Biography of william shakespeare as a poetics
•
William Shakespeare
read more about his influence
William Shakespeare was born on April 23, , in Stratford-upon-Avon. The son of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden, he was probably educated at the King Edward VI Grammar School in Stratford, where he learned Latin and a little Greek and read the Roman dramatists. At eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, a woman seven or eight years his senior. tillsammans, they raised two daughters: Susanna, who was born in , and Judith (whose twin brother died in boyhood), born in
Little is known about Shakespeare’s activities between and Robert Greene’s A Groatsworth of Wit alludes to him as an actor and playwright. Shakespeare may have taught at school during this period, but it seems more probable that shortly after he went to London to begin his apprenticeship as an actor. Due to the plague, the London theaters were often closed between June and April During that period, Shakespeare probably had some income from his patron, Henry Wriothesley, e
•
Shakespeare’s Childhood and Family Life
William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, a bustling market town miles northwest of London, and baptized there on April 26, His birthday is traditionally celebrated on April 23, which was the date of his death in and is the feast day of St. George, the patron saint of England. Shakespeare’s father, John, dabbled in farming, wood trading, tanning, leatherwork, money lending and other occupations; he also held a series of municipal positions before falling into debt in the late s. The ambitious son of a tenant farmer, John boosted his social status by marrying Mary Arden, the daughter of an aristocratic landowner. Like John, she may have been a practicing Catholic at a time when those who rejected the newly established Church of England faced persecution.
Did you know? Sources from William Shakespeare's lifetime spell his gods name in more than 80 different ways, ranging from “Shappere” to “Shaxberd.” In the handful of signatures
•
Shakespeare's Life: From the Folger Shakespeare Editions
Listen to this essay:
Surviving documents that give us glimpses into the life of William Shakespeare show us a playwright, poet, and actor who grew up in the market town of Stratford-upon-Avon, spent his professional life in London, and returned to Stratford a wealthy landowner. He was born in April , died in April , and is buried inside the chancel of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford.
We wish we could know more about the life of the world’s greatest dramatist. His plays and poems are testaments to his wide reading—especially to his knowledge of Virgil, Ovid, Plutarch, Holinshed’s Chronicles, and the Bible—and to his mastery of the English language, but we can only speculate about his education. We know that the King’s New School in Stratford-upon-Avon was considered excellent. The school was one of the English “grammar schools” established to educate young men, primarily in Latin grammar and literature. As in ot