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Shakespeare

The exact date of Shakespeare's birth is unknown, but the 23rd of April 1564 is the assumed date, counting back a few days from the known date of his baptism. He was born in Henley Street, Stratford-Upon-Avon in the English Midlands. His father, John Shakespeare was in the business of making gloves and tanning leather. John was more interested in civic duties than his business, however. This led to financial worries for the family, but at least one of John's public positions, that of alderman, gave the privilege of free education at Stratford Grammar School for his children. It is probable that William started school here at age six.

Not much is known of Shakespeare's childhood. Some scholars think he may have left school early, due to his father's money problems. What is known is that in August 1582, at the age of twenty six, Anne Hathaway, who was eight years older than, William, her young boyfriend, became pregnant. The couple married towards the end of that year.

It is not clear what Shakespeare, now a family man, did for the next few years. It has been suggested that he may have worked as a glover, like his father, or perhaps as a school teacher. It is known that in 1587 five travelling acting companies visited Stratford. It is thought that the Leicester's Men and the Queen's Men were below strength and may have been looking to take on an aspiring young actor. Although it is unclear what exactly happened, sometime towards the end of the 1580s William Shakespeare started out as an actor. It should not be thought that acting was a "profession" at this time. Actors who did not have the protection of a wealthy patron, such as the Earl of Leicester, were considered no better than vagabonds, and were imprisoned. Apart from two theatres in London, The Theatre and The Curtain, there were no purpose built theatre buildings. Shakespeare was embarking on a precarious course, and one with little social prestige.

The George Inn, Southwark

By 1592 there are references to Shakespeare as an established actor in London. It is possible that he saw and acted in plays at the George Inn, part of which still stands in Southwark, south London. He had already started to write plays. Henry the Sixth, and Titus Andronicus are dated to 1590 - 91. Shakespeare was now a working actor and writer in the tough world of show business. He was writing plays on which his livlihood depended, and used the patterns of language of the ordinary people in his audiences. In the words of A.L. Rowse in Shakespeare The Man, there was "no nonsense about hexameters... Shakespeare followed, more subtly, the instinct of language, with its own nature dictating the rhythms. Spoken English falls naturally into iambic pentameter, and this is the norm throughout Shakespeare's work." (Iambic pentameter, if you want to be technical, is a line of verse in a alternating pattern of five unstressed and stressed syllables. Put more simply it is a rhythm that goes "de dum de dum de dum de dum de dum." A simple sentence such as "I want to help you find your keys today" is in iambic pentameter.)

Shakespeare was helped in these early years by the patronage of the Earl of Southampton, a dashing young nobleman. A.L. Rowse suggests that a complicated love triangle grew up between Shakespeare, his patron Southampton, and a woman named Emilia Bassano. Emilia may be the Dark Lady of the Sonnets which were being written at this time.

In this early period of his career, from 1592 to 1594, Shakespeare wrote The Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, Love Labour's Lost, Richard the Third, Venus and Adonis, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet . The Comedy of Errors was first performed at Gray's Inn Hall, which has been rebuilt exactly as it was, following destruction in the Second World War, at Gray's Inn, London.

In 1595 Shakespeare left the patronage of Southampton and became a partner in the Lord Chamberlain's Men. He committed himself to plays from this point, leaving the sonnets of his painful love affair behind. By 1598 he was part owner of the Globe Theatre on the south bank of the Thames in Southwark. Building of the Globe had begun the previous year using reclaimed timber from London's first theatre building, The Theatre, built by James Burbage in 1576 and demolished on the expiration of its lease. Shakespeare had become a successful, hard working theatrical entrepreneur, and the great plays written from 1598 onwards were first performed at the Globe. The Globe has been recreated on Bankside close to its original location. Sitting in its galleries you survey the scene in which many of the most famous plays in literature were first seen: As You Like It (1598), Much Ado about Nothing (1598), Henry the Fifth (1599), Julius Caesar (1599), Twelfth Night (1600), Hamlet (1601), The Merry Wives of Windsor (1601), All's Well That Ends Well (1603), Measure for Measure (1604), Othello (1604), Macbeth (1605 - 6), King Lear (1606), Anthony and Cleopatra (1607), A Winter's Tale (1611), The Tempest (1612).

