“Boldness be my friend” is a famous quote that was once said
by William Shakespeare. Shakespeare is one of the most known play writers ever
known. His work is still viewed and seen over 400 years later. His views into
people’s life and into their mind have never been duplicated again. In this
paper I will write a short biography of Shakespeare’s life. He produced most of
his work between 1589 and 1613. His first few plays were comedies and histories
which he wrote to raise the sophistication and artistry by the end of the 16th
century. A lot of his plays were published in editions of quality and accuracy
during his lifetime.
William Shakespeare was born on April 26 1564, which is
still not a confirmed date, he was the son of John Shakespeare who was and alderman
and a Glover he also was granted a coat of arms by the College of heralds. His
mother Mary Arden was the daughter of a landowning farmer. William Shakespeare
was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and was baptized on April 26 1564 which is the
day they said he was born on. There is not much known about Shakespeare life
but scholars say Shakespeare attended the King’s New School which was located
in Stratford. Very little is known about his boyhood but there could be many
speculations, Shakespeare lived during the time of Queen Elizabeth.
Shakespeare married young, which was at the age of 18. He
married Anne Hathaway, which were 26 at the time. Before he was married he had
relationships with other man during his lifetime but was not uncommon for men
of his era. He was issued his marriage license on November 27 1582. After 6
months of being married Anne gave birth to their first daughter who was named
Susanna and baptized on may 26 1583. Hament and Judith was born two years later
and both were baptized February 2 1585. Hament died of an unknown cause at the
age of 11 and was buried in August 1596.
A group called the Lord Chamberlain’s men, who soon became
the leading playing company in London, only performed Shakespeare’s first
plays. Shakespeare first recorded play was Richard the 3rd. and
three parts of Henry VI. These plays were written sometime during the 1590s. after
Queen Elizabeth I died and King James IV took over the Lord Chamberlain was now
know as the King’s Men. Shakespeare’s family was Catholics; this time period
was when Catholic practice was against laws. Some readers have posited that
Shakespeare’s sonnets are autobiographical and show his love for a young woman.
Over Shakespeare’s life he printed 36 plays in the First Folioln, during his
time it was common for men to play the parts of women and a double joke was
when they swiched gender Portia and Nerissa. They had men dressed up as women
and then disguise themselves as a woman.
Shakespeare’s style was very different than many at his
time. His first plays were written in the conventional style of the day. He
then wrote a stylized that no one at his time did, it took time to understand
the metaphors and conceits that he was referring to. Shakespeare soon began to
change his style of writing to a more traditional style for his own purpose.
His standard poetic was unrhymed and consisted of ten syllables. After the play
Hamlet Shakespeare then changed his writing style again to more of a varied
type and put more emotional passages of his late tragedies. Unfortunately this
was a very bad time for London because the great plague swept through the town
and a lot of the theaters were closed. When they thought it was gone it came
back.
Macbeth is Shakespeare’s shortest play that he has written.
It talks about a tragedy that was written in the early 1600’s, there is three
witches who tells Macbeth that he will be one day the king but he the decided
to kill the current king and macbeth’s wife agrees with his decision but then
comes back and bites her. At the end Macduff kills Macbeth and takes over the
crown.
Shakespeare split his time between London and Stratford
during his career. In 1597 he bought a new home in Stratford for his family
while he was living in St. Helen. During these few years Shakespeare has owned
many different house and apartments. In March of 1613 he bought a home called a
Gatehouse in Black friars priory and in 1614 November he went to London for
several weeks with his son in law John Hall. A very sad day was on April 23
1616 this is when Shakespeare died. In Mr. Shakespeare’s will he left most of
his estate to his daughter Susanna. Shakespeare was buried in the Chancel of
the Holy Trinity Church.
“Nothing can come of nothing: speak again” is another famous
quote that was once said by William Shakespeare. After doing extended research
on William Shakespeare I would say he is one of the best play writers of his
time and of todays time. As a play writer he was faced with prejudice and
hatred. His work will always be looked at and will be something that no one
else will be able to mimic. Shakespeare’s world was horrible he had plague, and
was dangerous. This made it where he could be adventurist towards life. This
might be the main reason why he was one of the greatest writers of all times.
