death in 1601, since his father was granted a coat of arms in 1596.
Shakespeare authorship question | Historical evidence
About 60 years old when the house was built, Rogers was a successful butcher and also a corn and cattle merchant. He served as Alderman for the Stratford Corporation alongside John Shakespeare, William’s father.
Harvard House | Introduction
The hair over the forehead was scraped out and painted over to create a bald patch. It was also lengthened at the sides, an appearance associated with Shakespeare. The date was also altered to fit Shakespeare's age. The coat of arms was painted over. In this form the painting bore the date 1611 and purported to show Shakespeare at the age of 47. In 1940, Charles Wisner Barrell argued on the basis of x-ray evidence that the portrait originally depicted Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford and that this was evidence that Oxford was the true author of Shakespeare's plays.
Ashbourne portrait | Introduction
Few details of Shakespeare's sexuality are known. At 18, he married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway, who was pregnant. Susanna, the first of their three children, was born six months later on 26 May 1583. Over the centuries, some readers have posited that Shakespeare's sonnets are autobiographical, and point to them as evidence of his love for a young man. Others read the same passages as the expression of intense friendship rather than romantic love. The 26 so-called "Dark Lady" sonnets, addressed to a married woman, are taken as evidence of heterosexual liaisons.
William Shakespeare | Sexuality
William Oldys (14 July 1696 – 15 April 1761) was an English antiquarian and bibliographer.
William Oldys | Introduction
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the life and legacy of William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor who lived during the 17th century. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon".
Outline of William Shakespeare | Introduction
It is generally classified as apocryphal and not part of the main Shakespearean canon. Other proposed authors have included George Peele, Robert Greene, and Thomas Lodge. Greene's "James IV" (c. 1590) and Peele's "Old Wive's Tale" (1595) belong to the same genre.
Mucedorus | Introduction
He was 59.
William Campbell Moore | Introduction
William Knell (died 1587) was an Elizabethan era actor who played lead roles for the Queen's Men in the 1580s. It has been speculated that his sudden death in a brawl with another actor, while on tour in Thame near Oxford, gave William Shakespeare an opening to become a professional actor.
William Knell (actor) | Introduction
If Jonson is taken literally, for the play to have been between 25 and 30 years old in 1614, it must have been written between 1584 and 1589, a theory which not all scholars reject out of hand. For example, in his 1953 edition of the play for the "Arden Shakespeare" 2nd Series, J.C. Maxwell argues for a date of late 1589. Similarly, E.A.J. Honigmann, in his 'early start' theory of 1982, suggests that Shakespeare wrote the play several years before coming to London , and that "Titus" was actually his first play, written . In his "Cambridge Shakespeare" edition of 1994 and again in 2006, Alan Hughes makes a similar argument, believing the play was written very early in Shakespeare's career, before he came to London, possibly .
Titus Andronicus | Date
The case for Oxford's authorship is also based on perceived similarities between Oxford's biography and events in Shakespeare's plays, sonnets and longer poems; perceived parallels of language, idiom, and thought between Oxford's letters and the Shakespearean canon; and the discovery of numerous marked passages in Oxford's Bible that appear in some form in Shakespeare's plays. The first to lay out a comprehensive case for Oxford's authorship was J. Thomas Looney, an English schoolteacher who identified personality characteristics in Shakespeare's works—especially "Hamlet"—that painted the author as an eccentric aristocratic poet, a drama and sporting enthusiast with a classical education who had travelled extensively to Italy.
Shakespeare authorship question | Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford
There is some evidence to suggest that Shakespeare may have performed in the Great Hall. In about 1580 Shakespeare had been sent, by his Stratford schoolmaster, to be an assistant teacher in the household of Alexander Hoghton at Lea Hall near Preston, and the "wilim Shakeshaft nowe dwellynge with me", referred to by Hoghton in his will, is almost certainly Shakespeare. In his will Hoghton, who died in 1581, had bequeathed to Sir Thomas Hesketh his musical instruments and "playe clothes". By about 1585 Shakespeare had joined a company of players kept by Lord Strange, son of Lord Derby, probably having been recommended by Sir Thomas.
