William Shakespear Biography history essay help History homework help

Facts Regarding the Life and Death of Shakespeare There are few facts known with certainty about William Shakespeare’s life and death. The best-documented facts are that Shakespeare was baptised 26 April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England in the Holy Trinity Church, married Anne Hathaway at age 18, with whom he had three children, was an actor, playwright and theatre entrepreneur in London, owned property in both Stratford and London, and died 23 April 1616 at the age of 52.

William Shakespeare [1] was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, a small country town. He as the son of John Shakespeare, a successful glover and alderman from Snitterfield, and of Mary Arden, a daughter of the gentry. They lived on Henley Street, having married around 1557. The date of his birth is not known, but his baptismal record was dated 26 April 1564. This is the first official record of Shakespeare, as birth certificates were not issued in the time of Queen Elizabeth.

Because baptisms were normally performed within a few days of birth it is highly likely Shakespeare was born in April 1564, although the long-standing tradition that he was born on 23 April as no historical basis (baptisms at this time were not invariably performed exactly three days after birth as is sometimes claimed). Nevertheless, this date provides a convenient symmetry because Shakespeare died on the same day in 1616. It is also the Feast Day of Saint George, the patron saint of England, which might seem appropriate for England’s greatest playwright.

Shakespeare’s parents had eight children: Joan (born 1558, died in infancy), Margaret (1562-1563), William (himself, 1564-1616), Gilbert (1566-1612), Joan (1569-1646), Anne (1571-1579), Richard (1574- 1613), and Edmund (1 Shakespeare’s father, prosperous at the time of William’s birth, was prosecuted for participating in the black market in the dealings of and later lost his position as an alderman. Some evidence pointed to possible Roman Catholic sympathies on both sides of the family. 5] Education Shakespeare probably attended King Edward VI Grammar School in Stratford from the age of seven. [6] Edward VI, the king honoured in the school’s name, had in the mid-16th century diverted money from the dissolution of the monasteries to endow a network of grammar schools to “propagate good literature… throughout the kingdom”, but the school had originally been set up by the Guild of the Holy Cross, a hurch institution in the town, early in the 1 5th century. [6][7] It was further endowed by a Catholic chaplain in 1482.

It was free to male children in Stratford and it is presumed that the young Shakespeare attended,[8] although this cannot be confirmed because the school’s records have not survived. [6] While the quality of Elizabethan era grammar schools was uneven, the school probably would have provided an intensive education in Latin grammar and literature””as good a formal literary training as had any of his contemporaries”[9]”reinforced with frequent use f corporal punishment. As a part of this education, the students would likely have been exposed to Latin plays, in which students performed to better understand the language.