Elizabethan Theatre Print of William Shakespeare by Samuel Cousins, 1849. Museum no. DYCE.3164 In the late 16th century all classes of society (apart from royalty) visited the public theatres. The new theatres were popular and their audiences had a voracious appetite for new plays. New companies flourished and writers were employed to satisfy the demand for novelty. The acting companies Companies were hierarchical – actors who had a stake in the company were called 'sharers' and divided up the profit between them; 'hirelings' were just paid a weekly wage, whilst the boys who played women's roles were 'apprentices' and paid very little. Actors specialised in specific roles which they performed as part of their repertoire. The two most famous companies were the Admiral's Men and the Lord Chamberlain's Men, who were rivals. Companies became known by the title of the patron's household, for example 'Leicester's Men' were named after the Earl of Leicester. Leicester's Men consisted of actor James Burbage and four others. William Shakespeare was principal writer with the Lord Chamberlain's Men. Famous Elizabethan actors included Will Kempe, Edward Alleyn and Richard Burbage.

Richard Burbage was the leading player in Shakespeare’s company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, which later became the King's Men. Burbage created many of the leading roles in Shakespeare's plays. He specialised in tragic roles and was the first Hamlet, King Lear, Othello and Richard III. Burbage's family was also involved with the London theatre. His father, James Burbage, became an actor and then a theatre builder. He rented land in Shoreditch and built The Theatre, the first amphitheatre playhouse in London. His sons, Richard and Cuthbert, inherited The Theatre but after problems with their landlord, they dismantled The Theatre and transported the pieces across the River Thames where they rebuilt it and called it the Globe. Richard Burbage acted there until his death in 1619. Plays and playwrights Companies would perform between 30 and 40 new plays every year. Documentation from the period shows that the Admiral's Men performed every afternoon for six days of 40 weeks of the year. Playwrights were expected to produce a number of new plays every year to satisfy demand. Many of these were never published.

Plays, when written, became the property of the company and not the playwright. William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe and John Fletcher were just a few of the many playwrights of that era whose work is still performed today. Queen Elizabeth Viewing the Performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Globe Theatre, by David Scott, oil on canvas, Britain, 1840. Museum no S.511-1985 The Globe The Globe Theatre for which Shakespeare wrote many of his most famous plays, was erected in 1599 by the Lord Chamberlain's Men. When the lease on the land at their playhouse, The Theatre, in Shoreditch ran out, the company decided to rebuild it on the south bank of the River Thames. They dismantled the timber frame building and pieced a similar structure together and called it The Globe. This painting from 1840 is one of the earliest attempts to imagine the Globe's interior during performance. In fact Queen Elizabeth never visited the Globe or any other public theatre.

The project was financed by seven of the actors (of whom Shakespeare was one) and they became the 'housekeepers' who had investment in the building as well as the company. They also received a share of the takings from the gallery. The 20-sided structure had a capacity of up to 3000 people. A reconstruction of the Globe was built near its original site, on the South Bank of the River Thames in London, in the 1990s. Portrait of Shakespeare (1564-1616), print of an engraving, late 18th century Title page and frontispiece of book Mr William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories & Tragedies. Published according to the True Originall Copies, edited by I Hemige and H Condell, printed by Isaac Jaggard and Ed Blount, London, 1623. National Art Library, Dyce 8936 William Shakespeare (1564 -1616) Shakespeare wrote 38 plays and numerous sonnets.

It is not just the breadth of his work that makes Shakespeare the greatest British dramatist, but the beauty and inventiveness of his language and the universal nature of his writing. Shakespeare is performed today because his writing still speaks to audiences all over the world. England's most famous playwright was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, in 1564. His father was a glove maker and wool dealer. William attended the local grammar school in Stratford until he was 14 or 15, but there is no record of him going on to university. It is not known what Shakespeare did after leaving school. At the age of 18 in 1582 he married Anne Hathaway and they had three children. However, there are no records of how he was employed. Shakespeare went to London where his first patron was the young Earl of Southampton. The first reference to Shakespeare as a writer was in 1592, when his early plays were successful enough to arouse professional jealousy in some of his peers. Many of Shakespeare's contemporaries were scathing about his lack of a university education.