Rufford Old Hall | Shakespeare connection
John Aubrey, in 1693, reported that Shakespeare had been a country schoolmaster, a tale augmented in the 20th century with the theory that his employer might have been Alexander Hoghton of Lancashire, a prominent Catholic landowner who left money in his will to a certain "William Shakeshafte", referencing theatrical costumes and paraphernalia. Shakespeare's grandfather Richard had also once used the name Shakeshafte. Peter Ackroyd adds that examinations of the marginal notes in the Hoghton family copy of Edward Hall's "Chronicles", an important source for Shakespeare's early histories, "indicate the probability that Shakespeare and the annotator were the same man, but do not by any means prove it."
Religious views of William Shakespeare | The "lost years" (1585–1592)
According to Thomas Plume Mennes told him that he had once met William Shakespeare's father John Shakespeare, describing him as a "merry cheeked old man" who said of his son that "Will was a good honest fellow, but he durst have cracked a jest with him at any time." As Katherine Duncan-Jones points out, this is impossible, since Mennes was two years old when John Shakespeare died. She thinks Plume may have been recording an anecdote related by Mennis taken from his father.
John Mennes | Shakespeare anecdote
Hart does not suggest that there was any conspiracy, merely that evidence of the real authors's identities had been lost when the plays were published. Hart asserts that Shakespeare had been "dead for one hundred years and utterly forgotten" when old playscripts formerly owned by him were discovered and published under his name by Nicholas Rowe and Thomas Betterton. He speculates that only "The Merry Wives of Windsor" was Shakespeare's own work and that Ben Jonson probably wrote "Hamlet". In 1852 an anonymous essay in "Chambers's Edinburgh Journal" also suggested that Shakespeare owned the playscripts, but had employed an unknown poor poet to write them.
History of the Shakespeare authorship question | Debate in the 19th century
Earlier biographers, however, speculated that this might be his son instead. Of the burial entry, Sidney Lee wrote: "'Gilbert Shakespeare adolescens,' who was buried at Stratford on February 3, 1611–12, was doubtless son of the poet's next brother, Gilbert; the latter, having nearly completed his forty-sixth year, could scarcely be described as "adolescens"; his death is not recorded, but according to William Oldys he survived to a patriarchal age." Oldys wrote in the mid-18th century, without certainty as to identity: "One of Shakespeare's younger brothers, who lived to a good old age, even some years, as I compute, after the restoration of King Charles the Second...
Gilbert Shakespeare | Death
The genesis of "Sir John Oldcastle" is crucially linked to the fact that when Shakespeare's "Henry IV" plays premiered on stage in 1597–98, the character Sir John Falstaff was called Sir John Oldcastle. This is indicated by abundant external and internal evidence. The change of names, from "Oldcastle" to "Falstaff", is mentioned in seventeenth-century works by Richard James ("Epistle to Sir Harry Bourchier", c. 1625) and Thomas Fuller ("Worthies of England," 1662). It is also indicated in details in the early texts of Shakespeare's plays. In the quarto text of "Henry IV, Part 2" (1600), one of Falstaff's speech prefixes in Act I, Scene ii is mistakenly left uncorrected, "Old." instead of "Falst." In III,ii,25–26 of the same play, Falstaff is said to have been a "page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk"—which was true of the historical Oldcastle.
Sir John Oldcastle | Shakespeare's Oldcastle
The Shakespearean scholar, Eric Sams points to a letter written by the 20-year-old Earl of Southampton to a Mr. Hicks (or Hyckes) regarding Lord Burghley, at a time when Southampton had not yet agreed to marry Burghley's granddaughter. The letter is signed by the Earl of Southampton, but the body of the letter was written by someone else. It is dated 26 June 1592, a year when it is thought that Shakespeare may have first encountered Southampton and had begun writing the sonnets. Sams notices that the handwriting in the body of the letter is literally a secretary hand, and it resembles the handwriting found in the addition to "Sir Thomas More" by Hand D.
Shakespeare's handwriting | Handwriting in a letter signed by the Earl of Southampton
Although Ireland claimed throughout his life that he was born in London in 1777, the Ireland family Bible puts his birth two years earlier, on 2 August 1775. His father, Samuel Ireland, was a successful publisher of travelogues, collector of antiquities and collector of Shakespearian plays and "relics". There was at the time, and still is, a great scarcity of writing in the hand of Shakespeare. Of his 37 plays, there is not one copy in his own writing, not a scrap of correspondence from Shakespeare to a friend, fellow writer, patron, producer or publisher. Forgery would fill this void.
William Henry Ireland | Early life
After four years of non-attendance at council meetings, he was finally replaced as burgess in 1586.