I found it very moving sitting in the Globe's galleries, so much so that I would like to write my own little memorial to the plays that were first performed there. This of course is tricky, seeing as Shakespeare has turned into an academic industry, and so much has been written about him. This is especially true of my own favourite Shakespeare play Hamlet, written around 1601 and first performed at the Globe. But then I turn to Hamlet and I feel that the play makes no discernable point, and in so doing seems to invite anyone to have a go at writing about it. Hamlet is a bit like astrology, or the Bible in that sense. When I was at school and writing clumsy essays about Shakespeare I remember being told that there were no right answers. Any answer would be alright as long as you could back it up. This seemed a bit wishy washy to me, and I was convinced that certain answers, preferably mine, could be better than others. As the years went by I came to see that there really were no right answers and no final conclusions. But rather than being an invitation for wishy washy laziness, this was actually a demand for discipline, since the absence of easy answers means you've got to keep on trying.

So as my own small tribute to Shakespeare I invite you to read the following short piece on the opening of Hamlet. If you wish to skip straight to visiting information in Stratford, scroll down the page:

So, if you're still with me, I was sitting in the galleries of the Globe, taking in the scene, and reflecting on the fact that this is where Hamlet was first performed. I was about the same age as Shakespeare when he wrote Hamlet, around forty. It's a funny age, and I was looking for a new start. This web site was actually the start I made, and the beginning of Hamlet is, in my opinion about the nature of beginnings, and how new beginnings can follow us through our lives.

The Tower of London

Beginnings can be thought of as times when things become clear, a moment when someone decides which way they are going to go. The beginning of Hamlet is clear: the play begins at the stroke of midnight. But a beginning is also an insecure time, a time of confusion when a traveller plucks up courage to set out into the unknown. I feel this doubt, this lurch in the stomach as Hamlet begins. As the play opens sentinels patrolling the walls of Denmark's royal castle meet to change the watch. They are joined by a couple of young men who are intrigued by rumours of a ghost which has been appearing over the castle walls at midnight. The clock has just struck twelve, and just as the guard is being changed, a ghost drifts across the apparently secure castle walls. Castle walls are often used as a symbol of security in Shakespeare, around which the insecurity of life plays itself out. The walls of the Tower of London in Richard the Third or the walls of Warkworth Castle in King Henry the Fourth Part 2 are examples. The fearful guards turn to Horatio, one of the young men who have come ghost hunting. Horatio has a reputation for being clever and intellectual, so when the ghost appears the guards look to him for some kind of reassuring explanation. Horatio talks a lot, but says nothing helpful. If you think of an end as a point where everything is finished, complete and clear, then a beginning lies further from this point than anything else. To make a beginning, confusion must be accepted. You are setting out somewhere new and unknown. So even if I wasn't a Shakespeare scholar, as I sat in the Globe's galleries I refused to be downhearted. Horatio wasn't much use at the beginning of Hamlet, and maybe the know-it-all approach wouldn't be good for any new beginnings.

Horatio challenges the ghost, which he recognises as King Hamlet, the recently deceased monarch of Denmark. Then just as the ghost is about to speak, and perhaps reveal its aim in appearing to the sentinels, the ghost is startled by the first crowing of the cock. The ghost steals away, ignoring pointless efforts to restrain it. The officer Marcellus, flailing around for comforting thoughts, remembers that on the night of "the savior's birth," legend has it that the bird of dawn sang all night long. That night the dawn, the beginning of the day, was everlasting. Soon in this play we will meet Prince Hamlet, a young man who can't make up his mind. He will be told by the ghost that his uncle Claudius murdered King Hamlet, and the prince won't be able to decide what to do about this. He will make beginnings and fail to follow them through. This is the source of his pain, the fact that he makes constant beginnings. A middle aged man wrote this character, a middle aged man who realised that all the hopes of youth would not lead to their dreamt of resolution. For Shakespeare this realisation had been bitterly sharpened by the recent death of his own son Hamnet. The dreams of youth will only lead to more hopes, more effort, more disappointment, more beginnings. And in this way the bird of dawn will continue to sing through all the dark confusion. The morning will remain, this lovely time of day "in russet mantle clad, walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill." The play has begun.

