The Life of William Shakespeare

1
The Life of William Shakespeare

• By Gina Dinovo

2
Who Was Shakespeare?

• William Shakespeare was a great English
  playwright, dramatist and poet who lived during
  the late 16th century
• He is considered to be the greatest playwright of
  all time
• No other writers plays have been produced so
  many times or read so widely in so many countries
  as his

3
His Beginning Years

• He was born on the 23rd of April, 1564, in
  Stratford-upon-Avon.
• It is located in the center of England and still
  is an important river-crossing settlement and
  market center

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Family

• He came from a well respected prominent family of
  8 children!
• His parents were John and Mary Arden
• John served on town council for many years and
  became Mayor in 1568.
• John and Mary lost 2 children before Billy was
  born and had 5 more afterwards

5
Education

• As son of a leading townsman, Billy most likely
  attended Stratfords petty or junior school
  before progressing, perhaps at age 7, to the
  Grammar school, which still stands

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What did he learn?

• He was taught Latin, both written and spoken
• The classical writers that were studied
  influenced his plays and poetry
• Ovids tales, the plays of Terence and Platutus,
  and Roman history all impacted his ideas for
  plots and characters

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What Was School Like?

• Usually, only boys went to school
• Students went to school year around attending
  school for almost nine hours a day!!
• Even worse, the teachers were very strict
  disciplinarians ?

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Married Life

• In November 1582 he married Anne Hathaway, the
  daughter of Richard Hathaway, a local farmer
• At the time of their marriage, William was
  eighteen and Anne was twenty-six

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His Children

• Susana was their first and then they had twins,
  Hamnet and Judith.
• Hamnet died in 1596.
• In 1607, Williams daughter Susana got married.
  His other daughter, Judith, got married in 1616.

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The Lost Years 1585 - 1592

• We do not know when or why Shakespeare left
  Stratford for London, or what he was doing before
  becoming a professional actor and dramatist in
  the capital.
• The so-called 'lost years' are a period for
  which there is virtually no evidence concerning
  his life.
• One tradition claims He was a schoolmaster for
  several years.
• When he was growing up, drama was a significant
  part of Stratford's social life. Not only did
  local people put on amateur shows, but the town
  was visited regularly by London-based companies
  of actors. So Shakespeare may have joined one of
  them.

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His Early Career

• Shakespeare's reputation was established in
  London by 1592 in that year another dramatist,
  Robert Greene, was jealous of his success and
  called him 'an upstart crow'.
• Shakespeare's earliest plays
  included the three parts of Henry
  VI, The Two Gentlemen of Verona,
  and Titus Andronicus.

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Some of His Works

• Shakespeare's first printed works were two long
  poems, Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of
  Lucrece (1594). These were both dedicated to the
  Earl of Southampton, a young courtier and
  favorite of Queen Elizabeth I, who had become
  Shakespeare's patron. Most of the Sonnets were
  probably written about this time, too, although
  they were not published until 1609.

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The Theater

• By that time, he had joined one of the city's
  famous theater companies. These companies were
  made up of a permanent cast of actors who
  presented different plays week after week. The
  companies were commercial organizations that
  depended on admission from their audience.

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Lord Chamberlains Men

• Scholars know that Shakespeare belonged to one of
  the most popular acting companies in London
  called The Lord Chamberlain's Men.
• Shakespeare was a leading member of the group
  from 1594 for the rest of his career.
• By 1594, at least six of Shakespeare's plays had
  been produced.

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Growing Succes

• In 1596, Shakespeare's father was granted a
  coat-of-arms
• On his father's death in 1601, he inherited the
  arms and the right to call himself a gentleman,
  even though, at the time, actors were generally
  regarded as rogues and vagabonds.

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New Place

• Shakespeare's success in the London theatres made
  him wealthy and in 1597 he bought New Place, one
  of the largest houses in Stratford.
• Further property investments in Stratford
  followed, including the purchase of 107 acres of
  land in 1602.

