Facts about William Shakespeare

The exact date of William Shakespeare’s birth is unknown. Parish records show he was baptized on April 26th, 1564, so it is assumed that he was born three days earlier, on April 23rd, 1564.

Presumably, he was the son of Richard Shakespeare of Snitterfield, who received a land grant for his service to King Henry VII. John was a master of the glovers’ guild, a town councilor since 1564, and High Steward of Stratford since 1568 - the town was then a thriving center of the leather industry.

There was a document, found in the 18th century in the attic of one of the Henley Street buildings, in which John Shakespeare pledged he would always remain a Catholic. Researcher Edmund Malone described the document, but since it has disappeared, no one can verify its authenticity.

Mary Arden was the youngest of eight siblings. Her father, Robert Arden, was a landowner in Snitterfield. After her father’s death, Mary inherited part of his vast estate.

In 16th-century England, this type of marriage was not uncommon.

He had three brothers (Gilbert, 1566 - 1611, Richard, 1574 - 1612, and Edmund, 1580 - 1607), and four sisters (Joan, 1558, who died two months after birth, Margaret, 1562 - 1563, Joan, 1569 - 1646 and Anne, 1571 - 1579); he was born as the third child, after Joan and Margaret.

Raised a Catholic, he was very familiar with the Bible. As a city councilman’s son, he did not have to pay the tuition. He had to suspend his education because of his father’s financial troubles related to the illegal wool trade (harassed by creditors and lawsuits; he divested himself of his assets and then resigned from public office). There is no record that William continued his education afterward.

They had three children, a daughter Susanna, born in 1583, and twins Hamnet and Judith, born in 1585. Hamnet and Judith were baptized at Holy Trinity Church on February 2nd, 1585. They are believed to owe their names to Hamnet Sadler, a baker who was a witness to Shakespeare’s will, and his wife, Judith. Shakespeare’s son Hamnet died at 11.

He lived and worked in London, while Anne stayed in Stratford. Many researchers also believe that she was the prototype of the antagonist of a play called “Taming of the Shrew.”

In a persistent and long-repeated legend, it is maintained that he had to flee his hometown in fear of Sir Thomas Lucy - a Member of Parliament and Justice of the Peace - from whom he stole a deer. Biographers believe he then worked as a tutor and secretary and performed in court plays. It allowed him to broaden his horizons, meet new people, and win over wealthy patrons. In addition, it probably introduced him to the secrets of theatrical art. At that time, Stratford City councilors financed amateur theatrical performances on Pentecost. It was probably then that Shakespeare had his first opportunity to perform on stage, and witnessed performances by itinerant theater troupes that visited Stratford. Between December 1586 and December 1587, at least five theater troupes performed in Stratford.

The author criticized Shakespeare, accused him of plagiarism, and claimed that Shakespeare was just an actor who “dares to write plays.” Greene alluded to someone who, in his mind, is “in his own conceit, the only Shake-scene in a country.” The reference implies that Shakespeare was already writing plays before 1592.

Because of the outbreak of an epidemic in London, the city authorities banned “plays, bears and bulls training, games of marbles and any other activities that cause people to gather (except for sermons and church services).” As a result, theaters did not open until the fall of 1594.

Besides writing the texts of new plays for Lord Chamberlain’s Troupe, he handled the group’s finances and played minor roles in plays. He soon became co-owner of the theater and its chief playwright. He was a superb organizer and won over a wealthy patron, King James I. He was associated with this theater until the end of his acting career.

It began its fall activities with Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar.” Seats were on three floors. The theater could accommodate 3,000 spectators. The actors were only men. Above the entrance was the inscription “Totus Mundus agit histrionem”, meaning all the world’s a stage. Although the theater burned down in a fire in 1613, it was rebuilt a year later.

He made a profit from writing and acting, was a shareholder of a thriving theater, and was also active in the Blackfriars Theatre, built in 1596, one of whose buildings was owned by Lord Chamberlain’s troupe. In 1597 he bought New Place, built in 1483, the second largest house in Stratford, and the only one in the city built of stone. Around 1602, he bought 200 acres of land. In 1605, for the price of £40, he bought cannons owned by Stratford Church. Part of his wealth probably came from usury, some through lawsuits he brought against his debtors (some sources claim Shakespeare would sue for any amount, even a small one). In addition, he bequeathed to his daughter Judith £300, which was a significant amount.

He died on his 52nd birthday. Many researchers believe this is a myth, but church records show he was buried in his hometown of Stratford, in the apse of Trinity Church, on April 25, 1616. 200,000 tourists visit the church each year.

It is impossible to determine the order in which Shakespeare’s works were written. It was feared that the audience would not come to the theater if it was familiar with the course of events, thus plays were not printed and distributed among viewers. Shakespeare’s works could, therefore, only be known by attending the theater. Most of them were staged at “the Globe.”