Life of William Shakespeare | Family origins
Shakespeare is an English family name most commonly associated with William Shakespeare (1564–1616), an English playwright and poet. Other notable people with the surname include:
Shakespeare (surname) | Introduction
Hazlitt would frequently visit him—by then about 80 years old—and they conversed endlessly on men and manners, the illustrious figures of Northcote's younger days, particularly Reynolds, and the arts, particularly painting.
William Hazlitt | "The old age of artists"
William James Craig (6 November 1843 – 23 December 1906) was an editor of Shakespeare's plays who produced the first "Oxford Shakespeare" for the Oxford University Press.
William James Craig | Introduction
Old Times is a play by the Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter. It was first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre in London on 1 June 1971. It starred Colin Blakely, Dorothy Tutin, and Vivien Merchant, and was directed by Peter Hall. The play was dedicated to Hall to celebrate his 40th birthday. Peter Hall also directed the Broadway première, which opened at the Billy Rose Theater in New York City on 16 November 1971, starring Robert Shaw, Rosemary Harris and Mary Ure; and a year later, the German language première of the play at the Burgtheater in Vienna, with Maximilian Schell, Erika Pluhar and Annemarie Düringer.
Old Times | Introduction
William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby, was first proposed as a candidate in 1891 by James Greenstreet, a British archivist, and later supported by Abel Lefranc and others. Greenstreet discovered that a Jesuit spy, George Fenner, reported in 1599 that Derby "is busye in penning commodyes for the common players". That same year Derby was recorded as financing one of London's two children's drama companies, Paul's Boys; he also had his own company, Derby's Men, which played multiple times at court in 1600 and 1601. Derby was born three years before Shakespeare and died in 1642, so his lifespan fits the consensus dating of the works.
Shakespeare authorship question | William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby
Richard Shakespeare (1490 – before 10 February 1561) was a husbandman of Snitterfield, Warwickshire, north-northeast of Stratford-upon-Avon, the father of John Shakespeare and the grandfather of William Shakespeare.
Richard Shakespeare | Introduction
Shakespeare is seated in his garden when the Young Woman arrives to beg. The Old Man takes her into the back garden for sex. The Old Woman tries to sound out Shakespeare's intentions with regards to Combe's land scheme and warns him that it will ruin local families. Combe arrives to convince Shakespeare to sign a contract stating that he will not interfere with the scheme, in exchange for the security of his own lands. Shakespeare hands Combe a paper stating his terms. The Old Man enters, followed by the Son, berating the Old Man for his sexual misconduct with the Young Woman.
Bingo (play) | Scene 1
William Melmoth the younger (c.1710–1799) was an English lawyer and man of letters.
William Melmoth the younger | Introduction
Six months later. The Old Woman tells Judith about her husband's condition and his history with the press gang, but Judith takes a moralistic tone, condemning the Old Man for his infidelity and irresponsibility. Later, Shakespeare and the Old Man are in the garden when the Young Woman returns. She is physically decimated, having been living in burned out barns all winter, supported by the Old Man. Shakespeare tells Judith to give the woman food and clothing, but Judith resents her and refuses. The woman hides in the orchard when Combe arrives to give Shakespeare the contract, which he signs.
Bingo (play) | Scene 2
The only record that survives of Shakespeare's personality is a note written by Thomas Plume fifty years after his death. Plume records a conversation with Sir John Mennes (1599–1671), who stated that he had once met him in his shop and described him as a "merry cheeked old man" who said of his son that "Will was a good honest fellow, but he durst have cracked a jest with him at any time." As Katherine Duncan-Jones points out, this is impossible, since Mennes was two years old when John Shakespeare died. She thinks Plume may have been recording an anecdote related by Mennes taken from his father.
John Shakespeare | Personality and religious beliefs
See also W. Barske, "Oldcastle-Falstaff in der englischen Literatur bis zu Shakespeare" ("Palaestra", 1. Berlin, 1905).
John Oldcastle | Bibliography
William Shakespeare (bapt. 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. They also continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
William Shakespeare | Introduction
After the baptism of the twins in 1585, save for being party to a lawsuit to recover part of his mother's estate that had been mortgaged and lost by default, Shakespeare leaves no historical traces until Robert Greene jealously alludes to him as part of the London theatrical scene in 1592. This seven-year period, known as the "lost years" to Shakespeare scholars, was filled by early biographers with surmises drawn from local traditions, and by more recent biographers with surmises about the onset of his acting career deduced from textual and bibliographic hints and the surviving records of the various playing troupes of the time.