In 1594 Shakespeare had joined the Lord Chamberlain's Men as an actor and their principal playwright. He wrote on average two new plays a year for the company. His earliest plays included The Comedy of Errors and his first published work was the poem 'Venus and Adonis' in 1593. His tragedies Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth and King Lear were written after 1600. His last plays, the romances, are Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest which were written between 1608 and 1612. In comparison with contemporary playwrights Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson, Shakespeare had a relatively scandal-free life. Shakespeare returned to his Stratford home and died there in 1616. Renaissance Theatre: England Renaissance Theatre: England Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) - King James I of England (1603-1625) King Charles I (1625-1649) Wilson and Goldfarb.

Theatre: The Lively Art, 7th edition: Chapter 13, pages 282 - 292. Plays... Mr William Shakespeare and the Internet 1. What are the two major roots of English drama? Through the study, adaption and performance of Classical Greek and Roman Drama at the English Colleges and Universities and... Through the plays written and performed by the professional acting troupes. Thomas Preston's (1537-1598) A Lamentable Tragedy, Mixed full of Pleasant Mirth, Containing the Life of Cambyses, King of Persia... (1561), written for a small professional acting company, mixes "real" characters like King Cambyses with allagorical characters such as Shame, Diligence, Common's Cry, Cruelty, and Murder. 2. What is the importance of Gorboduc ? Gorboduc (1561) is considered the first "true" English tragedy.

The playwrights, two university students: Thomas Sacksville (1536-1608) and Thomas Norton (1532-1584), drew both their characters and plot from English history (legend). Gorboduc, like much of the work of Marlowe and Shakespeare, was written in blank verse -- unrhymed iambic pentameter -- verse of five feet per line, with the stress on the first beat of each foot. Christopher Marlowe 5. Who is the major Elizabethan playwright? William Shakespeare William Shakespeare (1564-1616). In addition to being a playwright, he was also an actor, a shareholder in the King's Men and a householder in the Globe (theatre). The official Shakespeare canon contains thirty-eight plays: the thirty-six works included in the First Folio (1623) and two plays, Pericles (1609) and Two Noble Kinsmen (1634), which appear only in quartos editions. Most drama critics believe Shakespeare was the greatest playwright in the English language. He also holds the title of the most often produced playwright in the academic theatre. 6.

What are the three groups into which his plays are divided? Tragedies (11 scripts), Comedies (16 titles) and History plays (9 plays). The three groups were established by the publishers of the First Folio in 1623. 7. Give an example of one of his tragedies? Romeo and Juliet (1594-95), Hamlet (1600-01), Othello (1602), King Lear (1606) Macbeth (1606). What is generally considered his greatest tragedy? Poster for Hamlet Hamlet: the story of a young prince whose father, the King, is murdered by his uncle. It includes what is probably the most famous soliloquy from dramatic literature: "To be, or not to be, that is the question..." (Act III, Sc 1). Richard Burton's performance of the soliloquy from the 1964 staging at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. According to director John Gielgud: "This is a Hamlet acted in rehearsal clothes, stripped of all extraneous trappings, unencumbered by a reconstruction of any particular historical period.

This performance is conceived as a final run-through,...a full rehearsal of the text and action played straight through without interruption from the director." Comedies? Taming of the Shrew (1594), Merchant of Venice (1595-96). As You Like It (1599). A Commedia interpretation of the "Wooing Scene" from the Taming of the Shrew As performed by American Conservatory Theatre, San Francisco, 1976 History plays? Poster for Richard III The Richard and Henry plays. Richard II (1594-95), Richard III (1592-93), Henry IV: parts 1 and 2 (1597-98), Henry V (1599), Henry VI: parts 1 through 3 (1591-92), and Henry VIII (1613). The plots and characters for the history plays are drawn from The War of the Roses (1455-1485): the conflict between the house of York and the house of Lancaster over which family was the rightful heir to the English throne. 8.

