William Shakespeare: A Life in Plays
William Shakespeare
Early Life and Career
Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, where his father, John Shakespeare, was a glovemaker and trader in agricultural produce. As an alderman, John Shakespeare was a prominent citizen who rose to the office of mayor (“bailiff”) in 1568, although he soon after fell on hard times and, ten years later, was badly in debt. Shakespeare’s mother, Mary Arden, was the daughter of a well-to-do farmer from the neighboring village of Wilmcote, suggesting that she married beneath her gentry class. William was likely educated at the local grammar school, studying Latin and reading classical literature. In November 1582, he married Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior, who bore him a daughter six months later.
There is no record of Shakespeare’s activities for over seven years, from February 1585, when his twins were baptized, until the autumn of 1592, when he reappears as an established playwright in London. According to a tradition from the later seventeenth century, Shakespeare spent part of these “lost” years teaching Latin in a country school, which would account for his command of the language. In the eighteenth century, Edmond Malone, a Shakespeare scholar, noted that two London theater troupes were under the patronage of the earls of Warwick and Leicester, both living near Stratford. Malone conjectured that when another company, the Queen’s Men, performed in Stratford in 1587, Shakespeare might have joined them and returned to London.
Eight Early Plays and the Narrative Poems (1587(?)-1594)
Whether he began as a writer or actor, Shakespeare combined both talents in a theatrical career that flourished quickly. He is first mentioned in print by playwright Robert Greene, who attacks him as a rival. Writing before his death in September 1592, Greene criticizes this “upstart crow” as “the only Shake-scene in the country.” Greene also parodies a line from Henry VI, a three-part drama that, with Richard III, makes up Shakespeare’s initial sequence of four history plays on the Wars of the Roses. By 1592, the plague was causing theater closures. Shakespeare had already completed his tragedy of revenge, Titus Andronicus. In addition to these five serious plays, which reveal a developing master-playwright, Shakespeare would have finished his three earliest comedies: The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, and The Comedy of Errors. During the enforced theater closures for nearly two years until April 1594, Shakespeare published Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, dedicating these narrative poems to the Earl of Southampton. Meanwhile, he began Romeo and Juliet, the tragedy that, with Titus Andronicus, assured his popularity.
Comedies and Histories (1595-1601)
By 1595, with theaters reopened, Shakespeare had found the lyrical poetry that marks his next four works: Romeo and Juliet, Love’s Labor’s Lost, Richard II, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He had become key in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, sharing profits with owner James Burbage and his son, Richard, the famous actor. This company acted at the Theatre, north of the Thames. Their rival was the Lord Admiral’s Men, south of the Thames. By 1599, Shakespeare’s company would prevail and move into the Globe playhouse on the Bankside. The Lord Chamberlain’s Men often played before Queen Elizabeth and, at her death in 1603, became the King’s Men under James I.
To these years belong eight of Shakespeare’s nine mature comedies. Six celebrating young love are the “romantic” comedies (Love’s Labor’s Lost; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; The Merchant of Venice; Much Ado About Nothing; As You Like It; Twelfth Night). A seventh, The Merry Wives of Windsor (1597), is a farce exploiting the popularity of Falstaff, Shakespeare’s fat knight whom, legend says, Queen Elizabeth wanted to see in love. Two later comedies, appearing after 1600 when Shakespeare focused on tragedy, are less romantic and more realistic: All’s Well That Ends Well (1601?) and Measure for Measure (1603-4).
As an actor and the company’s main playwright, Shakespeare produced two plays annually during these creative years. Besides Romeo and Juliet, his comedies, and King John (1594-96), Shakespeare wrote a second sequence of English history plays, predating Henry VI and the Wars of the Roses. Richard II was followed by the Henriad: Henry IV (in two parts) and Henry V. With his two tetralogies on the English kings from Richard II to Richard III, Shakespeare perfected the “histories” genre. Shakespeare aimed to make audiences reflect on England’s past, but in Henry V, he makes the Chorus allude to a patron, the Earl of Essex, who enjoyed Queen Elizabeth’s favor in 1599. The company was embarrassed two years later when Essex, bolstering his uprising against the queen, hired them to stage Richard II. Essex wanted to highlight the parallel between Elizabeth and the weak king who forfeited his crown to Henry IV. Elizabeth, furious, reportedly said, “I am Richard II. Know ye not that?” Ten years after her death, Shakespeare added a tenth play to his nine English histories: Henry VIII (1613).
