FREE ESSAY ON WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564. He was baptized on April 24, 1564, in
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. He was the third of eight children born to John
Shakespeare and Mary Arden. John was a well-known merchant and Mary was the daughter of a
Roman Catholic member of the gentry. Shakespeare was educated at the local grammar
school. According to history, Shakespeare was the eldest son, and he should have been the
apprentice to his father's shop so that he could be taught everything his father knew and
soon take over the business. But instead he was the apprentice to a Butcher because of
the trouble in his father's financial situation. 
Another story says that Shakespeare became a schoolmaster. Shakespeare was allowed a lot
of free time when he was young. This was suggested by historians that his plays show more
ideas of hunting and hawking than do those of other play writers. In 1582 he married Anne
Hathaway, the daughter of a farmer. He was thought to have left Stratford after he was
caught poaching in the Deer Park of Sir Thomas Lucy. He was a local justice of the peace.
Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway had a daughter in 1583 and twins a boy and a girl in 1585.
The boy however, eventually did not live. 
Shakespeare apparently arrived in London around 1588 and by 1592 had gained success as an
actor and a playwright. Shortly after that, he secured the business of Henry Wriothesley,
3rd earl of Southampton. The publication of Shakespeare's two poems Venus and Adonis
(1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594) and some of his Sonnets (published 1609),
established a reputation for him as a talented and popular Renaissance poet. The Sonnets
describe the devotion of a character to a young man whose beauty and charm he praises and
to a mysterious and untrue woman with whom the poet is afraid. The following triangular
situation, resulting from the attraction of the poet's friend to the woman, is treated
with passionate intensity and psychological insight. However, Shakespeare's modern
reputation is based mainly on the 38 plays that he wrote and modified. 
When in his days, these plays frequently had little respect by his educated friends, who
considered English plays of their own to be only tasteless entertainment. Shakespeare's
professional life in London was marked by a number of financially beneficial arrangements
that allowed him to share in the profits of his acting company, the Chamberlain's Men
later called the King's Men. The acting company had two theaters, the Globe Theatre and
the Blackfriars. His plays were given special presentation at the courts of Queen
Elizabeth I and King James I more frequently than those of any other coexistent writer.
It was known that he risked losing royal favor only once, in 1599, when his company
performed "the play of the deposing and killing of King Richard II" at the request of a
group of conspirators against Elizabeth. They were led by Elizabeth's unsuccessful court
favorite, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and by the earl of Southampton. In the
later study, Shakespeare's company was cleared of dealing with the conspiracy. After
1608, Shakespeare's dramatic production lessened and it seemed that he spent more time in
Stratford. There he had secure family in a wealthy house called New Place. Shakespeare
had become a leading local citizen. He died on April 23, 1616, and was buried in the
Stratford church.