Shakespeare’s other works include:

• historical dramas dealing with events in English history - “King John,” “Henry IV,” “Henry VI,” “Henry VIII,” “Richard II,” and “Richard III.”;
• comedies: “Comedy of Errors,” “Taming of the Shrew,” “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” “Two Gentlemen of Verona,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “Much Ado About Nothing,” “As You Like It,” “Twelfth Night, or What You Will,” “Measure for Measure,” “The Winter’s Tale,” “The Tempest,” “Pericles, Prince of Tyre,” “Cymbeline,” “Two Noble Kinsmen,” “All’s Well that Ends Well,”;
• tragedies: “Titus Andronicus,” “Julius Caesar,” “Hamlet,” “Othello,” “King Lear,” “Macbeth,” “Coriolanus,” “Antony and Cleopatra,” “Timon of Athens.”

Professor Brean Hammond of the University of Nottingham claims that in the play “Double Falsehood” by Lewis Theobald, who admitted he wrote it based on a lost manuscript of Shakespeare’s play “Cardenio,” Shakespeare’s style can be recognized in the first two acts and two scenes of Act III.

The collection was published in the folio format of 900 pages. It contains thirty-six works by Shakespeare (the collection did not include “Pericles, Prince of Tyre” and “Two Noble Kinsmen”). Two of Shakespeare’s friends, John Heminges and Henry Condell, edited the text and supervised the printing. Sources say that the book was published in 750 or about 1,000 copies. It was sold for £1, roughly equivalent to $200 today. To date, 233 have survived, with the British Library holding five of them, Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington D.C., holding 79, and six being in private hands.

The previous sales record was set in 2001; a copy of the “First Folio” was sold then for $6 million.

Only five of his signatures remain: one under his will, one on the title page of Montaigne’s work “The Trials,” and three on legal documents. Each is written in different handwriting, and all are preceded by a dot, which illiterate people at the time replaced a cross with.

In 1781, English clergyman James Wilmot, after examining available sources in Stratford, concluded that a man with a background like Shakespeare’s did not have sufficient education and experience to write such excellent works. American literary scholars also came up with similar theories in 1856. For example, William Henry Smith claimed that Sir Francis Bacon - an essayist, philosopher, lawyer, and politician - was the actual author of the dramas. He held prominent state positions at the court of King James I. In 1955, American literary scholar Calvin Hoffman published a book in which he introduced Christopher Marlowe, a playwright, as the author of Shakespeare’s plays. Marlowe was killed in a duel a year before Shakespeare’s first works were published. According to other literary historians, the actual author of the works attributed to Shakespeare was some aristocrat who either considered a literary work for the theater to be beneath his dignity or feared the Queen’s wrath for publicizing his controversial political views. The aristocrats of the time - Lord William Stanley of Derby, Lord Edward de Vere of Oxford, Lord Robert Manners of Rutland - remained in the loop. Despite all the speculation, most authorities recognize William Shakespeare as the sole and proper author of the plays long attributed to him.

The spelling rules were not yet clearly established at the time.

The list of words he introduced into the English language counts about 600 items. For example, Shakespeare’s works included such new words as: “eyeball,” “bloodstained,” “murder,” “splendor,” “bewitching,” and idioms such as “your heart desires,” “it is high time,” “come what may,” “love is blind,” “the truth will out.”

The 1990 “Hamlet” by Franco Zeffirelli, starring Mel Gibson and Glenn Close, was nominated for an Oscar. The 1998 film “Shakespeare in Love,” which tells the story of the poet’s creative problems, won 7 Oscars.

His son, Hamnet, died at eleven. Daughter Susannah had no children, and daughter Judith’s children died early. None of Shakespeare’s three brothers were married.

After Shakespeare’s death, the house remained in his family until 1670, which was converted into an inn called “Maidenhead.” Subsequent owners altered and divided the building; for a time, it even housed a butcher. In 1847, the building became the nation’s property, and the adjacent houses had to be demolished to reduce the fire risk. Very early on, tourists came here and put their signatures on the bedroom windows where Shakespeare was born - the earliest signature dates to 1806. Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain also left their signatures there.

He created new poetics of drama and broke existing conventions, leaving behind ageless works. His best comedies are considered being: “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” “Taming of the Shrew,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Much Ado About Nothing,” and “The Merchant of Venice.” The best tragedies are: “Macbeth,” “King Lear,” “Julius Caesar,” “And Timon of Athens.” Psychological and poetic dramas are: “Hamlet,” “Romeo and Juliet,” and “Othello.”

Shakespeare depicts it as a destructive and demoralizing phenomenon with severe consequences for the people surrounding the protagonist. He analyzed power, the mechanisms that govern it, and the human fascination in pursuing it. This motif was most noticeable in tragedies and royal chronicles.