What was the difference between his farcical comedies, His farcical comedies, like Taming of the Shrew and The Merry Wives of Windsor (1599), place most of their emphasis on physical comedy. Merry Wives is also the only Shakespearean play set in Elizabethan England. His serious comedies, and his His serious comedies, such as The Merchant of Venice and Measure for Measure (1601-04), are serious dramas with a happy ending. Romantic comedies? His romantic comedies, like Twelth Night (1600-01) and As You Like It, are those which are set in a fairy-tale world. 9. Why is the Merchant of Venice a dark comedy? Because Antonio, the merchant of Venice, does not lose his pound of flesh. 9a. Did Shakespeare really write Shakespeare? The authorship of Shakespeare's work was first questioned during the 19th century when the adulation of Shakespeare as "The Greatest Intellect of All Time," known as Bardolatry, became widespread. Shakespeare's lack of education, his humble beginnings, his obscure life seemed incompatiable with his body of work and his reputation as a genius.

Obviously his plays had to be written by a college educated man, aquainted with court life. More than 70 historical figures have been nominated as the true author of the Shakespeare's canon, some more seriously than others. However, only four have attracted a significant number of followers: Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Edward de Vere (1550-1604), 17th Earl of Oxford, and William Stanley (1561-1642), 6th Earl of Derby. Anonymous , the 2011 film directed by Roland Emmerich which opened October 28th, is built on the premise that the plays credited to William Shakespeare were actually written by Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. Most theatre professors and all Shakespearean scholars believe that the plays credited to William Shakespeare were written by William Shakespeare, the Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon. 10. List four basic production problems encountered when an educational theatre attempts to stage a Shakespearean drama. They are long.

The running time for Hamlet is a little over four hours, They require large, mostly male casts, Many of the major roles are difficult, usually beyond the scope of a college student, and The language is difficult to understand, and speak. The cover page of Published 1623 11. What is the difference between a quartos and a folio? The quartos were small books (5"x6") which contained a single play. Nineteen scripts were published in quartos editions between 1594 and 1622. The folio was a large book (8.5"x13") which included a collection of 36 scripts. 12. What is the difference between a good quartos and a bad quartos? The good quartos were those authorized publications based on the prompt books (scripts) held by the acting company. The bad quartos were those un-authorized publications based on the faulty memory of an un-happy actor who was no longer a member of the troupe. There were bad, or corrupt, versions of only 6 of of the 19 plays published between 1594 and 1622. 13.

When was the First Folio published? One thousand copies of the First Folio were printed in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death. The cost for this large and very heavy book was �1, approximately $200 in 2010 currency. The current value of a first edition of the First Folio in good condition is between $15 and $20 million. How many plays did it contain? Thirty six, including eighteen plays which had not been previously published. Pericles (1609), which was printed in a quartos edition was not included in the First Folio. 14. What was the difference between a private and a public theatre? Private theatres were the small (capacity: 700), expensive (6d) indoor playhouses. The public theatres were the large (capacity: 3000), less expensive (1d) open air playhouses. In 1600 five public theatres -- the Globe, the Curtain, the Fortune, the Rose. and the Swan -- operated just outside the city of London. 15. What was the name of the first professional English playhouse? 16th Century Carrier Inn The Theatre.

"Theatre" was not a term generally used to identify an English playhouse. When the second playhouse opened, it was known simply as the Curtain, not the Curtain Theatre. Before the construction of the Theatre, acting companies performed in the courtyard of public "carrier inns" These inns were two or three storied structures which surrounded an open courtyard. 16. When was it built? 1576. By whom? James Burbage (c. 1530-1597), joiner turned actor, member of the Earl of Leicester's Men (1559-1588), and the father of Richard Burbage (c. 1567-1619), the leading actor of and a shareholder in the King's Men . 17. Why was it not built in the city of London? Because the city fathers would not permit the construction of a professional theatre within the city limits. Public playhouses were built either in the suburbs north and east of the city, or just south of the Thames River in area known as Bankside. Actors were considered, just a little above rouges and vagabonds. 18. What was the relationship between the Theatre and the Globe?

