Shakespear 2

WEEK 2 - SHAKESPEARE’S LIFE AND BIOGRAPHY

RESEARCH: Research Shakespeare’s life, ensuring you include information about his origins, family, relationships, the world he lived in and questions surrounding his work. 

Websites i used to help me gain information to answer this question- 
http://www.folger.edu/shakespeares-life

Who was William Shakespeare? 

William Shakespeare (26 April 1564 (baptised) – 23 April 1616) was an English poet, playwright, and actor, 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".

When did Shakespeare live? 

William Shakespeare was most likely born on about April 23, 1564, the date that is traditionally given for his birth. He was John and Mary Shakespeare's oldest surviving child; their first two children, both girls, did not live beyond infancy. Growing up as the eldest brother of the family, William had three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard, and Edmund, and two younger sisters: Anne, who died at seven, and Joan.

Their father, John Shakespeare, was a leatherworker who specialized in the soft white leather used for gloves and similar items.He married Mary Arden.Shakespeare, as the son of a leading Stratford citizen, attended Stratford's grammar school.Its curriculum consisted of an intense emphasis on the Latin classics, including memorization, writing, and acting classic Latin plays. Shakespeare most likely attended until about age 15.Shakespeare lived through an outbreak of the bubonic plague in London (1524-94) and 1609. The plague also came to Stratford, when Shakespeare was just 3 months old

A few years after he left school, in 1582, William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway. She was already expecting their first-born child, Susanna, which was a fairly common situation at the time. When they married, Anne was 26 and William was 18. Anne grew up just outside Stratford in the village of Shottery. After marrying, she spent the rest of her life in Stratford.
In early 1585, the couple had twins, Judith and Hamnet, completing the family. In the years ahead, Anne and the children lived in Stratford while Shakespeare worked in London, although we don't know when he moved there. Some later observers have suggested that this separation, and the couple's relatively few children, were signs of a strained marriage. If you were pursuing a theater career you had no choice but to work in London, and many branches of the Shakespeares had small families.
Shakespeare's only son, Hamnet, died in 1596 at the age of 11. His older daughter Susanna later married a well-to-do Stratford doctor, John Hall. Their daughter Elizabeth, Shakespeare's first grandchild, was born in 1608. In 1616, just months before his death, Shakespeare's daughter Judith married Thomas Quiney, a Stratford vintner. The family subsequently died out, leaving no direct descendants of Shakespeare.

His first published play was henry VI which appeared in 1594, he wrote a total number of plays equating to 38 and 154 sonnets, he wrote many different poems. Shakespeare worked as an actor, writer and co-owner of a drama company called the ‘Lord Chamberlain’s Men’- Later known as the King’s Men.His greatest plays include Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet.The first publishing of Shakespeare’s works is the ‘First Folio’ published in 1623.

Early praise for Shakespeare came from writers such as Ben Johnson. Jonson said Shakespeare was the – “Soul of the age, the applause, delight, the wonder of our stage”Shakespeare acted in many of his plays he was acquainted with queen Elizabeth I. After she died  Shakespeare’s company was awarded a royal patent by the new King James I.Shakespeare is often referred to as Elizabethan playwright, but most of his players were written in the Jacobean period.In 1599, the company built their own theatre, The Globe on the south banks of the River Thames. 

Many of Shakespeare’s plays were based on historical accounts, dramatised by Shakespeare. He also dramatised stories from classical writers such as Plutarch and Holinshed.Hamlet was based on a well known Scandinavian legend called -Amleth