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- Shakespeare's Life- Extra Credit
-
- William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564. He was baptized on April 24,
- 1564, in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. He was the third of eight children born to
- John Shakespeare and Mary Arden. John was a well-known merchant and Mary was the
- daughter of a Roman Catholic member of the gentry. Shakespeare was educated at the
- local grammar school. According to history, Shakespeare was the eldest son, and he
- should have been the apprentice to his father's shop so that he could be taught everything
- his father knew and soon take over the business. But instead he was the apprentice to a
- butcher because of the trouble in his father's financial situation. Another story says that
- Shakespeare became a schoolmaster.
- Shakespeare was allowed a lot of free time when he was young. This was suggested
- by historians that his plays show more ideas of hunting and hawking than do those of other
- play writers. In 1582 he married Anne Hathaway, the daughter of a farmer. He was
- thought to have left Stratford after he was caught poaching in the deer park of Sir Thomas
- Lucy. he was a local justice of the peace. Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway had a
- daughter in 1583 and twins- a boy and a girl- in 1585. The boy however, eventually did
- not live.
- Shakespeare apparently arrived in London around 1588 and by 1592 had gained
- success as an actor and a playwright. Shortly after that, he secured the business of Henry
- Wriothesley, 3rd earl of Southampton. The publication of Shakespeare's two poems
- Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594) and some of his Sonnets
- (published 1609), established a reputation for him as a talented and popular Renaissance
- poet. The Sonnets describe the devotion of a character to a young man whose beauty and
- charm he praises and to a mysterious and untrue woman with whom the poet is afraid.
- The following triangular situation, resulting from the attraction of the poet's friend to the
- woman, is treated with passionate intensity and psychological insight. However,
- Shakespeare's modern reputation is based mainly on the 38 plays that he wrote, modified,
- and collaborated on. When in his days, these plays frequently had little respect by his
- educated friends, who considered English plays of their own to be only tasteless
- entertainment.
- Shakespeare's professional life in London was marked by a number of financially
- beneficial arrangements that allowed him to share in the profits of his acting company, the
- Chamberlain's Men, later called the King's Men. The acting company had two theaters,
- the Globe Theatre and the Blackfriars. His plays were given special presentation at the
- courts of Queen Elizabeth I and King James I more frequently than those of any other
- coexistent writer. It was known that he risked losing royal favor only once, in 1599, when
- his company performed ôthe play of the deposing and killing of King Richard IIö at the
- request of a group of conspirators against Elizabeth. They were led by Elizabeth's
- unsuccessful court favorite, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and by the earl of
- Southampton. In the later study, Shakespeare's company was cleared of dealing with the
- conspiracy.
- After 1608, Shakespeare's dramatic production lessened and it seemed that he spent
- more time in Stratford. There he had secure family in an wealthy house called New Place.
- Shakespeare had become a leading local citizen. He died on April 23, 1616, and was
- buried in the Stratford church.
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