Stuff You Should Know Part 3: William Shakespeare (Revised)
This is Part 3 of our intro series “Stuff You Should Know,” which covers some background and context into the life and times of Shakespeare, because art isn’t created in a vacuum. In this episode, we’ll be covering some basic information about Shakespeare. And when we say basic, we mean basic. And, even though Shakespeare is a famous figure, scholars and historians actually know quite little about William Shakespeare the man.
We will discuss what scholars know about Shakespeare's early life in Stratford-upon-Avon and what a typical education for a young man of Shakespeare's background. We will also discuss some popular theories about what Shakespeare may have done in life before arriving in London. We will then give an overview of Shakespeare's career of an actor and playwright, his family, and his later life.
Want more about Shakespeare the man? Check out these episodes that go more in depth on topics we touch on in this episode:
Kourtney Smith (KS):
This is a revision of part three of our intro series, Stuff You Should Know, which covers some background and context into the life and times of Shakespeare, because art isn't created in a vacuum. And we are revising the intro series because we, after almost four years of podcasting, know a lot more now than we knew back then. And we want to reflect this in an episode glow-up for listeners old and new.
Elyse Sharp (ES): In this episode, we'll be covering some basic information about Shakespeare. And when we say basic, we mean basic. We also want to preface this episode by stating that, even though William Shakespeare is a famous figure, scholars and historians actually know quite little about William Shakespeare, the man.
KS: So, let's talk about Shakespeare.
ES: William Shakespeare was born, people think, on April 23, 1564, which is St. George's Day, a holiday celebrating St. George, the patron saint of England. I say, people think, because written records documenting Shakespeare's life are few and far between before his arrival in London as an adult. So it's challenging to get a thorough and exact look at William's childhood. But we do know he was baptized on April 26, 1564. And we know this because his baptism was recorded. So it's reasonable that he, a quintessentially English figure, could have been born on a holiday that is, in its essence, totally English.
KS: Now William's mother, Mary Arden, was born into a prominent Tudor family in the region. Mary's father, Robert Arden, was a gentleman farmer, basically a landowner, and her ancestors fought in the War of the Roses and served in the court of King Henry VII, the first Tudor king. When Mary married William's father, John Shakespeare, she married far below her rank.
John was born into a farming family. John's father, Richard, was a tenant farmer who worked the Arden family's land, which was likely how they met. Mary and John married in 1557. John became a glove maker and, when William was a boy, John was appointed High Bailiff of Stratford, basically a Tudor-era mayor.
ES: When the Shakespeares moved to Stratford in 1551, the population was roughly 1500 people and 200 houses. They lived on Henley Street beginning in 1552 and, by 1556, John purchased a house on the same street that is now called the Shakespeare's Birthplace. In 1576, John purchased two houses next door and joined the three together.
KS: William had two older sisters who died at infancy and five younger siblings, three brothers and two sisters, who survived past infancy. Four out of the five lived into their adulthood. Bubonic plague raged through Stratford when William was three months old and it's likely his mother took him away from Stratford to stay with her family in a nearby village called Wilcombe.
ES: As a boy, William was taught under the Elizabethan schooling system. It ran from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. and lessons focused on grammar, arithmetic, religion, and the classics. This could be one reason why plays of the time were generally adapted from the classics and featured religious undertones or references. Shakespeare attended the grammar school of King Edward VI at Stratford-upon-Avon, commonly referred to as King Edward VI School or shortened to K.E.S.
Unfortunately, the Shakespeare family fell on hard times in the 1570s when William was a boy of primary school age. We don't know exactly why, but it was likely related to some of John's shady dealings. While John was a respected member of the community holding important positions of power, he was also repeatedly prosecuted for potentially problematic business activities. Either way, William was pulled out of school at the age of 13.
KS: There isn't any evidence as to exactly what happened next in William's life, but there are popular theories. The most likely one is that he went to work for his father making gloves. But romantics like to imagine that William ran away by sea and traveled around the globe with Sir Francis Drake. Those who like this second theory suggest this is what sparked William's fascination with exploration in some of his plays. But remember, he lived in a time period where exploration was popular throughout England and Europe, and most of Shakespeare's ideas of travel likely came from travel books. We at Shakespeare Anyone? believe the simplest explanation, the first, to likely be true.
ES: By the age of 18, we do know that William was back in a village next to Stratford called Shottery. We know this because we have his marriage certificate to Anne Hathaway in 1582. Historians and scholars don't actually know what William and Anne's marriage was like. We don't know how they met, how they started courting, or why they got married. Some like to claim that William was forced into a marriage with Anne who claimed she was pregnant with his child. Due to that claim, he might have been pressured into this shotgun wedding. That could be true. But they also could have liked each other, and that might be evident in the fact that Anne got pregnant in the first place.