Tragedies (1599-1608)
Before 1593, a non-Shakespearean play called Hamlet was popular. Around 1600, Shakespeare rewrote this lost revenge play. Hamlet (1600), his most famous tragedy, exists in three versions and is much longer than his other tragedies. It was followed by Othello (1602-3), King Lear (1605), and Macbeth (1606). Besides these four, Shakespeare wrote five more tragedies on ancient Greek and Roman subjects. Troilus and Cressida (1601) satirizes the Trojan Wars, while Timon of Athens (1605-6?) expresses futility like King Lear but without its compassion. The other three tragedies revisit Roman subjects from Titus Andronicus. Inspired by Plutarch’s Lives, Shakespeare wrote his three great Roman tragedies: Julius Caesar (1599) and Antony and Cleopatra (1606) portray the republic’s collapse and the empire’s founding, while Coriolanus (1608) goes back to Rome’s early republic. In this final solo tragedy, Shakespeare connects the Roman mob with contemporary politics, referencing the grain riots in England’s Midlands the previous summer.
Late Plays (1608-1611), Sonnets, and the Canon
Before discussing Shakespeare’s last plays and his 1611 retirement, let’s see how the canon formed. Seven years after his death, fellow actors Heminge and Condell collected 36 plays into the First Folio (1623), dividing them into comedies, tragedies, and histories. Reprinted thrice in the seventeenth century, the Folio, by 1664, added two collaborations: Pericles, rejected by the actor-editors; and The Two Noble Kinsmen, mostly by John Fletcher, with whom Shakespeare likely collaborated during retirement. A century after his birth, the Shakespearean canon was complete. Heminge and Condell were knowledgeable; their ascriptions are unchallenged. If anything, they were cautious. Modern collections include Pericles; many include The Two Noble Kinsmen. Recently, scholars have argued for admitting Edward III, published anonymously in 1595, possibly conceived by Shakespeare as a prelude to his Lancastrian tetralogy.
Edward III contains lines recycled in Shakespeare’s later plays and Sonnets (1609). “Recycled” is apt; Shakespeare only borrowed from himself. There are many echoes of his plays in the Sonnets, some possibly written as early as 1595; two (sonnets 138 and 144) were printed in 1599. Scholars considered the Sonnets‘ publication unauthorized, but the New Arden editor argues that Shakespeare himself delivered the revised manuscript to Thomas Thorpe. Shakespeare might have published these poems knowing that, by 1609, his relationships with the subjects—the noble youth and the “dark lady”—were in the past. Concealing their identities created a roman à clef. In 1598, readers were talking about “his sugared Sonnets among his private friends.”
The best candidate for the young man addressed in most sonnets is William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, fifteen in 1595 when contemplating marriage, to whom the Folio was dedicated 28 years later. 
The first 126 sonnets describe him. The poet urges marriage and children, but by sonnet 18, he promises immortality through verse. Praise for his “master-mistress” (sonnet 20) turns to criticism in sonnets 33, 69, 87, and 94. These ambivalent poems alternate with love expressed in sonnets 55, 107, 116, and the cycle-ending 126. Most remaining sonnets (127-154) form a second cycle involving the “dark lady,” treated insultingly and possibly fictional, unlike the beloved young man. Shakespeare perhaps invented her to symbolize lust and self-delusion, powerfully expressed in sonnets 129 and 152. Sonnets 144 to 146 illustrate the poet’s struggle. “Two loves I have, of comfort and despair,” he complains in sonnet 144. Next, he inserts a juvenile poem (145) punning on his wife’s name, Hathaway, followed by sonnet 146’s austere renunciation (“Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth”).
The Folio contains none of Shakespeare’s poems, but adding the three later attributed plays to its 36 makes 39: twelve comedies, twelve tragedies (including The Two Noble Kinsmen), eleven histories (including Edward III), and four remaining comedies: Pericles (1608), The Winter’s Tale (1609), Cymbeline (1610), and The Tempest (1611). Stylistically, these late comedies, with Henry VIII (1613) and The Two Noble Kinsmen (1613-14), round out Shakespeare’s career.
The four late comedies are categorized as such because they end happily with reunions and marriages. However, all stage apparent tragedies, and all but The Tempest contain deaths. Since the 1890s, scholars have called these plays “romances” due to their plots loosely based on adventure novels of late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Pericles and The Winter’s Tale are Mediterranean romances, spanning two generations. However, Cymbeline deals with historical politics in ancient Britain during the rebellion against Rome. The Tempest, set on Prospero’s island, has drawn attention for its themes of “colonial imperialism.”
These four late plays contrast with the histories of Shakespeare’s middle years. In the 1590s, he wrote for an audience excited about England’s future after the Spanish Armada’s defeat. A decade later, Shakespeare focused on an audience interested in courtly ambitions and jealousies. Focusing on the royal household (domus) rather than the nation, the late plays offer “domestic” romance instead of inspiring history.