The Globe was built from the timbers of the Theatre. The Theatre was built on rented land. When the lease ran out, the landlord, Giles Allen, threatened to destory the structure. Richard Burbage and his acting company, dismantled the Theatre, took it through the city of London, and rebuilt it south of the Thames River in Bankside. When it reopened in 1599 it was renamed the Globe. From a contemporary source, in Elizabethan English: divers ... persons, to the number of twelve ... armed themselves ... and throwing downe the sayd Theater in verye outragious, �violent and riotous sort ... did then alsoe in most forcible and ryotous manner take and carrye awaye from thence all the wood and timber thereof unto the Bancksyde in the parishe of St Marye Overyes, and there erected a newe playehowse with the sayd timber and woode. This theatre burned on June 28, 1613 during a production of Shakespeare's Henry VIII, and was rebuilt in 1614. The second Globe, along with every other English playhouse was closed in 1642.

It was dismantled in 1644. A small portion of the original site was excavated in the fall of 1989. The third Globe, built about 200 yards from the original site opened in June 1997. See the the New Globe Web site for more information on this reconstruction. A Satellite View of Bankside Point (B) is the location of the New Globe which opened in 1997. Point (D) is the location of the original Globe which was built in 1599, burned in 1642, was rebuilt and then dismantled in 1644. Site of the Original Globe The site of the 1989 excavation of the original Globe was in the parking lot behind the historical Anchor Terrace apartments (D). The image on the right indicates the probable location of the original Globe. An artist's interpretation of the 1599 Globe 19. What did the Globe look like? The Globe was a 20 (or 24) sided structure which closely resembled a circle.

There was a courtyard (also known as the yard or pit) in the center surrounded by two or three levels of balconies (or galleries). The stage (or forestage) was backed against one of the sides and jutted into the center of the courtyard. See the illustration on page 286. 20. What are the primary sources of information on the layout of an Elizabethan theatre? There are four: The stage directions in the texts of Elizabethan plays. Philip Henslowe's contract for the construction of the Fortune. The ground plan on page 289 is based on this document. A Dutch visitor's sketch of the Swan. See the illustration on page 288. The 1989 archaeological excavation of a small portion of the historical site of the Globe. The Globe Within the walled city of London. 25. Why was Blackfrairs under the control of the King? Between 1535 and 1540, King Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth's father, who had already broken with the Roman Catholic church, dissolved the English monasteries and transferred their property to the crown. 26. When did it become the winter home of the King's Men?

1610. Between 1610 and 1642, Blackfriars was their winter home and the Globe was their summer residence. 27. Why was it necessary for an Elizabethan acting company to have a patron? So they would not be a "rogue or vagabond." Acting in Elizabethan England was not an acceptable occupation, therefore, if an actor was not a servant to a noble or royal family (the patron) he could be classed as a "rogue or vagabond" under the Tudor Poor Law and could be whipped "through the streets" (first offence), lose part of an ear (second offence), or put to death (third offence). William Shakespeare - Shakespeare's sources | English author | Britannica.com Eyjafjallajökull volcano Readers and playgoers in Shakespeare’s own lifetime, and indeed until the late 18th century, never questioned Shakespeare’s authorship of his plays. He was a well-known actor from Stratford who performed in London’s premier acting company, among the great actors of his day.

He was widely known by the leading writers of his time as well, including Ben Jonson and John Webster , both of whom praised him as a dramatist. Many other tributes to him as a great writer appeared during his lifetime. Any theory that supposes him not to have been the writer of the plays and poems attributed to him must suppose that Shakespeare’s contemporaries were universally fooled by some kind of secret arrangement. Yet suspicions on the subject gained increasing force in the mid-19th century. One Delia Bacon proposed that the author was her claimed ancestor Sir Francis Bacon , Viscount St. Albans, who was indeed a prominent writer of the Elizabethan era. What had prompted this theory? The chief considerations seem to have been that little is known about Shakespeare’s life (though in fact more is known about him than about his contemporary writers), that he was from the country town of Stratford-upon-Avon, that he never attended one of the universities, and that therefore it would have been impossible for him to write knowledgeably about the great affairs of English courtly life such as we find in the plays. An introduction to William F. Friedman, the breaker of the Japanese Purple code in World War II.

