Context----Life and Times of William Shakespeare

Likely the most influential writer in all of English literature and certainly the most important playwright of the English Renaissance, William Shakespeare was born in 156 in the town of Stratford!upon!"#on in Warwickshire, England$ %he son of a successful middle!class glo#e!maker, Shakespeare attended grammar school, but his formal education proceeded no further$ &n 15'(, he married an older woman, "nne )athaway, and had three children with her$ "round 15*+ he left his family behind and tra#eled to London to work as an actor and playwright$ ,ublic and critical success -uickly followed, and Shakespeare e#entually became the most popular playwright in England and part owner of the .lobe %heater$ )is career bridged the reigns of Eli/abeth & 0ruled 155'! 16+12 and 3ames & 0ruled 16+1!16(524 he was a fa#orite of both monarchs$ &ndeed, 3ames granted Shakespeare5s company the greatest possible compliment by endowing them with the status of king5s players$ Wealthy and renowned, Shakespeare retired to Stratford, and died in 1616 at the age of fifty!two$ "t the time of Shakespeare5s death, such luminaries as 6en 3onson hailed him as the apogee of Renaissance theatre$ Shakespeare5s works were collected and printed in #arious editions in the century following his death, and by the early eighteenth century his reputation as the greatest poet e#er to write in English was well established$ %he unprecedented admiration garnered by his works led to a fierce curiosity about Shakespeare5s life4 but the paucity of sur#i#ing biographical information has left many details of Shakespeare5s personal history shrouded in mystery$ Some people ha#e concluded from this fact that Shakespeare5s plays in reality were written by someone else78rancis 6acon and the Earl of 9:ford are the two most popular candidates7but the e#idence for this claim is o#erwhelmingly circumstantial, and the theory is not taken seriously by many scholars$ &n the absence of definiti#e proof to the contrary, Shakespeare must be #iewed as the author of the 1; plays and 15 sonnets that bear his name$ %he legacy of this body of work is immense$ " number of Shakespeare5s plays seem to ha#e transcended e#en the category of brilliance, becoming so influential as to affect profoundly the course of Western literature and culture e#er after$ %he Sonnets Shakespeare5s sonnets are #ery different from Shakespeare5s plays, but they do contain dramatic elements and an o#erall sense of story$ Each of the poems deals with a highly personal theme, and each can be taken on its own or in relation to the poems around it$ %he sonnets ha#e the feel of autobiographical poems, but we don5t know whether they deal with real e#ents or not, because no one knows enough about Shakespeare5s life to say whether or not they deal with real e#ents and feelings, so we tend to refer to the #oice of the sonnets as <the speaker=7as though he were a dramatic creation like )amlet or >ing Lear$ %here are certainly a number of intriguing continuities throughout the poems$ %he first 126 of the sonnets seem to be addressed to an unnamed young nobleman, whom the speaker lo#es #ery much4 the rest of the poems 0e:cept for the last two, which seem generally unconnected to the rest of the se-uence2 seem to be addressed to a mysterious woman, whom the speaker lo#es, hates, and lusts for

simultaneously$ %he two addressees of the sonnets are usually referred to as the <young man= and the <dark lady=4 in summaries of indi#idual poems, & ha#e also called the young man the <belo#ed= and the dark lady the <lo#er,= especially in cases where their identity can only be surmised$ Within the two mini!se-uences, there are a number of other discernible elements of <plot=? the speaker urges the young man to ha#e children4 he is forced to endure a separation from him4 he competes with a ri#al poet for the young man5s patronage and affection$ "t two points in the se-uence, it seems that the young man and the dark lady are actually lo#ers themsel#es7a state of affairs with which the speaker is none too happy$ 6ut while these continuities gi#e the poems a narrati#e flow and a helpful frame of reference, they ha#e been frustratingly hard for scholars and biographers to pin down$ &n Shakespeare5s life, who were the young man and the dark lady@ )istorical Aysteries 9f all the -uestions surrounding Shakespeare5s life, the sonnets are perhaps the most intriguing$ "t the time of their publication in 1609 0after ha#ing been written most likely in the 1590s and shown only to a small circle of literary admirers2, they were dedicated to a <Ar$ W$),= who is described as the <onlie begetter= of the poems$ Like those of the young man and the dark lady, the identity of this Ar$ W$)$ remains an alluring mystery$ 6ecause he is described as <begetting= the sonnets, and because the young man seems to be the speaker5s financial patron, some people ha#e speculated that the young man is Ar$ W$)$ &f his initials were re#ersed, he might e#en be )enry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, who has often been linked to Shakespeare in theories of his history$ 6ut all of this is simply speculation? ultimately, the circumstances surrounding the sonnets, their cast of characters and their relations to Shakespeare himself, are destined to remain a mystery$