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1. A Brief History of William Shakespeare’s Life.
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William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564. He was the third of seven children of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden Shakespeare. John’s parents were tenants on land owned by Mary’s parents, so they had grown up next to each other. They were married in 1556.
John Shakespeare was a glove-maker in Stratford-On-Avon, a typical market town in England. Most of the inhabitants, numbering 2,000 at that time, were engaged in agriculture or small-scale industry.
Since Mary’s family were property owners, and John a successful businessman, their children received education to the age of sixteen. Their son, William, was enrolled in the local grammar school where he studied Latin, grammar, rhetoric, Greek and Roman mythology, history and of course, the Bible.
In 1565, John Shakespeare became Alderman of Stratford and by 1571, he held the coveted office of bailiff (sort of the local justice of the peace). One of John’s many duties was to preview the touring theatre companies that wished to perform in Stratford before granting them a license to appear. It is natural that little William would sit in on these performances, gaining his first experiences in the theatre.
By the time William was 16, he had grown into a handsome fellow, and met Anne Hathaway. They were married by special consideration from the Bishop of Worchester, on November 28, 1582. Shortly thereafter, their first child, Susanna was born. Two years later the couple brought forth twins. They were named Hamnet and Judith.
William, who had always harbored a desire to be a poet and a writer, heard of the outbreak of new theatres in London, and packing his things, left his family in Stratford to try his luck in the theatres of London.
He worked first as a “horseman” (sort of a valet parking attendant for horses) at one of the local theatres, and then finally as an apprentice for one of the local acting companies, The Queen’s Men, so named, because the company enjoyed the support and patronage of the Queen herself. William appeared onstage, as all apprentices did, in small roles, working his way up to playing the female parts.
Between 1587 and 1592, The Queen’s Men gave fourteen performances for the Queen’s Court. Shakespeare as part of the company, received quite an education in manners and diplomacy, necessary ingredients for the successful career of an artist in those days.
Shakespeare began writing during this period, and by 1592 he had written the three parts of Henry VI and was gaining popularity as a dramatist.
In 1592, London was besieged with a great plague. Much like tuberculosis or our modern-day AIDS, the disease wiped out a huge number of the population. The plague lasted to 1594. During this period, the theatres were closed, and Shakespeare returned to Stratford to be with his family. While in Stratford he wrote many of his comedies including, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of The Shrew and Two Gentlemen of Verona.
It was during this time that Shakespeare first began to write sonnets and long poems, which resulted in the patronage of many nobility, the most famous of which was Henry Writhesley, the Earl of Southhampton.
When the theatres re-opened in 1594, Shakespeare once again left for London. By then, all of the companies had disbanded, with the exception of two, The Chamberlains Men and the Admiral’s Men. Shakespeare joined The Chamberlain’s Men and his theatrical career blossomed.
In 1596, the Shakespeare family was granted a “coat-of-arms” raising the family to the state of “gentlemen.” Later that same year, tragedy struck William’s life with the death of his son, Hamnet. It is thought that the death of his son inspired the writing of his tragic masterpiece Hamlet, and it is in the wake of his grief that Winter’s Tale was penned.
During the course of the next 12 years, Shakespeare wrote another dozen plays.
His father died in 1601, followed by his mother in 1608, and Shakespeare retired to Stratford in 1610. There he wrote his final play, The Tempest, and died on April 23, 1616.
Shakespeare is credited with having written 35 plays during his life.
Queen Elizabeth succeeded to the throne in 1558. Prior to this date, England had been going through a “dark-age” filled with feudal wars and barbarism. In fact, no literature had been written during this time, not since Chaucer nearly 150 years prior. Elizabeth believed that the development and expansion of England required the fostering of culture, arts and commerce. She encouraged patronage of the arts, and indeed, in 1570, moved to officially recognize acting as a legitimate profession.
Prior to Elizabeth’s helping hands, actors were looked on as vagabonds, and were forced to roam the country side eeking out a living from the graciousness and generosity of the tavern-keepers and land barons. With Elizabeth’s approval of the acting profession, actors were now able to join together in bands, under the patronage of a peer of the realm (one of the nobility). It was through this process that the first public playhouse was built in London (1576) through the vision of the great actor, James Burbage.
Before Elizabeth, the only theatre that survived was the medieval pageants and morality plays. These plays were usually enacted by guildsmen (trade unions of today), on moveable platforms set up in the middle of a town square or courtyard. In general, they were set out in a traditional fashion with one side of the stage representing the “Mouth of Hell” and the other side representing the “Gates of Heaven”. Generally there was a raised platform at the back which held a throne, representing God. The actors stepped on to the central platform to perform. This basic layout would be used to develop and build the theatres of the Elizabethan period.
Meanwhile, in Italy during these years, the Renaissance was underway, with an outbreak of art and theatre. A new style of presentation was developing which would later be known as Commedia D’el Arte, (The Art of Comedy). This style of entertainment consisted of stock characters (the vilain, the hero, the ingenue, the old man, etc.), usually denoted by costumes and masks which made them easily identifiable for the audience. The performances were very stylized, often in verse, and were very acrobatic in manner.
Most of the drama produced during the Elizabethan period shows the combination of all these elements. The plays, usually derived from previously told stories or published poems, contained elements of the Morality plays... that is, the central character or characters, because of what happened in the play, reached a new height in the understanding of their morality or humanity. In addition, the plays generally contained “broadly sketched” performances- “clowns” as they were known, derived from the characters in the Commedia D’el Arte of Italy. Indeed many of the performances contained “knock-about” comedy sections.
The physical structure of the theatres that were built during the Elizabethan period, were generally wooden, and built in an octagonal “O” shape. Thus the phrase “wooden O.”. Thrust in the center of the “O” was a raised platform, which would serve as the central acting area. There was generally an entrance on stage right and stage left, with a raised area at the back, which could be used for the appearance of ghosts and witches, or for the balcony or upstairs window of a house. Often under this raised platform, was a small recessed area, which could be covered by a curtain and was used to represent an indoor chamber.
The sides of the “O” were built in tiers, much like boxes, which housed “gentler” folk and nobility. The ground around the stage was left for general populace, and was priced affordably. The audience which stood on the ground to see the show were dubbed the name “groundlings.”