… Courtesy of Folger Shakespeare Library; CC-BY-SA 4.0 (A Britannica Publishing Partner) The theory is suspect on a number of counts. University training in Shakespeare’s day centred on theology and on Latin, Greek, and Hebrew texts of a sort that would not have greatly improved Shakespeare’s knowledge of contemporary English life. By the 19th century, a university education was becoming more and more the mark of a broadly educated person, but university training in the 16th century was quite a different matter. The notion that only a university-educated person could write of life at court and among the gentry is an erroneous and indeed a snobbish assumption. Shakespeare was better off going to London as he did, seeing and writing plays, listening to how people talked. He was a reporter, in effect. The great writers of his era (or indeed of most eras) are not usually aristocrats, who have no need to earn a living by their pens. Shakespeare’s social background is essentially like that of his best contemporaries. Edmund Spenser went to Cambridge, it is true, but he came from a sail-making family.

Christopher Marlowe also attended Cambridge, but his kindred were shoemakers in Canterbury. John Webster, Thomas Dekker , and Thomas Middleton came from similar backgrounds. They discovered that they were writers, able to make a living off their talent, and they (excluding the poet Spenser) flocked to the London theatres where customers for their wares were to be found. Like them, Shakespeare was a man of the commercial theatre. Other candidates— William Stanley , 6th earl of Derby, and Christopher Marlowe among them—have been proposed, and indeed the very fact of so many candidates makes one suspicious of the claims of any one person. The late 20th-century candidate for the writing of Shakespeare’s plays, other than Shakespeare himself, was Edward de Vere , 17th earl of Oxford. Oxford did indeed write verse, as did other gentlemen; sonneteering was a mark of gentlemanly distinction. Oxford was also a wretched man who abused his wife and drove his father-in-law to distraction. Most seriously damaging to Oxford’s candidacy is the fact that he died in 1604.

The chronology presented here, summarizing perhaps 200 years of assiduous scholarship, establishes a professional career for Shakespeare as dramatist that extends from about 1589 to 1614. Many of his greatest plays—King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, and The Tempest, to name but three—were written after 1604. To suppose that the dating of the canon is totally out of whack and that all the plays and poems were written before 1604 is a desperate argument. Some individual dates are uncertain, but the overall pattern is coherent. The growth in poetic and dramatic styles, the development of themes and subjects, along with objective evidence, all support a chronology that extends to about 1614. To suppose alternatively that Oxford wrote the plays and poems before 1604 and then put them away in a drawer, to be brought out after his death and updated to make them appear timely, is to invent an answer to a nonexistent problem. When all is said, the sensible question one must ask is, why would Oxford want to write the plays and poems and then not claim them for himself?

The answer given is that he was an aristocrat and that writing for the theatre was not elegant; hence he needed a front man, an alias. Shakespeare, the actor, was a suitable choice. But is it plausible that a cover-up like this could have succeeded? Shakespeare’s contemporaries, after all, wrote of him unequivocally as the author of the plays. Ben Jonson, who knew him well, contributed verses to the First Folio of 1623, where (as elsewhere) he criticizes and praises Shakespeare as the author. John Heminge and Henry Condell, fellow actors and theatre owners with Shakespeare, signed the dedication and a foreword to the First Folio and described their methods as editors. In his own day, therefore, he was accepted as the author of the plays. In an age that loved gossip and mystery as much as any, it seems hardly conceivable that Jonson and Shakespeare’s theatrical associates shared the secret of a gigantic literary hoax without a single leak or that they could have been imposed upon without suspicion.

Unsupported assertions that the author of the plays was a man of great learning and that Shakespeare of Stratford was an illiterate rustic no longer carry weight, and only when a believer in Bacon or Oxford or Marlowe produces sound evidence will scholars pay close attention. Linguistic, historical, textual, and editorial problems Since the days of Shakespeare, the English language has changed, and so have audiences, theatres, actors, and customary patterns of thought and feeling. Time has placed an ever-increasing cloud before the mirror he held up to life, and it is here that scholarship can help. Hear the original pronunciation of Elizabethan English as demonstrated and explained by British … © Open University (A Britannica Publishing Partner) Problems are most obvious in single words. In the 21st century, presently, for instance, does not mean “immediately,” as it usually did for Shakespeare, or will mean “lust,” or rage mean “folly,” or silly denote “innocence” and “purity.” In Shakespeare’s day, words sounded different, too, so that ably could rhyme with eye or tomb with dumb. Syntax was often different, and, far more difficult to define, so was response to metre and phrase.

