Who was William Shakespeare?
A lot of his life is a mystery.
Shakespeare is one of the most famous writers in the world.
He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon (England) in 1564 and he was baptised on 26 April. He died in Stratford in 1616.
It is possible to visit the house where he was born and his school.
His 37 plays are regularly produced, and almost 1,000 films have been based on them.
He wrote many classic plays like Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, or Henry V.
Shakespeare’s father John made gloves. He worked at home, using human and animal urine to prepare the animal skins for the gloves!
He had social status: he became mayor of Stratford. But when William was 14, his father had financial problems and William had to leave school.
We know William married at age 18, in 1582. Anne Hathaway was 26 and their first child was born just six months after their marriage. They then had twins but one, a boy called Hammet, died aged 11.
Mystery
Shakespeare’s life from 1585 till 1592 is a total mystery. We just know that in 1592 he was an actor and playwright in London, and soon his plays were very successful.
Plays were popular in Shakespeare’s time – all classes of society went to the theatre. Shakespeare became rich. In 1596, he bought the biggest house in Stratford.
We don’t have a lot of information about Shakespeare’s life, but we have his plays. That is very unusual for plays from the Elizabethan era.
Seven years after Shakespeare died, his actor friends published all his plays in one book. That is why we have the original texts today.
William Shakespeare wrote comedies, tragedies and history plays.
There are ten history plays that tell the stories of the kings of England in the years before the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, the monarch in Shakespeare’s time. History is written by the victors, and the plays generally present the Tudor kings, Elizabeth’s ancestors, as the heroes.
Some of the tragedies are also about historical figures like Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, or Macbeth, King of Scotland. That play is considered unlucky by actors – apparently an actor died the first time it was performed. It is considered very unlucky to say “Macbeth” in a theatre (except in a performance), and actors call it “That Scottish Play”.
One of the most famous Shakespearean scenes is in Hamlet, when Hamlet is in a cemetery and picks up a skull. He addresses the skull (of a friend called Yorick), in a soliloquy: “Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him, Horatio...” Recent productions of the play at the Royal Shakespeare Company theatre in Stratford have used a real skull for the scene.
A Polish pianist, André Tchaikowsky, left his skull to the company when he died, so he could participate in the play!
About half of Shakespeare’s plays were published when he was alive. This was a new practice. Until that time, plays usually only existed in one manuscript copy. Actors learned large quantities of dialogue by heart and the companies presented several plays a month. Today, most Elizabethan plays are totally forgotten. Seven years after Shakespeare died, his actor friends published all his plays in one book, the First Folio. That is why we have the original texts today.
