A Msterious Life Of William Shakespeare

Categories: Romeo And Juliet

William lived through hard times with having to live with a forced religion and growing up with diseases that were fatal to his loved ones. Unlike other famous playwrights or authors, we do not know much about his birth or when he was born. Shakespeare's theme of plays included romance, lust, and especially hatred. Hatred is found in his novels “Mcbeth, The Tempest, Antony and Cleopatra, and King Lear” . Though there is little known about William Shakespeare, We have information about his mysterious life, England's struggle during his time, and the theme of hatred seen through his works.

Shakespeare was born into a time known as the Golden Age. He was born in the year 1564 and was baptized into a protestant religion. Since Queen Elizabeth was a protestant, her people had to be as well. Shakespeare was the oldest of 8 children. His mother was pregnant with two daughters before Shakespeare. Unfortunately, his two older sisters Joann and Margaret died when they were infants.

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The Shakespeare children from youngest to oldest are“William, Gilbert, 2nd Joan, Anne, Richard, and Edmund.” Like Shakespeare, Edmund became fond of the acting life and became an actor for his career. Shakespeare grew up in the country. As a result of this, he most likely had many responsibilities such as feeding and herding cattle or grabbing wood for the old fireplace or even gardening.

Growing up, Shakespeare was in the middle class. William’s parents, John and Mary Shakespeare married when John was about twenty-six and Mary was seventeen.

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She gave birth to her first child when she was about twenty. William’s father was a glove maker who made his leather. John Shakespeare was also an ale taster. He made sure beers were good enough for restaurants. His wife, Mary grew up in a wealthy catholic family. She, as well as her children, was one out of eight and was the youngest. She lived in a house called Greenville. During Shakespeare's time, they had named their houses, instead of having a street name as we do now. Though William Shakespeare's family was known as protestant, it is believed that he and his father may have been “secretly catholic.”

William attended a school known as Stratford Grammar school at the age of 4. This school was a grammar school instead of what they would call a “Petty School.” Since his father was a middle-class man, he was provided with free education. For William’s education, he learned Latin, writing, reading, and English. The most essential part of his education was Latin. Latin was very important if a young scholar wanted to attend a university. When William was about thirteen-years-old, he no longer attended school because of his father's financial situation.

As William grew older, his life became more mysterious, the parts of his life that we do know are the most interesting parts about him. When William was about 18 years old, he married Anne Hathaway, a twenty-six-year-old woman. Why did William marry someone so much older than him? According (Celeste Mannis, 26 ) William and Anne may have married because Anne may have been pregnant. As a result of William Shakespeare being so young when he got married, his father had to sign the license of marriage. As well as his father signing his marriage license the newly wedded couple move in with Shakespeare's parents. Anne bore her first child there. The first child was a baby girl named Susanna, who was born 6 months after their wedding day. Anne's second delivery was a set of twins. Hamnet, a boy, and Judith, a girl. They were born two years after Susana. Sadly, at age eleven Hamnet died from the black death. In honor of his son, Shakespeare wrote a poem called Twelfth Night. Shakespeare had a great love for his children and his wife. The loss of his son brought great sorrow to his heart. With this sorrow, he wrote magnificent plays. Shakespeare experienced rough times with his family, and England during his time was too. He lived through a time of disease with no cures and a religion that he most likely did not believe in.

London was a very interesting era during Shakespeare's time, it was elegant but also sad. “London was home to the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor. The ruler of London during Shakespeare's time was Queen Elizabeth. She was a great ruler and a miracle. Her story is unique, and how she became Queen is surprising. Because Shakespeare wrote poems during her reign the Queen knew of him and admired him. To begin she was born on September 7, 1533, Her father was King Henry VI. Before Queen Elizabeth's mother, he was married to Catherine of Aragon. Henry was once catholic but became Protestant in order to divorce his first wife because she did not bore a son. Catherine bore a daughter named Mary who was seventeen years old when Elizabeth was born. Because Elizabeth Mother had promised to bear a son for Henry, she was sentenced to death before Elizabeth was three-years-old. Henry got married again, and she bore a son whose name was Edward. He was very happy because he believed that a “woman could not rule all by herself” . Since there was a proper reign, Elizabeth was sent away far from London away from her Father. Her father did not care for her since there was Edward a proper reign since she was still a princess, she was well educated. At age thirteen, Henry died and Edward at age nine became King. Because he was sick, he died when he was fifteen. The next person to rule was Mary also known as Bloody Mary for killing so many people for not following the Catholic Faith. She despised Elizabeth and had her imprisoned for several months and before she died declared Elizabeth as Queen. She was Queen at age 25. Queen Elizabeth never married or bore any children because of this people were very worried as to who was going to rule when she fell very ill with smallpox. There was no cure for smallpox yet so she was 100 percent expected to die. Nearly dying she recovered and continued with her everyday duty of being Queen.

