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LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE  

 (1564-1616)

William Shakespeare is, beyond doubt, England’s greatest contribution to the world of literature. He was born in 1564 at Stratford-upon-Avon. In the biological sense, we know far too little about his early life and his evolution as the world’s supreme poet-dramatist.

Though Ben Johnson said that Shakespeare knew ‘little Greek and less Latin’, it is considered probable that Shakespeare received a good classical education at the Stratford Grammar School. The dramatist’s father, John Shakespeare was a prosperous agricultural trader and farmer who rose to civic eminence as the alderman of the town council. However, gradually he fell into poverty, loss his civic position and was forced to sell off his wife Mary Arden’s estates. Thus, William’s boyhood must have been miserable because of his father’s financial troubles.

In 1582, at the age of eighteen, William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, a woman about eight years his senior. Their eldest daughter Susanna was born in 1583 and the twins Hamnet and Judith in 1585. Biographers describe the years 1585 to 1592 as the lost years in Shakespeare’s life since nothing is known for certain about this period of his life. It was sometime during these years that he left Stratford for London to seek his fortune in the big city. One legend links his departure from Stratford with a poaching incident. Shakespeare is believed to have trespassed on the private property of Sir Thomas Lucy and hunted deer. To escape prosecution, he is supposed to have run away to London. Another tradition is that a troupe of traveling actors(the Queen’s Men) came to Stratford in 1587 and Shakespeare was tempted to join them in the hope of entering the profession. According to some scholars, Shakespeare’s first duty in the theatre was to hold the horses of the noblemen who came to see the play. Anyhow, too soon, he became an actor and member of old plays.

By 1592, Shakespeare became famous as a successful actor and author. His immense success in the theatre provoked the jealous rivalry of many contemporary dramatists, especially the University Wits. One among them, Robert Greene, is an autobiographical tract published in 1592, angrily described Shakespeare as ‘an upstart crow beautiful with our feathers’ whose conceit is that he is ‘the only Shakescene in the country’. This contemporary attack itself is sufficient evidence for his popularity with the theatre goers of the day. Shakespeare’s first published work in the narrative poem Venus and Adonis(1593). In 1594, The Rape of Lucrece, another narrative poem was published. In addition to these two long poems and the 37 plays written between 1588 and 1611, Shakespeare also wrote 154 sonnets. In 1613, the great dramatist returned to Stratford to spend his last few years in retirement. He died there on 23^rd April 1616. In 1623, 7 years after Shakespeare’s death, his friends John Heminge and Henry Condell gathered together his plays in an impressive volume.