Life of William Shakespeare | Lost years
William Aspley (died 1640) was a London publisher of the Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline eras. He was a member of the publishing syndicates that issued the First Folio and Second Folio collections of Shakespeare's plays, in 1623 and 1632.
William Aspley | Introduction
This list of 87 candidates is in alphabetical order of surname, so that aristocrats appear under their family name, rather than their title (e.g. "De Vere, Edward" rather than "Oxford, Earl of"). Monarchs appear under their regnal names.
List of Shakespeare authorship candidates | List
Guest actors included James Murdoch in "Hamlet" and "The Lady of Lyons", Samuel Lover in his own play, "Emigrant's Dream", Mrs. George Percy Farren (née Mary Ann Russell) in "The Stranger", "The Gamester", and "The Ransom", Mr. and Mrs. James W. Wallack Jr. in "Macbeth" with guest actor James Stark, W. B. Chapman, James Robertson Anderson in "Othello" and "Romeo and Juliet". John Brougham's comedy, "Romance and Reality", starring the author, was a big hit and ran two weeks, as did John Collins, the Irish singer and actor. Professor Risley & Sons, a popular gymnastics act, was on the bill for two weeks in October.
Old Broadway Theatre | 1847–50
Retirement from all work was uncommon at that time. Shakespeare continued to visit London during the years 1611–1614. In 1612, he was called as a witness in "Bellott v Mountjoy", a court case concerning the marriage settlement of Mountjoy's daughter, Mary. In March 1613, he bought a gatehouse in the former Blackfriars priory; and from November 1614, he was in London for several weeks with his son-in-law, John Hall. After 1610, Shakespeare wrote fewer plays, and none are attributed to him after 1613. His last three plays were collaborations, probably with John Fletcher, who succeeded him as the house playwright of the King's Men.
William Shakespeare | Later years and death
He is the supposed author of: The dedication to Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, is signed 'W. C.' It is now attributed to William Covell. In this very curious and interesting work mention is made of our old English writers, 'sweet Shakespeare,' Harvey, Nash, and 'divine Spenser.' It has been said that this is the earliest known publication in which William Shakespeare's name is mentioned; but it occurs previously in the commendatory verses prefixed to "Willobie His Avisa," 1594.
William Clerke (writer) | Works
That the parts of young women were played by pre-adolescent boys in Shakespeare's day also cannot be overlooked and it is possible that Shakespeare had the physique of a young boy in mind during composition, in addition to the fact that Romeo and Juliet are of wealthy families and would be more likely to marry earlier than commoners. At the time, English noblewomen married on average at 19–21 years (compared to 24–26 years for English noblemen) while the average marriage age in England was 25–26 years for women and 27–28 for men; Sir Thomas More wrote in his "Utopia" that, in Utopia, women must be at least eighteen years of age when they marry and men at least 22 years.
Juliet | Juliet's age
"Shake-Speare", M. "Decker", & M. "Heywood", wishing what I write might be read in their light", here using the abbreviation "M." to denote "Master", a form of address properly used of William Shakespeare of Stratford, who was titled a gentleman.
Shakespeare authorship question | Recognition by fellow actors, playwrights and writers
Grammar schools varied in quality during the Elizabethan era, but grammar school curricula were largely similar: the basic Latin text was standardised by royal decree, and the school would have provided an intensive education in grammar based upon Latin classical authors. At the age of 18, Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway. The consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. The next day, two of Hathaway's neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded the marriage. The ceremony may have been arranged in some haste since the Worcester chancellor allowed the marriage banns to be read once instead of the usual three times, and six months after the marriage Anne gave birth to a daughter, Susanna, baptised 26 May 1583.
William Shakespeare | Early life
William Shakespeare was the eldest son of William and Barbara Shakespeare of Chadsworth, Barbourne, Worcester. He was educated at Worcester Royal Grammar School and joined the 1/8th Worcestershire Regiment (Territorial Force) at the commencement of World War I. He served with this unit at the front for over twelve months. He was given a commission and attached to the 6th Worcestershire Regiment, and afterwards transferred to the Royal Flying Corps .