What sounds formal and stiff to a modern hearer might have sounded fresh and gay to an Elizabethan. Ideas have changed, too, most obviously political ones. Shakespeare’s contemporaries almost unanimously believed in authoritarian monarchy and recognized divine intervention in history. Most of them would have agreed that a man should be burned for ultimate religious heresies. It is the office of linguistic and historical scholarship to aid the understanding of the multitude of factors that have significantly affected the impressions made by Shakespeare’s plays. None of Shakespeare’s plays has survived in his handwritten manuscript, and, in the printed texts of some plays, notably King Lear and Richard III, there are passages that are manifestly corrupt, with only an uncertain relationship to the words Shakespeare once wrote. Even if the printer received a good manuscript, small errors could still be introduced. Compositors were less than perfect; they often “regularized” the readings of their copy, altered punctuation in accordance with their own preferences or “house” style or because they lacked the necessary pieces of type, or made mistakes because they had to work too hurriedly.

Even the correction of proof sheets in the printing house could further corrupt the text, since such correction was usually effected without reference to the author or to the manuscript copy; when both corrected and uncorrected states are still available, it is sometimes the uncorrected version that is preferable. Correctors are responsible for some errors now impossible to right. William Shakespeare - Poet, Playwright - Biography.com William Shakespeare William Shakespeare, often called the English national poet, is widely considered the greatest dramatist of all time.

IN THESE GROUPS » quotes “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” “This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” “Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.” “Lord, what fools these mortals be!” “To weep is to make less the depth of grief.” “In time we hate that which we often fear.” “Men at some time are masters of their fates: the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.” “What's done cannot be undone.” “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.” “Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.” “The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.” “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” “Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.” “I say there is

 no darkness but ignorance.” “I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.” “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” William Shakespeare William Shakespeare - Mini Biography (TV-14; 4:43) Though little is known about William Shakespeare's personal life, his works such as "Hamlet," "Romeo and Juliet," and "King Lear," have influenced literature and theater for over 400 years.

Synopsis William Shakespeare was baptized on April 26, 1564, in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. From roughly 1594 onward he was an important member of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men company of theatrical players. Written records give little indication of the way in which Shakespeare’s professional life molded his artistry. All that can be deduced is that over the course of 20 years, Shakespeare wrote plays that capture the complete range of human emotion and conflict. Mysterious Origins Known throughout the world, the works of William Shakespeare have been performed in countless hamlets, villages, cities and metropolises for more than 400 years. And yet, the personal history of William Shakespeare is somewhat a mystery. There are two primary sources that provide historians with a basic outline of his life. One source is his work—the plays, poems and sonnets—and the other is official documentation such as church and court records. However, these only provide brief sketches of specific events in his life and provide little on the person who experienced those events.

Early Life Though no birth records exist, church records indicate that a William Shakespeare was baptized at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26, 1564. From this, it is believed he was born on or near April 23, 1564, and this is the date scholars acknowledge as William Shakespeare's birthday. Located 103 miles west of London, during Shakespeare's time Stratford-upon-Avon was a market town bisected with a country road and the River Avon. William was the third child of John Shakespeare, a leather merchant, and Mary Arden, a local landed heiress. William had two older sisters, Joan and Judith, and three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard and Edmund. Before William's birth, his father became a successful merchant and held official positions as alderman and bailiff, an office resembling a mayor. However, records indicate John's fortunes declined sometime in the late 1570s. Scant records exist of William's childhood, and virtually none regarding his education. Scholars have surmised that he most likely attended the King's New School, in Stratford, which taught reading, writing and the classics.