KS: William and Anne got married in 1582, when William was 19 and Anne was 26. He became a father six months later, in 1583, and had a daughter named Susanna, and, again, two years later, in 1585, had twins Hamnet and Judith. William wasn't really mentioned in any historical documents after the birth of the twins, so we don't really know what was happening in his life until mention of him in London in 1592. And we also don't really know how he got to the big city.
ES: We do know that a troupe of traveling actors called the Queen's Men arrived in Stratford one man short within that time period. Romantics like to think that William stepped into the dead man's shoes and acted his way to London. Sure, that could explain his disappearance from historical records until his appearance in London, but William would have been exposed to plays when he was a boy in grammar school, so perhaps his move to London was less thrilling than that, and just like many actors, he moved to the city with the biggest concentration of jobs.
William acted and, at some point, began writing plays. Once his plays got produced and performed, contemporaries started to take notice of what he had to say. He, like his contemporaries Christopher Marlowe and Ben Johnson, were incredibly influential playwrights in their period.
KS: But we also want to take a moment to acknowledge that, while his contemporaries were influenced by William, William was also influenced by his contemporaries. Scholars note the many cross-references between William and playwrights such as Christopher Marlowe. For more on this, please listen to our mini-episodes on Christopher Marlowe and Ben Johnson.
ES: Additionally, Shakespeare also had his fair share of critics. One notable instance of criticism is from Robert Greene's 1592 Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, bought with a million of repentance. The pamphlet is most famous for a passage which appears to allude to William Shakespeare, who was then starting out on his career as an actor and playwright. Greene called William, “upstart crow, beautified with our feathers.”
KS: As a writer, Shakespeare was associated with two Renaissance tropes. One was change and changeability. The other was the world as a stage. The stage gave license to working-class actors to play kings, lords, or ladies, to crossdress, and to play someone outside of their class when Elizabethan society had strict dress codes in the sumptuary laws.
ES: With his quick success, William bought a share in the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later the King's Men, the troupe he remained with throughout his career. This investment afforded William job stability and financial success.
KS: William was living and working in London, while his wife and three kids were in Stratford. We know that he sent money home to his family, and his proven skill as a playwright must have advanced his claims to shares in the company, so he would have started making more money to send back to Anne and the kids. Maybe this monetary supplement was his justification for spending so much time in London.
Eventually, William was able to purchase the second-largest home in Stratford-upon-Avon, called New Place, as his family home, which we will talk about in just a few minutes. Anne would have managed the estate on New Place, and the several possible cottage industries it housed, through the money William was able to send back home. For more on Anne and what we know of Shakespeare's family in Stratford-upon-Avon, listen to our mini-episode on Anne Hathaway.
ES: Scholars have suggested that his time in London saw some possible wanderings outside of his marriage. In many of his Shakespeare sonnets, a “dark-eyed beauty stole his heart.” While no one knows the identity of Shakespeare's so-called dark lady, some scholars theorize that it could be Emilia Bassanio-Lanier, who is considered to be the first professional woman poet in the English language, as well as possibly the first Jewish poet in the English language.
KS: His sonnets also suggest that Shakespeare was bisexual. His sonnets mention a, fair lord, who is said to be Henry Wriothesley, third earl of Southampton. Wriothesley was his close friend and a patron.
And historians assume the increase in money William sent back to Anne in Stratford was substantial enough that she didn't question his activities in London. But this is simply a guess and impossible to prove. Historians and scholars simply don't have insight into Will and Anne's marriage, and likely never will.
ES: Shakespeare did return to Stratford in 1596 for a tragedy, Hamnet's funeral. The boy was only 11 years old at the time of his death, and the cause is unknown. This tragedy is often said to have inspired Shakespeare's play, Hamlet.
KS: Shortly after, Shakespeare bought the deed for a home called New Place, and this home has an extensive background. According to material culture found during an archaeological excavation, New Place stood within the plot of an Iron Age farmstead. It was originally built in 1483 by Sir Hugh Clopton, a wealthy London mercer and Lord Mayor, and then it was passed down in the family until it was sold to William Underhill I, an Inner Temple lawyer and clerk. Underhill Sr. left New Place to Underhill Jr., who then sold it to Shakespeare in 1597. However, the Underhill era of New Place is riddled with suspicion. Underhill Jr. died two months after the sale to Shakespeare, and it's said that his eldest son and heir is the one to have poisoned him. This might be the closest our intro series gets to a true crime podcast.
ES: As we mentioned earlier, New Place, under the ownership of the Shakespeare family, was likely the site of several cottage industries such as beer brewing, bone work for buttons and offcuts, and textiles. There is archaeological evidence suggesting the existence of these industries, and that the Shakespeares would have lived an affluent lifestyle at New Place. Unfortunately, New Place is no longer standing. After Shakespeare's death, New Place was returned to the Clopton family, and Sir John Clopton demolished the building to build a new, modern-style home.