 

Shakespeare went into semi retirement in Stratford towards the end of his life. He died there on the 23rd of April 1616. The house in Henley Street, Shakespeare's Birthplace, where Shakespeare grew up, survives. You enter the house via a visitors' centre which has a display illustrating Shakespeare's life. Once in the house you follow a route around the rooms, through the living room, kitchen, and workshop where John Shakespeare made gloves, and then upstairs to the bedrooms. There is a guide in the "birth room" who gives a short talk. If tourists were originally pilgrims then in the new secular pilgrimage of modern tourism, Shakespeare's Birthplace is a major shrine. Visits to Stratford represent one of the earliest forms of tourism, along with trips to the Lake District, Wales and Scotland. For modern pilgrims the essential elements are there: a great man begins his journey in a dwelling that appears humble - although at the time it represented rather a fine residence. On the walls are listed all the wise men who, have come to pay homage at the shrine, since David Garrick first organised a Shakespeare festival in Stratford in the eighteenth century. The house even spent some of its history as an inn. As far as the shepherds are concerned, go to the house of Shakespeare's mother Mary Arden just outside Stratford - details below. Here there is a view of the down to earth Arden family who made their living through farming. The feeling is one of the great man being relevant to both wise and humble people. The parallels are rather interesting.

Opening Times: Open June to August 9am - 5pm daily. During April, May, September and October 10am - 5pm daily, and from November to March 10am - 4pm Monday to Saturday and 10.30am - 4pm Sunday.

Access: The ground floor is generally accessible to those in wheelchairs, although the floor is uneven in places. Electric and wide-wheeled chairs cannot be accommodated. In the first room you enter when visiting the house there is a virtual reality tour available. The garden is fully accessible, and there are adapted toilet facilities

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust also owns four other houses in and around Stratford linked to Shakespeare and his family.

 

Anne Hathaway's Cottage is the childhood home of Shakespeare's wife, who he famously married at age eighteen, when she was twenty six and three months pregnant. The house was extensively modernised by Anne's brother, and does not aim to represent the house Anne lived in. The property is perhaps more interesting in the way it illustrates the change from open halls to a more modern and isolated mode of living in individual rooms. This change is exactly the one brought about by Anne's brother, who broke up the single space of the house by putting in floors, and adding an extension on the end nearest to you in this photo.

Opening Times: June to August 9am - 5pm daily. During April, May, September and October 9.30am - 5pm Monday to Saturday and 10am - 5pm Sunday. From November to March 10am - 4pm daily.

Access: the cottage, and cafe, are not accessible to wheelchair users. There is a virtual tour in a room situated off the orchard, reached by a ramp. The gardens are accessible, and there are adapted toilet facilities.

 

 

Halls Croft, is the house where Shakespeare's daughter Susanna lived with her husband, Dr John Hall. A Typical seventeenth century consulting room has been recreated, and John Hall's medical notes are on display. The garden is very attractive, and includes a range of the herbs that Dr Hall would have used in his practice.

Opening Times: June to August 9.30am - 5pm Monday to Saturday, 10am - 5pm Sunday. During April, May, September and October 11am - 5pm daily and from November to March 10am - 4pm daily.

Access: most of the ground floor is accessible to wheelchair users. The garden is fully accessible, There are adapted toilet facilities.

 

 

 

 

 

New Place is the house Shakespeare bought in 1597, and the place where he died. New Place has not survived, but the foundations are preserved in the grounds of the subsequent house called Nash's House . This was the home of Shakespeare's grand daughter Elizabeth, who married Thomas Nash. There are period furnishings, and displays on the history of Stratford. In the garden there is a mulberry tree grown from a cutting planted by Shakespeare.

Opening Times: June to August 9.30am - 5pm Monday to Saturday, 10am - 5pm Sunday. During April, May, September and October 11am - 5pm daily and from November to March 10am - 4pm daily.

Access: the garden and the ground floor of the house are accessible to wheelchair users. Adapted toilet facilities are available. There is wheelchair access to cafe and gift shop.

 

 

 

Mary Arden's House is the childhood home of Shakespeare's mother. This house, extensively modified since Mary lived there, is a museum to the farm work by which the Arden family lived. Close by is Palmer's Farm, a building which until the beginning of the twenty first century was assumed to be Mary Arden's House.

On my visit I found the guides at Mary Arden's House to be extremely knowledgeable, on Shakespeare, and also on social and architectural history.

Opening Times: June to August 9.30am - 5pm daily. During April, May, September and October 10am - 5pm daily and from November to March 10am - 4pm daily.

Shakespeare's Birthplace, Halls Croft, Nash's Place and New Place are all in the centre of Stratford. Anne Hathaway's Cottage is in the village of Shottery, a mile west of Stratford. Mary Arden's House is about three and a half miles north of Stratford.

 

 

The Royal Shakespeare Theatre performs a constant programme of the Bard's plays. There is also the Swan, a theatre built to resemble the galleried inns and theatres where the plays were originally performed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contact:

web site: for Shakespeare Birthplace Trust: www.shakespeare.org.uk

for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and the Swan: www.rsc.org.uk