Week Two- Shakespeare's life and biography.

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. 

William Shakespeare was baptised in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26th, 1564. His exact birthdates is unknown due to him living 400 years ago however it is thought he was actually born April 23rd. His parents were named john and Mary Shakespeare he was the oldest to His siblings Gilbert, Richard, Edmund, Anne, who died at seven, and Joan.
He came from a wealthy household with his father being a wealthy businessman and also town bailiff. His life was not necessarily easy though due to the fact his two older sister had died in infancy, deaths in childhood were common in the Elizabethan era especially due to the spread of the bubonic plague which had killed 1/5 of Stratford’s population This means he was most likely educated at the local grammar school where he studied Latin plays until around the age of 15 meaning he had a much higher education than most of the people living in England at that time.  

Shakespeare married at 18 to a woman named Anne Hathaway, who was 26 at the time and pregnant with his child, Susanna, this is likely the reason they married as having a child out of wedlock was highly frowned upon at the time. They then had a further two children together in 1585 named Judith and hamnet, hamnet however died at 11 in 1596. Some people might suggest that Shakespeare and Anne had a strained relationship due to the amount of time Shakespeare spent away from home in London and the fact they had a relatively small amount of children in comparison to other families of this time. Due to the small amount of children he had his direct family and any family links we would have today do not exist and the family died out. His family life doesn’t have much mention is his  life so we don’t know much more about it.

Anne Hathaway and william shakespeare 

After Shakespeare having a family not much is defiantly know about what he did for a living or how he ended up writing theatre, the next first definite mention of him was in 1592 when he was mocked by an established playwright. After this we have records of him being an actor and playwright in London for two decades. He also had a business partnership with The Lord’s Chamberlains Men – a major acting company. It was clear he was well known as his name was used as a selling point as he was established as a writer and people knew his work would be good.

He gained financially from his partnership with The Lord Chamberlains Men; his wealth shows as he went on to buy the second largest house in the town of Stratford the new palace in 1597. He wrote his final plays around 1613 and then died on April 23^rd 1616 after having been gradually getting older. It is speculated however that he died of an infectious disease as his brother in law had died the week prior to Shakespeare’s death. He was buried in the holy trinity church in Stratford-upon-Avon.