Being a public official's child, William would have undoubtedly qualified for free tuition. But this uncertainty regarding his education has led some to raise questions about the authorship of his work and even about whether or not William Shakespeare ever existed. Married Life William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway on November 28, 1582, in Worcester, in Canterbury Province. Hathaway was from Shottery, a small village a mile west of Stratford. William was 18 and Anne was 26, and, as it turns out, pregnant. Their first child, a daughter they named Susanna, was born on May 26, 1583. Two years later, on February 2, 1585, twins Hamnet and Judith were born. Hamnet later died of unknown causes at age 11. After the birth of the twins, there are seven years of William Shakespeare's life where no records exist. Scholars call this period the "lost years," and there is wide speculation on what he was doing during this period. One theory is that he might have gone into hiding for poaching game from the local landlord, Sir Thomas Lucy.

Another possibility is that he might have been working as an assistant schoolmaster in Lancashire. It is generally believed he arrived in London in the mid- to late 1580s and may have found work as a horse attendant at some of London's finer theaters, a scenario updated centuries later by the countless aspiring actors and playwrights in Hollywood and Broadway. Theatrical Beginnings By 1592, there is evidence William Shakespeare earned a living as an actor and a playwright in London and possibly had several plays produced. The September 20, 1592 edition of the Stationers' Register (a guild publication) includes an article by London playwright Robert Greene that takes a few jabs at William Shakespeare: "...There is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country," Greene wrote of Shakespeare.

Scholars differ on the interpretation of this criticism, but most agree that it was Greene's way of saying Shakespeare was reaching above his rank, trying to match better known and educated playwrights like Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe or Greene himself. By the early 1590s, documents show William Shakespeare was a managing partner in the Lord Chamberlain's Men, an acting company in London. After the crowning of King James I, in 1603, the company changed its name to the King's Men. From all accounts, the King's Men company was very popular, and records show that Shakespeare had works published and sold as popular literature. The theater culture in 16th century England was not highly admired by people of high rank. However, many of the nobility were good patrons of the performing arts and friends of the actors. Early in his career, Shakespeare was able to attract the attention of Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, to whom he dedicated his first- and second-published poems: "Venus and Adonis" (1593) and "The Rape of Lucrece" (1594).

Establishing Himself By 1597, 15 of the 37 plays written by William Shakespeare were published. Civil records show that at this time he purchased the second largest house in Stratford, called New House, for his family. It was a four-day ride by horse from Stratford to London, so it is believed that Shakespeare spent most of his time in the city writing and acting and came home once a year during the 40-day Lenten period, when the theaters were closed. By 1599, William Shakespeare and his business partners built their own theater on the south bank of the Thames River, which they called the Globe. In 1605, Shakespeare purchased leases of real estate near Stratford for 440 pounds, which doubled in value and earned him 60 pounds a year. This made him an entrepreneur as well as an artist, and scholars believe these investments gave him the time to write his plays uninterrupted. Writing Style William Shakespeare's early plays were written in the conventional style of the day, with elaborate metaphors and rhetorical phrases that didn't always align naturally with the story's plot or characters.

However, Shakespeare was very innovative, adapting the traditional style to his own purposes and creating a freer flow of words. With only small degrees of variation, Shakespeare primarily used a metrical pattern consisting of lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter, or blank verse, to compose his plays. At the same time, there are passages in all the plays that deviate from this and use forms of poetry or simple prose. Early Works: Histories and Comedies With the exception of Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare's first plays were mostly histories written in the early 1590s. Richard II, Henry VI (parts 1, 2 and 3) and Henry V dramatize the destructive results of weak or corrupt rulers, and have been interpreted by drama historians as Shakespeare's way of justifying the origins of the Tudor Dynasty. Shakespeare also wrote several comedies during his early period: the witty romance A Midsummer Night's Dream, the romantic Merchant of Venice, the wit and wordplay of Much Ado About Nothing, the charming As You Like It and Twelfth Night.

