Life of Mr W. Shakespeare

The Life Shakey-spear

Who are you?
Shakespeare's birth date is still unknown but the date of his Baptism is recorded, as the 26th of April 1564. The son of a glover, alderman (states man who would create laws observed by the public) and later even Bailiff, the third of 8 children William grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon though his upbringing remains quite ambiguous as very few records have remained in the position of biographers. According to BBC iWonder, Shakespeare's parents were Catholics at the turn of Elizabeth I, and as mentioned on my previous post, this was still a time of some tension between the old church (Catholics) and the new church (Protestants) these tensions even made it into some of his work. For 7 years Shakespeare went unrecorded and somewhere along that time


Family Matters, relationships,

Shakespeare was quickly wed at 18 to Anne Hathaway (8 years his senior) who at the time was pregnant as she gave birth to their first of 3 children within 6 months after the papers of their marriage were signed. The next information gathered were the births of his twin daughters which was recorded in their birth certificates and the baptisms of the children. Much after that there is a black hole in time where for 7 years there are no surviving recodes of Shakespeare's life.
It seemed as though Shakespeare lived a very estranged from his wife for the majority of his life due to the fact he was mostly in London making plays and constructing performances instead of being at home with his children.

world that he lived in,
Shakespeare spent the rest of his life in London surrounded by many creative's and criminals in what was the most thriving and lively part of England during the Elizabethan period. By 1592 he was a well known actor in London. Shakespeare lived in a time where women were barely educated and went to school only until they were to be wed, or left normal school to go to preparatory schools. Yet surprisingly Shakespeare depicts a lot of his female characters writing letters and reading though this was not the world he lived in. I find that in the context of the play we are currently performing "Loves Labours Lost" the women in the play are allowed and even encouraged to be as smart or even smarter than their male counterparts, a boundary Shakespeare fully and continuously pushed. Though we must take into consideration the female parts were still played by men.

questions surrounding his work
The first appearance of Shakespeare back on the radar was many years after his departure from his family and his writing career was already on foot, it was in the review of a critical theatre goer Robert Greene. The critic slated the work of Shakespeare stating that his work was over ambitious and foolish. Another question surrounding the work of Shakespeare is whether or not he actually wrote his plays. It has been argued that the characterisation and depiction of characters belonging to the upper echelons of society were too vivid and realistic to be written by someone of such low class. Though it must be considered that within London Shakespeare had the opportunity to talk and associate with the richest and the poorest, so his detail may in fact have just been part imagination and part conversation with the people who belonged to the upper classes he depicts in his various plays. Due to the fact writing plays was seen as a base and degrading occupation other writers would write the plays under a pseudo-name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare
http://www.bbc.co.uk/timelines/z8k2p39
http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/gallery/2016/mar/20/how-william-shakespeare-changed-the-way-you-talk
http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/uploads/files/2014/06/william_shakespeare.pdf
https://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/pseudosc/hidncode.htm
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/faq/playsfaq.html
http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~sflores/345world.html