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Reviews

• In 1598, the author of a book on the arts,
  Francis Meres, described Shakespeare as the best
  contemporary dramatist and mentioned twelve of
  his plays, including A Midsummer Night's Dream,
  The Merchant of Venice, Richard II and Henry IV,
  all of which date from the mid- to late-1590s.

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The Theaters of Then

• Drama was a nation-wide activity in Shakespeare's
  time but only in London were there buildings
  designed specifically for performing plays. Most
  public theaters were tall, roughly circular
  structures, open to the sky, with a cover over
  part of the stage and a roof running round the
  edge to protect the galleries. Performances took
  place in the afternoons, with the actors playing
  on a raised stage which projected halfway into
  the theater. All the women's roles were performed
  by boys.
  The audience, which either stood
  in the yard around
  the stage or
  sat in the galleries, represented
  a wide social mix
  of people.

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The Globe

• In 1599, Lord Chamberlain's Men built a new
  theater called the Globe. Situated on the south
  bank of the Thames, in the suburb of Southwark,
  it is the theater most closely associated with
  Shakespeare's plays, and he was one of the
  shareholders in the enterprise.

20
Late Career

• When James I (James VI of Scotland) came to the
  English throne in 1603 he granted royal patronage
  to Shakespeare's acting company, which became the
  'King's Men.'
• Shakespeare's plays were presented before the
  court in the royal palaces, as well as to
  audiences in the public theatres. In 1609 the
  King's Men acquired an indoor theatre, the
  Blackfriars, to use in addition to the Globe.

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Famous works

• Some of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies were
  written in the early 1600s, including Hamlet,
  Othello, King Lear and Macbeth.
• His late plays, often known as the Romances, date
  from 1608 to 1612 and include Cymbeline, The
  Winter's Tale and The Tempest.

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The First Folio

• The First Folio, the first collected edition of
  his plays, was published in 1623, 7 years after
  his death.
• It contains thirty-six plays, of which most had
  been published individually in his lifetime.

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The Later Years

• From around 1611, he disengaged himself from the
  London theater world and spent his time at his
  Stratford house, New Place.
• In March 1616 he signed his will, in which he
  left loads of property and other valuables to his
  family and friends, including theater colleagues
  in the King's Men.

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His Death

• Shakespeare died in Stratford at fifty-two, on
  the 23rd of April, 1616, and was buried in Holy
  Trinity Church.
• Within a short time, a monument to him was put
  up, probably by his family, on the wall close to
  his grave.

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So Why Was He Famous?

• One reason is from his great understanding of
  human nature. He was able to find universal human
  qualities and put them in a dramatic situation
  creating characters that are timeless.
• Also, he had the ability to create characters
  that are highly individual with every day
  struggles. Sometimes they are successful, whereas
  sometimes their lives are failures.

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His Genius

• In addition to his understanding and realistic
  view of human nature, William had a vast
  knowledge of a variety of subjects.
• These subjects include music, law, Bible, stage,
  art, politics, history, hunting, and sports.

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His Influence

• Shakespeare had a tremendous influence on culture
  and literature throughout the world
• He contributed greatly to the development of the
  English Language
• Many words and phrases from
  his plays and poems have
  become part of our everyday speech.

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More Influence

• His plays and poems have become a required part
  of education in the US.
• His ideas on things such as love, heroism, comedy
  and tragedy have helped shape the attitudes of
  millions of people.
• His demonstrations of historical figures and
  events have influenced our thinking more than
  what has been written in history books.

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His Greatness

• The world has admired and respected many great
  writers, but only Shakespeare has generated such
  a huge on-going interest!
• All in all, his contributions to literature are
  inconceivably vast.

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Sources

• www.field-of-themes.com
• www.shakespeare.org.uk
• www.shakespeare.com
• www.bardweb.net
• www.shakespeare-oxford.com