Hello, and welcome to my page of our glorious Elizabethan Quintet Website!
Hello, and welcome to my page of our glorious Elizabethan Quintet Website!
Do you know anything about William Shakespeare? You probably know that he was the most famous playwright of his time, or that he wrote a lot of plays, poems, and sonnets.
I will bet that you didn't know that William Shakespeare was born in 1564, on April 23rd in the sixth year of Queen Elizabeth's reign. His father, John Shakespeare, was a merchant who married Mary Arden, of a slightly higher social class. William was the third child of eight. William Shakespeare grew up on Henley Street in Stratford-on-Avon.
At the age of eighteen, William married a beautiful young lady byt he name of Ann Hathaway, who was eight years older. They had three children, Susanna and the twins, Hamnet and Judith, named after Shakespeare's close friends, Hamnet and Judith Sadler. In 1596, Hamnet died at the age of eleven.
When William started acting in the company of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, Shakespeare and his fellow actors became very well known for the plays they acted out, which were mainly Shakespeare's work. The Queen of England wouldn't allow any play to be published without her seeing it first, and so Shakespeare became her favorite playwright. Robert Greene, William Shakespeare's biggest critic, called Shakespeare "an upstart crow." (Durant) The Queen renamed Shakespeare's company to that of The King's Men.
When William first started to act, the literature was that of The Comedy of Errors, and many more. Some of the actors in his company were the famouse tragedian, Richard Burbage, and also the famous "clown", Will Kempe. Richard Burbage played Hamlet, Othello, Lear, and many more. James Burbage, Richard's father, got a twenty-one year lease and permission to build a theatre. (Gray and DISCovery Biography)
William Shakespeare has six surviving signatures that all read differently. Shakespeare was believed to have go to school where the main thing taught was Latin. His father got sick and Shakespeare left school to go help out at home. From the ages of twenty-one to twenty-eight, there is no record of Shakespeare's life. These are called the Lost Years.
In 1613, William retired and grew ill. Over a three year period, Shakespeare got worse. He revised his will, leaving the second best bed to his wife and enough money to buy the members of the acting company a gold ring. The reason for leaving the second best bed to his wife is because women couldn't inherit money or property. On April 23, 1616, William died and was buried at the Holy Trinity Church. On his tombstone he had printed that if anyone distrurbed his bones, he would haunt them for a long time.
So, did you learn anything new?