William Harold Nelson Shakespeare | Early years
When Charles Lamb drew the public's attention to the best Elizabethan and Jacobean plays in his "Specimens of English Dramatic Poets Who Lived about the Time of Shakespeare" (1808) he included substantial extracts from "Old Fortunatus", and declared that the man who wrote it "had poetry enough for any thing." The first edition of the play for more than 200 years appeared in 1814, as part of C. W. Dilke's "Old English Plays". "Old Fortunatus" was acted at Covent Garden on eleven nights in 1819, with incidental music by Henry Bishop. The same year William Hazlitt delivered his "Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth", in which he spoke of "Old Fortunatus" as having "the idle garrulity of age, with the freshness and gaiety of youth still upon its cheek and in its heart." Later in the century James Russell Lowell called the play "a favourite of mine", while George Saintsbury wrote that it was "to the last degree crude and undigested, but the ill-matured power of the writer is almost the more apparent." The literary historian Adolphus William Ward balanced the work's vices and virtues: The construction of this drama is necessarily lax; the wild defiance of the unities of time and place accords well with the nature of the subject; but as the author seems so strongly impressed by the moral of his story, he ought not to have allowed the virtuous and the vicious son of Fortunatus to come alike to grief...Altogether this romantic comedy attracts by a singular vigour and freshness; but its principal charm lies in the appropriately "naif" treatment of its simple, not to say childlike, theme.
Old Fortunatus | Revival and critical reception
He was 80.
William Hanley | Life
William Henry Chippendale (14 August 1801 – 3 January 1888) was an English actor, known in particular for his portrayal of old men.
William Henry Chippendale | Introduction
The second, or "good", quarto of "Hamlet" (1604) also uses this spelling. It is also spelled this way on the misattributed quarto of "Sir John Oldcastle" (1600; 1619) and on the verse collection "The Passionate Pilgrim" (1599). Rarer spellings are "Shakspeare" on the first quarto of "King Lear" (1608), and "Shakeſpere", in the first quarto of "Love's Labour's Lost" (1598). On the misattributed quarto "A Yorkshire Tragedy" (1608) his name is spelled "Shakſpeare", a spelling that also appears on the quarto of "The Two Noble Kinsmen" (1634), which was published after the First Folio.
Spelling of Shakespeare's name | Printed spellings
This honorific was conventionally designated by the title "Master" or its abbreviations "Mr." or "M." prefixed to the name (though it was often used by principal citizens and to imply respect to men of stature in the community without designating exact social status). The title was included in many contemporary references to Shakespeare, including official and literary records, and identifies William Shakespeare of Stratford as the same William Shakespeare designated as the author. Examples from Shakespeare's lifetime include two official stationers' entries. One is dated 23 August 1600 and entered by Andrew Wise and William Aspley:
Shakespeare authorship question | Historical evidence
Fifty-eight quarto (or "Q") editions of Shakespeare's plays and five editions of poetry were published before the First Folio. On 20 of the plays, the author is not credited. On 15 title pages, his name is hyphenated, "Shakespeare", 13 of these spellings being on the title pages of just three plays, "Richard II" (Q2 1598, Q3 1598, Q4 1608, and Q5 1615), "Richard III" (Q2 1598, Q3 1602, Q4 1605, Q5 1612, and Q6 1622), and "Henry IV, Part 1" (Q2 1599, Q3 1604, Q4 1608, and Q5 1613). A hyphen is also present in the first quarto of "Hamlet" (1602) and the second of "King Lear" (1619).
Spelling of Shakespeare's name | Printed spellings
One of his brothers was the Shakespearean actor Robert Speaight, who paid for some of George's education at Haileybury. Like his older brother, George Speaight was a gifted and natural performer from a young age. Aged four years old his first role was as the Page in a family production of "Romeo and Juliet", and in 1921 he won an elocution prize for the Ghost's speech in "Hamlet". George Speaight was fascinated from his boyhood by toy theatres after his father bought him one from Benjamin Pollock's Toy Shop in Hoxton, and in the 1930s he professionally took up puppetry.
George Speaight | Early years
Though it was a popular success, "Barnavelt" was not published in the seventeenth century. It remained in manuscript until 1883, when Bullen included it in his "Old English Plays", Vol. 2. The manuscript is now in the collection of the British Museum, identified as Add. MS. 18653. It is a fair copy of the play text prepared by the professional scribe Ralph Crane, who worked repeatedly for the King's Men in the early seventeenth century and would prepare copy for some of Shakespeare's plays for the First Folio (1623). Crane's manuscript is of high quality, with full Act-and-scene divisions; it is marked by two other hands.
