William Shakespeare was born in 1564 at Stratford-on-Avon to John Shakespeare, a local merchant, and Mary Arden, the daughter of a wealthy landowner. William was the third of at least eight children; he was also the first son in his family, and the first child to survive past childhood.

William’s father, who was quite prosperous, held several positions in local government. The picture to the left is a modern representation of the Shakespeares’ coat of arms.

He probably attended the local grammar school, which was one of the best in England, and learned Latin and classical literature.

Shakespeare’s childhood home

Shakespeare’s father, however, began to have financial difficulties, which forced young William to take on jobs to help out the family. Some of those jobs may have included working as a butcher and a schoolmaster.

At 18 years old, William married Anne Hathaway (no, not that Anne Hathaway), who was 8 years older than he was. They had three children: Susanna and a set of twins, Judith and Hamnet. Hamnet died at the age of 11.

Shakespeare eventually moved to London to pursue a career in the theater, although a gap in the historical record from 1585 to 1592 never establishes where he was or why he left his family behind in Stratford for London. He eventually divided his time between the 2 cities; indeed, if he wanted to be a playwright, London offered many more opportunities.

William’s first theater job wasn’t glamorous; he tended to patrons’ horses while they enjoyed the latest plays. Later, he did graduate to writing, producing, and acting in plays, and by 1594, he became part-owner of an acting company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men.

Shakespeare’s plays became so profitable that he and his partners were able to buy land south of London across the Thames River and build his own theater, which was called the Globe Theatre. Described as a “wooden O” because of its shape, the Globe became the center of British drama during the English Renaissance.

Southwark, the neighborhood where the Globe was located, wasn’t the most pleasant place to be. Pickpockets, prostitutes, and other questionable characters populated the area.

People of all classes still flocked to the area, not only to see plays but also to see bullbaiting and bearbaiting contests.

• The open-air Globe had 3 tiers of balcony seating for its wealthier patrons. Poorer individuals could pay a penny to stand around the 5-foot high stage that jutted into the theatre courtyard; these people were nicknamed “groundlings.”

• Shakespeare understood that to make money, his plays had to appeal to all people—the educated and the uneducated, the royalty and the peasants, the cultured and the crude (and everyone in between). His plays contain colorful historical and literary allusions and memorable characters, as well as bloody swordfights and dirty jokes.

Little or no scenery was used on stage, so Shakespeare used descriptive language in the characters’ dialogue to establish the setting.

For battle scenes, the actors obtained blood and organs from slaughterhouses, poured them into fragile pigs’ bladders, and broke them easily when swordplay began onstage.

Period costumes would have been too expensive to produce for all of Shakespeare’s plays, so actors wore elaborate clothing for their performances and reused them for different plays.

Acting was seen as a disreputable profession, so women were not allowed to perform onstage. Boys took on the female roles in plays.

The thatched roof on the structure contributed to the destruction of the Globe in 1613. Sparks caused by the firing of a cannon for special-effects purposes caught the dry straw and the wooden beams. Amazingly, no one was killed, and the Globe was rebuilt a year later. However, the Puritan government closed down all theatres in 1642, and the Globe was destroyed 2 years later to make way for other buildings. In 1997, a new Globe reopened not far from the original site and currently holds performances of Shakespeare’s plays.

During the Renaissance, powerful individuals usually sponsored artists so that they could devote their time to creating new works of art—paintings, sculptures, or, in the case of Shakespeare, plays and poems. In turn, the artists would create works to repay their sponsors.

This relationship was known as the patron

system.

Shakespeare’s patrons were among the most powerful English monarchs ever—specifically, Queen Elizabeth I and her successor and nephew, King James I. Shakespeare even renamed his acting company after James, calling it the “King’s Men.

In a 20-year period (app. 1593-1613), Shakespeare wrote 38 plays. His plays are divided into 3 categories: comedies, histories, and tragedies. During that time, he also wrote 2 narrative poems (Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece) and a sonnet sequence composed of 154 poems.

Some of Shakespeare’s famous comedies include Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Comedy of Errors.

Some of Shakespeare’s famous histories include Richard III, the 2-part Henry IV, Henry V, and the 3-part Henry VI.

Today, the tragedies are considered to be the most popular of Shakespeare’s plays. Famous plays such as Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet live on in high school classrooms and productions, “Shakespeare in the Park” festivals, and Hollywood interpretations and reinventions.

All of Shakespeare’s plays have the same structure, regardless of subject matter. They are composed of 5 major divisions, or acts. Each act has a particular function:

Act I (Exposition)—Introduces the characters and major conflicts of the play.Act II (Rising Action)—Creates suspense leading up to the climax.Act III (Climax)—The most exciting part of the play.Act IV (Falling Action)—The main conflict has been resolved; events move swiftly to the conclusion.Act V (Dénoument for comedies, Catastrophe for tragedies)—Other conflicts are brought to a conclusion; a sense of normalcy returns to the world

Freytag’s Pyramid

Because so little is known about Shakespeare’s educational background, some people believe that he had help writing the plays, while others think that he didn’t write any of them. Other dramatists who may have helped Shakespeare or even wrote all of the plays themselves were

Christopher Marlowe,

Francis Bacon,

and Edward de Vere.

Most scholars don’t believe in these conspiracy theories, however, and attribute the authorship of the plays and the poems to possibly the greatest writer who ever lived—William Shakespeare.