William Shakespeare Biography

William Shakespeare is considered to be a playwright, poet and actor par excellence. Shakespeare's works have been interpreted over the ages by different people differently. Shakespeare's works have given rise to countless movie plots and sub plots. The Bard as he is better known as, has also contributed to our lexicon by adding phrases such as "in the limelight".

Shakespeare's history is very controversial because there is a certain school of thought that says that he was not a very ethical person. Stories of Shakespeare plagiarizing works of other playwrights and passing them off as his own abound. Most of the knowledge of his life comes from registrar records, court records, wills, marriage certificates and his tombstone.

William was the third child of John and Mary Shakespeare born, some time in late April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. The first two were daughters and William was himself followed by Gilbert who died in 1612 and Richard who died in 1613. Of William's seven siblings, only Judith and four of his brothers survived to adulthood.

His father was a prominent and prosperous alderman in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, and was later granted a coat of arms by the College of Heralds. It is speculated that Shakespeare attended the Stratford Grammar School in his youth, and did not proceed to Oxford or Cambridge.

The Bard's reputation as a poet is confirmed in 1598, when Francis Meres attacked him as being "mellifluous" and described his work as honey-tongued, "sugared sonnets among his private friends" in his own Palladis Tamia of 1598. The earliest proof that William did indeed write 37 plays was Robert Greene?s criticism of the Bard in his Groatsworth of Wit. Bought with a Million of Repentance which attacked Shakespeare for having the nerve to compete with him and other playwrights in 1592. Robert Greene made this quite clear by calling him "an upstart crow". This criticism was placed with the Stationer's Registrar on the 20th of September, 1592.

The proof most often cited that Shakespeare authored his plays however, was the First Folio (1623) where Henry Condell and John Hemminges who were actors in the Bard's theatre company, claim in a dedicatory verse within the Folio that they recorded and collected his plays as a memorial to the late actor and playwright. William Shakespeare's theatre presence is given concrete form by his name being recorded as one of the major shareholders of the Globe theatre.

In 1594 William Shakespeare acted in front of Queen Elizabeth. Evidence of William's interest in theatre comes from the Bard's name being listed in 1594 and 1595 as a shareholder of the Lord Chamberlain's Company, a theatre company.

In 1603, he received a patent, titling him as one of the King's Men and a Groom of the Chamber by James I, the then King of England. This honour made William a favorite for all court performances, earned each King's man extra money and made the Bard's name one rather above reproach. Macbeth which celebrates King James I ancestor Malcolm, is considered to have been written in part as appreciation for the King's patronage. There were also rumors that Macbeth was nothing but an insidious form of propaganda for the King.

The periods between 1578-82 and 1585-92 are referred to as the lost years because very little is known about Shakespeare's life during these two major spans of time, The first period covers the time after Shakespeare left grammar school until his marriage to Anne Hathaway in November of 1582. The second period covers the seven years of Shakespeare's life in which he must have been perfecting his dramatic skills and collecting sources for the plots of his plays.

William's first child, Susanna was baptized in Stratford sometime in May, 1583. Twins Hamnet and Judith were born to Anne in February 1592. Hamnet, William's only son died in 1596, just eleven years old. Hamnet and Judith were named after William's close friends, Judith and Hamnet Sadler. William Shakespeare's family was uncharacteristically small when compared to other families during those times.

In 1609, William Shakespeare's sonnets were published without the Bard's permission. It is considered unlikely that William wanted many of his deeply personal poems to be revealed to the outside world. Shakespeare revised his will on March the 25th, 1616. Less than a month later, he died on April the 23rd, 1616. He famously l left his second-best bed to his wife. The logic for this was that Shakespeare's best bed was for guests; his second-best bed was his marriage bed. Most of his assets were left behind for his daughter and her physician husband.

Written upon William Shakespeare's tombstone is an appeal that he be left to rest in peace with a curse on those who would move his bones...

Good friend, for Jesus's sake, forbear

To dig the dust enclosed here;

Blest be the man that spares these stones

And curst he that moves my bones.