John van Olden Barnavelt | Manuscript
xix.) at Dulwich College, printed in Steevens's additions to Malone's ‘Historical Account,’ and in Collier's ‘English Dramatic Poetry.’ He almost certainly played the role of Juliet opposite the 28-year-old Richard Burbage in the first stage performances of "Romeo and Juliet" circa 1595.
Robert Gough (actor) | Biography
William Haviland (1856 – 19 September 1917) was a British actor-manager specialising in the works of Shakespeare who during his long stage career performed with some of the leading actors of his time including Henry Irving and Herbert Beerbohm Tree.
William Haviland (actor) | Introduction
In the 1930s Anderson researched the idea that William Shakespeare may have been written by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford and was a friend of John Thomas Looney
Donald Clive Anderson | Shakespeare
George Kittredge born in 1860, was nearly 80 years old when the first volumes of Kittredge Shakespeare were published in 1939. The original series included text and analysis of sixteen of Shakespeare's Plays. Kittredge, who had taught Harvard undergraduates an introductory course on Shakespeare called English 2, had written very little on the subject, other than an address in 1916 at the Sanders Theater, before publishing his "Complete Works" in 1936 (see below) and the individual play series, starting in 1939. The original series included an introduction to each play, text of the play, copious literary notes following the text, textual notes, and a glossary.
Kittredge Shakespeare | Original series
Thomas Fingal Healy, writing for "The American Mercury" in 1940, picked up the idea, claiming that many of the plays draw on Irish folklore. Shakespeare was forced to conceal his Irish background because the Irish were considered a "rebel race" by Queen Elizabeth. Healy found numerous references in the text of "Hamlet" to clothes which, he thought, showed that the Dane was based on a legendary Irish tailor called Howndale. The distinguished Meath historian Elizabeth Hickey writing under the pen name of Basil Iske, claimed in 1978 that she had identified the Irish Shakespeare as the rebel and adventurer William Nugent.
History of the Shakespeare authorship question | Non-English candidates
"Any dating of "Hamlet" must be tentative", cautions the "New Cambridge" editor, Phillip Edwards. The earliest date estimate relies on "Hamlet"s frequent allusions to Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar", itself dated to mid-1599. The latest date estimate is based on an entry, of 26 July 1602, in the Register of the Stationers' Company, indicating that "Hamlet" was "latelie Acted by the Lo: Chamberleyne his servantes". In 1598, Francis Meres published his "Palladis Tamia", a survey of English literature from Chaucer to its present day, within which twelve of Shakespeare's plays are named. "Hamlet" is not among them, suggesting that it had not yet been written.
Hamlet | Date
The Old Man is a 1931 mystery play by the British writer Edgar Wallace. Its original production was staged at Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End for a ninety performance run. It is set entirely in the "Coat of Arms" tavern where a mysterious old man lurks in the background, reputedly an escapee from a lunatic asylum. The original cast included Alfred Drayton, Jack Melford, Harold Warrender and Finlay Currie.
The Old Man (play) | Introduction
Wooland kept a herd of cows, each of which was named after a Shakespearean character. He died in 1989, aged 79.
Norman Wooland | Introduction
The Ur-Hamlet (the German prefix "Ur-" means "original") is a play by an unknown author, thought to be either Thomas Kyd or William Shakespeare. No copy of the play, dated by scholars to the second half of 1587, survives today. The play is known to have been staged in London, more specifically at The Burbages' Shoreditch Playhouse as recalled by Elizabethan author Thomas Lodge. The play is known to have a character named Hamlet; the only other known character from the play is a ghost who cries, "Hamlet, revenge!"
Ur-Hamlet | Introduction
Other Oxfordians say that de Vere's extant work is that of a young man and should be considered juvenilia, while May believes that all the evidence dates his surviving work to his early 20s and later.
Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship | Comparisons to Shakespeare's work
The reign of Elizabeth I in the late 16th and early 17th century saw a flowering of the drama and all the arts. Perhaps the most famous playwright in the world, William Shakespeare, wrote around 40 plays that are still performed in theatres across the world to this day. They include tragedies, such as "Hamlet" (1603), "Othello" (1604), and "King Lear" (1605); comedies, such as "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1594—96) and "Twelfth Night" (1602); and history plays, such as "Henry IV, part 1—2". The Elizabethan age is sometimes nicknamed "the age of Shakespeare" for the amount of influence he held over the era.