Other plays, possibly written before 1600, include Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew and The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Later Works: Tragedies and Tragicomedies It was in William Shakespeare's later period, after 1600, that he wrote the tragedies Hamlet, King Lear, Othello and Macbeth. In these, Shakespeare's characters present vivid impressions of human temperament that are timeless and universal. Possibly the best known of these plays is Hamlet, which explores betrayal, retribution, incest and moral failure. These moral failures often drive the twists and turns of Shakespeare's plots, destroying the hero and those he loves. In William Shakespeare's final period, he wrote several tragicomedies. Among these are Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest. Though graver in tone than the comedies, they are not the dark tragedies of King Lear or Macbeth because they end with reconciliation and forgiveness. William Shakespeare - 5 Little Known Facts (; 3:00) James Shapiro, author of “The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606,” shares five discoveries about the famous Bard.

(Video Courtesy of Simon & Schuster) Death Tradition has it that William Shakespeare died on his birthday, April 23, 1616, though many scholars believe this is a myth. Church records show he was interred at Trinity Church on April 25, 1616. In his will, he left the bulk of his possessions to his eldest daughter, Susanna. Though entitled to a third of his estate, little seems to have gone to his wife, Anne, whom he bequeathed his "second-best bed." This has drawn speculation that she had fallen out of favor, or that the couple was not close. However, there is very little evidence the two had a difficult marriage. Other scholars note that the term "second-best bed" often refers to the bed belonging to the household's master and mistres—the marital bed—and the "first-best bed" was reserved for guests. Controversy and Literary Legacy About 150 years after his death, questions arose about the authorship of William Shakespeare's plays. Scholars and literary critics began to float names like Christopher Marlowe, Edward de Vere and Francis Bacon —men of more known backgrounds, literary accreditation, or inspiration—as the true authors of the plays.

Much of this stemmed from the sketchy details of Shakespeare's life and the dearth of contemporary primary sources. Official records from the Holy Trinity Church and the Stratford government record the existence of a William Shakespeare, but none of these attest to him being an actor or playwright. Skeptics also questioned how anyone of such modest education could write with the intellectual perceptiveness and poetic power that is displayed in Shakespeare's works. Over the centuries, several groups have emerged that question the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. The most serious and intense skepticism began in the 19th century when adoration for Shakespeare was at its highest. The detractors believed that the only hard evidence surrounding William Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon described a man from modest beginnings who married young and became successful in real estate. Members of the Shakespeare Oxford Society (founded in 1957) put forth arguments that English aristocrat Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the true author of the poems and plays of "William Shakespeare." The Oxfordians cite de Vere's extensive knowledge of aristocratic society, his education, and the structural similarities between his poetry and that found in the works attributed to Shakespeare.

They contend that William Shakespeare had neither the education nor the literary training to write such eloquent prose and create such rich characters. However, the vast majority of Shakespearean scholars contend that William Shakespeare wrote all his own plays. They point out that other playwrights of the time also had sketchy histories and came from modest backgrounds. They contend that Stratford's New Grammar School curriculum of Latin and the classics could have provided a good foundation for literary writers. Supporters of Shakespeare's authorship argue that the lack of evidence about Shakespeare's life doesn't mean his life didn't exist. They point to evidence that displays his name on the title pages of published poems and plays. Examples exist of authors and critics of the time acknowledging William Shakespeare as author of plays such as The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Comedy of Errors and King John. Royal records from 1601 show that William Shakespeare was recognized as a member of the King's Men theater company (formerly known as the Chamberlain's Men) and a Groom of the Chamber by the court of King James I, where the company performed seven of Shakespeare's plays. There is also strong circumstantial evidence of personal relationships by contemporaries who interacted with Shakespeare as an actor and a playwright.

What seems to be true is that William Shakespeare was a respected man of the dramatic arts who wrote plays and acted in some in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. But his reputation as a dramatic genius wasn't recognized until the 19th century. Beginning with the Romantic period of the early 1800s and continuing through the Victorian period, acclaim and reverence for William Shakespeare and his work reached its height. In the 20th century, new movements in scholarship and performance have rediscovered and adopted his works. Today, his plays are highly popular and constantly studied and reinterpreted in performances with diverse cultural and political contexts. The genius of Shakespeare's characters and plots are that they present real human beings in a wide range of emotions and conflicts that transcend their origins in Elizabethan England. Videos

Question: Which 16th century dramatist wrote plays for the Earl of Nottingham's company?
Answer: Christopher Marlowe