The Man from Stratford
Many records show that Shakespeare regularly visited Stratford during his 25 years in London, acquiring substantial property. He secured a coat of arms for himself and his father, who died a “gentleman” in 1601. Shakespeare lost his son in 1596, but his twin daughter, Judith, and eldest daughter, Susanna, both married. Shakespeare enjoyed five years of prosperous retirement, receiving visits from fellow actors and poets. After one such visit from Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton, Shakespeare reportedly died of a fever contracted from drinking “too hard.” Anne Shakespeare died in 1623, and their line ended when their granddaughter, Elizabeth, Lady Bernard, died childless in 1670. Only Shakespeare’s collateral family survives, through his younger sister, Joan Hart.
Over 100 documents tell us more about Shakespeare than about most commoners, whose transactions were not preserved like those of the nobility. Some 50 contemporaries refer to him as a famous playwright. Fifty years after his death, after the Restoration (1660), Dryden and others exalted his plays, while readers sought biographical information. A century after his death, Nicholas Rowe, the first to edit the plays, visited Stratford seeking information. In 1769, David Garrick held the first Stratford Jubilee, crowning the “king of poets” and inaugurating the modern Shakespeare cult. By the 1790s, documents, letters, and even a play were forged in his name. As Edmond Malone put Shakespeare studies on a firm historical basis, Romantic critics, influenced by German scholars, proclaimed Shakespeare a universal genius.
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this worship became what George Bernard Shaw called “Bardolatry.” Romantic critics like Coleridge, Lamb, Hazlitt, and Keats admired Shakespeare’s artistry without delving into his private life. However, those who felt the Bard deserved a grander biography found the documentary record lacking. They constructed a fanciful story by rearranging historical facts. Francis Bacon seemed a more likely author than the modestly educated schoolteacher, even though Bacon’s writings show no ear for poetry.
Others have tried to replace Shakespeare with the Earl of Oxford, who published lyrics but no plays and died in 1604, before some of the best plays were written. To be their author, he must have left masterpieces like King Lear (rewritten in 1608) unfinished, foreseen the grain riots in Coriolanus, and divined the 1609 shipwreck on which The Tempest is based. Besides these absurdities, it’s hard to see why the boastful Oxford would write incognito. Aristocrats lived public lives, scorning to hide their accomplishments. A nobleman’s honor rested on public integrity, something no actor could claim.
Nevertheless, Shakespeare was preoccupied with public honor. In the Sonnets, he complains that his genteel friends consider him a hypocrite for acting, hence his “name receives a brand.” To us, his characters seem overly concerned with aristocratic honor, but even in the eighteenth century, his portrayals of royalty were criticized as too mean. It is naive to imagine that Shakespeare’s work reflects intimate knowledge of the court. He portrays the aristocracy as an outsider looking in, which is perhaps why his work continues to fascinate democratic audiences skeptical of aristocratic ideals.
Modern Bardolatry has thrived alongside middle-class culture and its hunger for novelty. We overlook Shakespeare’s ambitions. His biography is that of a commoner aspiring to gentry status, even revising his will to that end. He hoped to perpetuate his name through his descendants. His care in preserving his bones in Stratford’s church, rather than publishing his plays, suggests he valued literary fame less than Ben Jonson, who proudly published his “Works.” Shakespeare’s indifference to authorial renown also sets him apart from his Bardolaters, who equate genius with high social standing. Their snobbery is inverted by “pop culturalists” who claim that great art springs from the marginalized.
What makes Shakespeare unique is that he speaks for no particular social group and betrays no bias. He was a reflective dramatist who, rather than preach or propagandize, embodied his views in characters whose “manners” he portrayed. His vivid scenes and unforgettable poetry dramatize relationships between individuals who seem present to us as they are to each other. While acknowledging class distinctions, Shakespeare projects a community transcending them. His comedies show the triumph of civility, while his tragedies reveal the savagery that results when civility fails. Having survived centuries of cultural evolution, Shakespeare stands as a paramount English poet. His plays remain fresh because their author did not let ideology eclipse the perennial drama of human society. His plays are forever contemporary.
Bibliographical Note
Recent scholarship has challenged the received texts of the plays but hasn’t produced a collected Shakespeare matching the Folio’s authority. The plays are best studied individually in the New Cambridge, Oxford, New Penguin, and especially the Arden (third series) editions. For a summary of Shakespeare’s text, see Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor’s William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion (Oxford, 1987). Alfred Harbage’s William Shakespeare: A Reader’s Guide (New York, 1963) introduces the drama, reading fourteen essential plays. Samuel Schoenbaum’s William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life (Oxford; rev. 1987) is a handy biography. On Bardolatry, see Schoenbaum’s Shakespeare’s Lives (Oxford; rev. 1991). The 1998 film Shakespeare in Love imagines the playwright’s struggles from around 1592 to the success of Romeo and Juliet.