During her reign, there were many incurable diseases such as smallpox and The Plague. The Plague was a huge deal because no one knew what caused it but they knew how it spread. London's population during Shakespeare's time was 100,000 Many of these people were beggars and were on the streets with there disease. So people walking through the streets can easily catch one of these diseases. Until they had figured out what caused the plague there was no cure. The plague was from rats carrying infected fleas that infested meat that they ate. These Diseases were very hard during Shakespeare's time. Especially since there were no cures.

Besides disease struggle, there was also religion struggle. Because Queen Elizabeth was protestant the people she ruled had to be as well. Whoever was air with religious beliefs or political beliefs that is what the people had to follow. Punishments for disobeying the law of religion was sentenced to death. There was no sense of freedom as there is today. But this did not stop people from believing in different religions. There were many secret Catholics as well as Quakers. Secret Catholics usually went into hiding. It is very matched believed that Shakespeare's lost years had to do with hiding from the law for being a secret catholic. His father as well as a secret Catholic. This is just one theory out of many as to why we think he disappeared for 7 years. Although there were Great struggles in England during Shakespeare's time there was also a very intelligent fair Queen William Shakespeare amazing and inspiring poems that were greatly admired by the Queen herself. There were many themes in Shakespeare's plays but one fascinating theme is hatred.

Shakespeare wrote many plays, poems, and sonnets. In total, he wrote 37 plays 5 poems and 157 sonnets. Through these plays, there were many themes such as romance, lust, happiness, obedience to authority and most importantly hatred. Hatred is seen in his plays “Mcbeth, The Tempest, Antony and Cleopatra, and King Lear.” Hatred is for everyone is a strong feeling whether it is towards a person or a thing. Portraying that in a play can be very powerful for ones feeling. Hatred brings action to the scenes of a play but other than bringing the action to a play why was this included in Shakespeare's plays? Was this because he was depressed? Most likely not he might have felt a strong hate toward someone else's life and wanted put personal experiences into his plays. Hatred is a weird place to explore with Shakespeare's writings because he usually writes about love. Hatred and is the complete opposite of love it show how strongly.

Shakespeare may have been showing the difference between Love and hate and which one we should be living up to more. Many of his plays were touching to several people including Queen Elizabeth. Shakespeare was invited to perform one of his plays at the Queen's palace known as Love's Labour's Lost. Hatred wasn't a huge theme in Shakespeare's plays but it is significant to examine why he wrote about this when he mostly showed love in his plays.

Though very little was known about Shakespeare's life we could examine and break apart a good bit of it. We can see that he was a caring and loving father, an intelligent child, a rather responsible adult, and a touching writer. His plays that were written in the 15th century are still being inspired and remembered today. The fact that his plays have lasted for more than 400 years is amazing. People can learn so much from Williams's writing especially in his most famous play Romeo and Juliet which shows how far true love can reach. Though we are unaware whether he was a secret catholic God says that “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Meaning William risked his life for believing in Jesus differently then Queen Elizabeth. I think we can live like Shakespeare with certain things. We need his legacy and plays to continue forever.

Works cited

  1. Greenblatt, S. (2012). Will in the world: How Shakespeare became Shakespeare. W. W. Norton & Company.
  2. Wells, S. (2015). Shakespeare: For all time. Oxford University Press.
  3. Schoenbaum, S. (1987). William Shakespeare: A compact documentary life. Oxford University Press.
  4. Bate, J. (2015). Soul of the age: A biography of the mind of William Shakespeare. Random House.
  5. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. (n.d.). Shakespeare’s family. https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/shakespeares-family/
  6. Lander, J. (n.d.). Shakespeare’s education. https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/shakespeares-education/
  7. History.com Editors. (2019, October 30). Shakespeare. History. https://www.history.com/topics/british-history/william-shakespeare
  8. Britannica, T. E. (2022, April 4). William Shakespeare. Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Shakespeare
  9. Rackin, P. (2010). Shakespeare and women. Oxford University Press.
  10. West, M. (2019). Shakespeare’s London: Everyday life in London's playhouses, taverns, streets and suburbs. Amberley Publishing.
Updated: Feb 26, 2024
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A Msterious Life Of William Shakespeare. (2024, Feb 26). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/a-msterious-life-of-william-shakespeare-essay

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