Thirdly, I shall ask what we can deduce about his personality from the body of work in which he seems to write most directly about himself, his sonnets. And finally I shall ask what made him laugh. First, then, how can we hope to know what he was like? Biographical studies of Shakespeare vary in the degree to which they attempt to dig below the surface to interpret the facts of his life in search of the inner man.
Some accounts are pretty well wholly objective. I think for example of E. In her view, the adjective as applied to his character is undeserved. There have also been attempts — less fashionable now than previously - to apply the techniques of psychoanalysis to Shakespeare through interpretation of both the life-records and the works. For all its intellectual sophistication, such work has to negotiate two difficult obstacles. But that supposed financial decline is imperfectly documented and has indeed been disputed in a study by David Fallow.
I should be surprised if all this money came from his theatrical earnings. To give an example close to home — in more than one sense — there is a speech in Henry IV Part Two act one, scene three written about the time that Shakespeare was buying and, there is reason to believe, renovating New Place in which it is tempting to suppose that he was drawing on recent personal experience:. When we mean to build We first survey the plot, then draw the model; And when we see the figure of the house, Then must we rate the cost of the erection, Which if we find outweighs ability, What do we then but draw anew the model In fewer offices, or, at least, desist To build at all?
The temptation may dwindle, however, when we find that the lines paraphrase quite closely the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders in St.
To start with, these absences are not total. We have expressions of opinion about him from contemporaries. Shakespeare's] demeanour no lesse civill than he [is] exelent in the qualitie he professes, besides divers of worship have reported his uprightnes of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing that approves his art.
People liked him. Heminges and Condell, in their dedication to the Folio, also write of his personality. Of course they are not writing on oath, but the amount of effort that Heminges and Condell, actors by profession and amateurs in the art of editing, put into compiling the volume is itself a testimony to their affection for the man who left money for them — along with Richard Burbage, who had died before the Folio went to press - to buy mourning rings.
Jonson says:. I loved the man, and do honour his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was indeed honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometime it was necessary he should be stopped. His wit was in his own power: would the rule of it had been so too.
But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned. Most of his fellow playwrights, unlike him, spent time in prison for a variety of offences — Marlowe for, among other crimes, suspected murder; Jonson for killing a man in a duel; Dekker on numerous occasions for debt.
Shakespeare seems to have had two brushes with the law. We should like to know more about it. The second which includes a third brush with the law names him as having defaulted on tax payments in both September and October There are no records of prosecutions.
Shakespeare on those two occasions was probably simply living away from Bishopsgate — in Stratford-upon-Avon, moving into New Place, and overseeing its renovations. We have evidence of varying degrees of reliability about what Shakespeare looked like. Would Twitter beefs between Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe trend? A law student wrote in his diary that Richard Burbage, one of the most famous actors of his day, arranged a rendezvous with a female admirer who told him to announce himself at her door as Richard III his most famous role and she would let him in.
This tantalizing glimpse of Shakespeare as both a real-life wit and subject of gossip is the rare appearance of Shakespeare as a public person. Click here to cancel reply.
Hamnet later died of unknown causes at age There are seven years of Shakespeare's life where no records exist after the birth of his twins in Scholars call this period the "lost years," and there is wide speculation on what he was doing during this period. One theory is that he might have gone into hiding for poaching game from the local landlord, Sir Thomas Lucy. Another possibility is that he might have been working as an assistant schoolmaster in Lancashire.
It's generally believed he arrived in London in the mid- to late s and may have found work as a horse attendant at some of London's finer theaters, a scenario updated centuries later by the countless aspiring actors and playwrights in Hollywood and Broadway. By the early s, documents show Shakespeare was a managing partner in the Lord Chamberlain's Men, an acting company in London with which he was connected for most of his career.
Considered the most important troupe of its time, the company changed its name to the King's Men following the crowning of King James I in From all accounts, the King's Men company was very popular. Records show that Shakespeare had works published and sold as popular literature.
Although the theater culture in 16th century England was not highly admired by people of high rank, some of the nobility were good patrons of the performing arts and friends of the actors.
By , there is evidence Shakespeare earned a living as an actor and a playwright in London and possibly had several plays produced.
The September 20, edition of the Stationers' Register a guild publication includes an article by London playwright Robert Greene that takes a few jabs at Shakespeare: " There is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country," Greene wrote of Shakespeare.
Scholars differ on the interpretation of this criticism, but most agree that it was Greene's way of saying Shakespeare was reaching above his rank, trying to match better known and educated playwrights like Christopher Marlowe , Thomas Nashe or Greene himself. Early in his career, Shakespeare was able to attract the attention of Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, to whom he dedicated his first and second published poems: "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece" By , Shakespeare had already written and published 15 of his 37 plays.
Civil records show that at this time he purchased the second-largest house in Stratford, called New House, for his family. It was a four-day ride by horse from Stratford to London, so it's believed that Shakespeare spent most of his time in the city writing and acting and came home once a year during the day Lenten period, when the theaters were closed.
By , Shakespeare and his business partners built their own theater on the south bank of the Thames River, which they called the Globe Theater. In , Shakespeare purchased leases of real estate near Stratford for pounds, which doubled in value and earned him 60 pounds a year. This made him an entrepreneur as well as an artist, and scholars believe these investments gave him the time to write his plays uninterrupted.
Shakespeare's early plays were written in the conventional style of the day, with elaborate metaphors and rhetorical phrases that didn't always align naturally with the story's plot or characters.
However, Shakespeare was very innovative, adapting the traditional style to his own purposes and creating a freer flow of words. With only small degrees of variation, Shakespeare primarily used a metrical pattern consisting of lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter, or blank verse, to compose his plays. At the same time, there are passages in all the plays that deviate from this and use forms of poetry or simple prose. One hundred twenty years later, the highly adaptable species has taken over the skies, becoming invasive and driving some native birds to the brink of extinction.
How did a provincial commoner who had never gone to college or ventured outside Stratford become one of the most prolific, worldly and eloquent writers in history? Even early in his career, Shakespeare was spinning tales that displayed in-depth knowledge of international affairs, European capitals and history, as well as familiarity with the royal court and high society. For this reason, some theorists have suggested that one or several authors wishing to conceal their true identity used the person of William Shakespeare as a front.
Most scholars and literary historians remain skeptical about this hypothesis, although many suspect Shakespeare sometimes collaborated with other playwrights. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!
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