KS: But back to London.
William continued to write his plays with the Lord Chamberlain's men. These plays were incredibly popular and financially successful. However, at this time, the troupe was not performing at the Globe Theatre, because the Globe Theatre hadn't been built yet. In the early years of Shakespeare's career, the Lord Chamberlain's men performed in other theatres, such as the Theatre and the Rose. So how did Shakespeare get to the Globe? Well, after the lease for the Theatre expired, the landlord of the Theatre implemented a big rent increase. This did not make the troupe happy.
ES: But during this time period, the landlord only owned the land, not the theatre building. The building itself was the property of the troupe, not the landlord. So in 1599, in the dead of night, the troupe took down the Theatre plank by plank and transported it across the River Thames, so it was out of the jurisdiction of the landlord.
The plan actually worked. They did it, and rebuilt the Globe south of the Thames.
KS: And the Globe Theatre is where some of Shakespeare's biggest heavy hitters were performed: Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello.
ES: Unfortunately, the building burned down years later in 1613 during a performance of Henry VIII. A theatrical cannon misfired and caught onto thatching on the roof. Luckily, no one was hurt except a man whose burning breeches were put out with a bottle of ale. A ballad written about this mishap mentions the theatre being filled to capacity, which would have been around 3,000 people. I'd say that's a pretty solid audience.
KS: In part 2 of the intro series, we mentioned that early modern plays wrote political discourse in coded messages. And this is true. However, it's also important, as we talk about Shakespeare, to mention that he gained favor with both Elizabeth and James due to his plays. Elizabeth requested a Shakespeare play for the Twelfth Night holiday, and from there we get Twelfth Night. Shakespeare also likely wrote Macbeth to appease the new king. The Lord Chamberlain's men became The King's Men in 1603 due to their new patron. In this instance, you certainly need to write a play to make your patron happy.
ES: William kept working in London until he retired to Stratford sometime after 1611. We also read he retired in 1613 after the Globe Theatre burned down, and one other source said he retired in 1616, shortly before his death. Regardless, when he returned to Stratford, he stayed in New Place, made ready by his daughter Susanna and her husband, John Hall, a physician. Surviving documents show that William continued to visit London between 1611 and 1614. He died on April 23, 1616, on his 52nd birthday.
KS: He's buried in Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon. He composed his own epitaph, which reads, ““Good friend for Jesus’ sake forbear, To dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed be the man that spares these stones, And cursed be he that moves my bones.”
ES: That epitaph could possibly have been written to stop gravediggers from digging him up, like the gravediggers in Hamlet.
KS: In total, Shakespeare wrote 37 plays and a collection of sonnets. His works continue to influence art and culture, whether he expected them to or not. We at Shakespeare Anyone? Podcast would like to thank Shakespeare's colleagues John Hemmings and Henry Condall for that.
ES: Now, there are theories that Shakespeare didn't write his plays, but we don't believe
them in the slightest. The notion is classist to think a glove-maker's son can't write beautiful plays and sonnets. William Shakespeare was a real man who wrote plays, sometimes independently and sometimes with collaborators.
We are Stratfordians, full stop.
KS: So yeah, that's pretty much it. William Shakespeare was a real man who wrote in professional public playhouses in London. We know very little about his life, but we do know that he was influenced by the world around him. This is a vital building block for discussing his plays.
ES: And again, this episode covers the basics of the period. For more in-depth examinations, please check out our discussion-based and mini-episodes, including interviews with scholars, writers, and artists. We've also linked related episodes to our episode description.
KS: And that's our revision of our intro series, Stuff You Should Know.
ES: If you haven't yet, you should go back and listen to Part 1, where we look at the Monarchy and the English Renaissance, and Part 2, where we look at early modern England and the public playhouses. So, go back and catch up if you haven't yet. We hope you'll join us next time. Thank you for listening.
Quote of the Episode:
ES: From Othello, Act 5, Scene 1, as said by Cassio: Oh, help.
Shakespeare Anyone? is created, written, produced, and hosted by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp.
Episode written and researched by Kourtney Smith with contributions by Elyse Sharp. Revised September 2024.
Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander.
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Works referenced:
Dale, Liam, director. William Shakespeare: the Life and Times. 1091 Pictures, Cobra Entertainment, 3 Apr. 2017. Accessed 16 Sept. 2020, from www.youtube.com/watch?v=qafnuBH8KPs
Mcarafano. (2020, February 25). Shakespeare's Life. Accessed 16 Sept. 2020, from https://www.folger.edu/shakespeares-life
William Shakespeare Biography. (n.d.). Accessed 16 Sept. 2020, from https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/william-shakespeare/william-shakespeare-biography/
