Unit 4: Question 2- Shakespeare's Life & Biography

RESEARCH: Research Shakespeare’s life, ensuring you include information about his origins, family, relationships, the world he lived in and questions surrounding his work. 

Visit the Folger Shakespeare Library Website and working from the ‘Discover Shakespeare’ Tab you work through the information regarding Shakespeare’s Life. http://www.folger.edu/Content/Discover-Shakespeare/Shakespeares-Life/

You can also read the ‘William Shakespeare Fact Sheet’ on the Globe website.

http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/education/discovery-space/fact-sheets

Quick fact file:

Name: William Shakespeare

DOB: 23 April 1564, Stratford-Upon-Avon.

Era: Elizabethan Era

Death: 23 April 1616

Parents: John and Mary Shakespeare

Siblings: Joan Shakespeare (sister), Gilbert Shakespeare (brother), Edmund Shakespeare (brother), Richard Shakespeare (brother), Margaret Shakespeare (sister), Anne Shakespeare (sister)

Spouse(s): Anne Hathaway 1582-1616

Children: Hamnet Shakespeare (son), Susanna Shakespeare (daughter) and Judith Shakespeare (daughter).

Origins:

In the Elizabethan Era, birth certificates did not exit. However, church records indicate that William Shakespeare was baptized on 26 April 1564 at Holy Trinity Church in Statford-Upon-Avon. From this indication it is believed that he was born on or near the 23 April 1564.

Family:

John Shakespeare (father); professions included a politician, a glove maker and a business person. He moved from Snitterfield to Stratford as an apprentice Glover and tanner of leathers. He bought a house in 1552. Between 1556 and 1559 John Shakespeare married Mary Arden.

Marry Arden: She was the youngest of 8 daughters and inherited her father's farm, now called Mary Arden house in Wilmcote, Warwickshire. Mary and John had eight children together but only five survived into adulthood.

Children: Hamnet Shakespeare, was the only son of William Shakespeare's. He was born in 1585 and sadly died when he was 11 in 1596 due to a plague.

Judith Quiney, was the younger daughter of Shakespeare's and the twin of Hamnet Shakespeare. She was born in 1585 and married Thomas Quiney in 1616. She died in 1662.

Susanna Hall was the oldest child of William Shakespeare, born in 1583

World he lived in: looked at this website:

https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~sflores/345world.html

• people's lives were often short, one-half of the children born never lived beyond fifteen years 
• average lifespan of an adult was only thirty years, due to the limited medical knowledge
• antiseptics and antibiotics weren't known so doctors used primitive forms of medication
• the bubonic plague- the disease plagued England appeared suddenly and spread quickly
• to help stop the spreading of the disease, regulations were put into place; all London theaters were closed when death ate was high, because they believed it would stop human contact. Another regulation was to kill all cats and dogs
• food supply was very low and many of the poorer people starved, and overall the whole population were acquired illnesses caused by vitamin deficiencies

• Every year approximately 10,000 citizens migrated to London mainly because wages were about 50 percent higher than in other parts of the country
• During the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries England was at peace, enterprise and prosperity was introduced. Even lower class laborers and yeomen worked hard and were able to accumulate wealth.A lot of this money, was spent on leisure activities. It has been calculated that London playhouses saw close to 50 million visitors
• The main source of the country's income was wool
• London became a booming trade station handling 85 percent of all exports

• majority of women had very limited rights in England and had little power over the direction of their lives
• there was a traditional Patriarchal system and women were expected to be "domination and submission."
• the father and head of the household ruled over his wife and children
• women were denied formal educations, the opportunity to hold office, and also guarded against speaking out too freely
• many daughters were heir to a father's property, if there were no male heir