Theatre of the United Kingdom | Renaissance theatre: 1500–1660
However, according to Samuel Schoenbaum, since Aubrey's comment was unpublished, the existence of some other sources saying the same thing suggests that the story that "Sir William was more than Shakespeare's mere poetical offspring was common in Davenant's lifetime." In 1618, after Shakespeare's death, the 12-year-old Davenant wrote an ode "". He attended Lincoln College, Oxford, for a while in about 1620, but left before gaining any degree, becoming a page to the Duchess of Richmond. In London in 1630, he contracted a venereal disease, and was given a syphilis treatment by Thomas Cademan. As a convalescent, he left for the country in 1632 for a time.
William Davenant | Early life
Oxfordians think that the phrase "our ever-living Poet" (an epithet that commonly eulogised a deceased poet as having attained immortal literary fame), included in the dedication to Shakespeare's sonnets that were published in 1609, was a signal that the true poet had died by then. Oxford had died in 1604, five years earlier. Shakespeare's funerary monument in Stratford consists of a demi-figure effigy of him with pen in hand and an attached plaque praising his abilities as a writer. The earliest printed image of the figure, in Sir William Dugdale's "Antiquities of Warwickshire" (1656), differs greatly from its present appearance.
Shakespeare authorship question | Circumstances of Shakespeare's death
Scholars believe that as a result of these events William Shakespeare altered his will to favour his other daughter, Susanna Hall, and excluded Quiney from his inheritance. Judith and Thomas had three children: Shakespeare, Richard, and Thomas. Shakespeare Quiney died at six months of age, and neither Richard nor Thomas lived past 21. The death of Judith's last child led to legal wrangling over William Shakespeare's will that lasted until 1652. Scholars speculate that Thomas Quiney may have died in 1662 or 1663 when the burial records are incomplete.
Thomas Quiney | Introduction
He discerned close affinities between the poetry of Oxford and that of Shakespeare in the use of motifs and subjects, phrasing, and rhetorical devices, which led him to identify Oxford as the author. After his "Shakespeare Identified" was published in 1920, Oxford replaced Bacon as the most popular alternative candidate.
Shakespeare authorship question | Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford
Sir Thomas William Shakespeare, 3rd Baronet (born 11 May 1966), better known as Tom Shakespeare, is an English sociologist and broadcaster. He has achondroplasia and uses a wheelchair.
Tom Shakespeare | Introduction
The "W. S." of the quartos was first identified as William Shakespeare when publisher Philip Chetwinde added the play to the second impression of his Shakespeare Third Folio in 1664. Modern scholars reject the Shakespearean attribution; speculation, relying on common initials, has shone on Wentworth Smith and William Sly as possible alternatives. Individual critics have also suggested Thomas Heywood and Michael Drayton as possible authors—suggestions unsupported by firm evidence.
Thomas Lord Cromwell | Introduction
An Age of Kings is a fifteen-part serial adaptation of the eight sequential history plays of William Shakespeare ("Richard II", "1 Henry IV", "2 Henry IV", "Henry V", "1 Henry VI", "2 Henry VI", "3 Henry VI" and "Richard III"), produced by the BBC in 1960. At the time, the show was the most ambitious Shakespearean television adaptation ever made, and was a critical and commercial success in both the UK and the US.
An Age of Kings | Introduction
As with Acting Shakespeare he toured around England, Europe and America to great acclaim. A predecessor of this show's format was John Gielgud's "The Ages of Man", which consisted of Gielgud in front of an audience with a mixture of both speeches and anecdotes.
Acting Shakespeare | Introduction
The title is taken from the St Crispin's Day Speech by King Henry in Act IV, Scene 3 of Shakespeare's "Henry V": Despite the title, Cooper was in his early sixties when he wrote the book, having retired from public life in 1947 at the age of fifty-seven. The publisher Rupert Hart-Davis, who was Cooper's nephew, published the first edition in November 1953. The book covers Cooper's early years – his schooldays at Eton, studies and socialising at Oxford – followed by his army service in the First World War, in which he fought in the trenches and was one of the few members of his intimate circle to survive the war.
Old Men Forget | Publishing history, content and reception