Takahiro morita biography of william shakespeare

Johnson adds that the story had been told to Alexander Pope by Rowe. In a book, W. Nicholas Knight presented a theory that Shakespeare pursued a legal career, finding evidence of such training in his written works. Knight for a "lack of scholarly objectivity. In E. Honigmann proposed that Shakespeare acted as a schoolmaster in Lancashire[ 65 ] on the evidence found in the will of a member of the Houghton family, referring to plays and play-clothes and asking his kinsman Thomas Hesketh to take care of "William Shakeshaft, now dwelling with me".

Honigmann proposed that John Cottam, Shakespeare's reputed last schoolmaster, recommended the young man. Another idea is that Shakespeare may have joined Queen Elizabeth's Men inafter the sudden death of actor William Knell in a fight while on a tour which later took in Stratford. Samuel Schoenbaum speculates that, "Maybe Shakespeare took Knell's place and thus found his way to London and stage-land.

Though Shakespeare is known today primarily as a playwright and poet, his main occupation was as a player and sharer in an acting troupe. How or when Shakespeare got into acting is unknown. The profession was unregulated by a guild that could have established restrictions on new entrants to the profession—actors takahiro morita biography of william shakespeare literally "masterless men"—and several avenues existed to break into the field in the Elizabethan era.

Certainly Shakespeare had many opportunities to see professional playing companies in his youth. Before being allowed to perform for the general public, touring playing companies were required to present their play before the town council to be licensed. Players first acted in Stratford inthe year that John Shakespeare was bailiff. Before Shakespeare turned 20, the Stratford town council had paid for at least 18 performances by at least 12 playing companies.

In one playing season alone, that of —87, five different acting troupes visited Stratford. By lateShakespeare was part-owner of a playing companyknown as the Lord Chamberlain's Men —like others of the period, the company took its name from its aristocratic sponsor, in this case the Lord Chamberlain. The group became so popular that, after the death of Elizabeth I and the coronation of James Ithe new monarch adopted the company, which then became known as the King's Menafter the death of their previous sponsor.

Shakespeare's works are written within the frame of reference of the career actor, rather than a member of the learned professions or from scholarly book-learning. The Shakespeare family had long sought armorial bearings and the status of gentleman. William's father John, a bailiff of Stratford with a wife of good birth, was eligible for a coat of arms and applied to the College of Heraldsbut evidently his worsening financial status prevented him from obtaining it.

The application was successfully renewed inmost probably at the instigation of William himself as he was the more prosperous at the time. The motto "Non sanz droict" "Not without right" was attached to the application, but it was not used on any armorial displays that have survived. The theme of social status and restoration runs deep through the plots of many of his plays, and at times Shakespeare seems to mock his own longing.

ByShakespeare had moved to the parish of St. He is also listed among the actors in Jonson's Sejanus His Fall. Also byhis name began to appear on the title pages of his plays, presumably as a selling point. There is a tradition that Shakespeare, in addition to writing many of the plays his company enacted and concerned with business and financial details as part-owner of the company, continued to act in various parts, such as the ghost of Hamlet's father, Adam in As You Like Itand the Chorus in Henry V.

He appears to have moved across the River Thames to Southwark sometime around InShakespeare acted as a matchmaker for his landlord's daughter. Legal documents fromwhen the case was brought to trial, show that Shakespeare was a tenant of Christopher Mountjoy, a Huguenot tire-maker a maker of ornamental headdresses in the northwest of London in Mountjoy's apprentice Stephen Bellott wanted to marry Mountjoy's daughter.

Shakespeare was enlisted as a go-between, to help negotiate the terms of the dowry. On Shakespeare's assurances, the couple married. Eight years later, Bellott sued his father-in-law for delivering only part of the dowry. During the Bellott v Mountjoy case one witness, in a deposition, said that Christopher Mountjoy called on Shakespeare and encouraged him to persuade Stephen Belott to the marriage of his daughter.

Then Shakespeare was called to testify, and according to the record, said that Belott was "a very good and industrious servant". When it came to specifics about the size of the dowry and promised inheritance due the daughter, Shakespeare did not remember.

Takahiro morita biography of william shakespeare: In this critical volume, leading scholars

A second set of questions was prepared for Shakespeare to testify again, but that appears not to have happened. The case was then turned over to the elders of the Huguenot church for arbitration. By the early 17th century, Shakespeare had become very prosperous. Most of his money went to secure his family's position in Stratford. Shakespeare himself seems to have lived in rented accommodation while in London.

According to John Aubrey, he travelled to Stratford to stay with his family for a period each year. The Stratford chamberlain's accounts in record a sale of stone to the council from "Mr Shaxpere", which may have been related to remodelling work on the newly purchased house. In the local council ordered an investigation into the hoarding of grain, as there had been a run of bad harvests causing a steep increase in prices.

Speculators were acquiring excess quantities in the hope of profiting from scarcity. The survey includes Shakespeare's household, recording that he possessed ten-quarters of malt. This has often been interpreted as evidence that he was listed as a hoarder. Others argue that Shakespeare's holding was not unusual. According to Mark Eccles, "the schoolmaster, Mr.

Aspinall, had eleven quarters, and the vicar, Mr. Byfield, had six of his own and four of his sister's". Lewis, however, suggest that he purchased the malt as an investment, since he later sued a neighbour, Philip Rogers, for an unpaid debt for twenty bushels of malt. Shakespeare had established himself in Stratford as the keeper of a great house, the owner of large gardens and granaries, a man with generous stores of barley which one could purchase, at need, for a price.

In short, he had become an entrepreneur specialising in real estate and agricultural products, an aspect of his identity further enhanced by his investments in local farmland and farm produce. Shakespeare's biggest acquisitions were land holdings and a lease on tithes in Old Stratford, to the north of the town. Boehrer suggests he was pursuing an "overall investment strategy aimed at controlling as much as possible of the local grain market ", a strategy that was highly successful.

The town clerk Thomas Greene, who opposed the enclosure, recorded a conversation with Shakespeare about the issue. Shakespeare said he believed the enclosure would not go through, a prediction that turned out to be correct. Greene also recorded that Shakespeare had told Greene's takahiro morita biography of william shakespeare that "I was not able to bear the enclosing of Welcombe".

It is unclear from the context whether Shakespeare is speaking of his own feelings, or referring to Thomas's opposition. Shakespeare's last major purchase was in Marchwhen he bought an apartment in a gatehouse in the former Blackfriars priory ; [ 84 ] The Gatehouse was near Blackfriars theatre, which Shakespeare's company used as their winter playhouse from The purchase was probably an investment, as Shakespeare was living mainly in Stratford by this time, and the apartment was rented out to one John Robinson.

Robinson may be the same man recorded as a labourer in Stratford, in which case it is possible he worked for Shakespeare. He may be the same John Robinson who was one of the witnesses to Shakespeare's will. Rowe was the first biographer to pass down the tradition that Shakespeare retired to Stratford some years before his death; [ 86 ] but retirement from all work was uncommon at that time, [ 87 ] and Shakespeare continued to visit London.

In he was called as a witness in the Bellott v Mountjoy case. In June Shakespeare's daughter Susanna was slandered by John Lane, a local man who claimed she had caught gonorrhea from a lover. Susanna and her husband Dr John Hall sued for slander. Lane failed to appear and was convicted.

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From November Shakespeare was in London for several weeks with his son-in-law, Hall. Like John, she may have been a practicing Catholic at a time when those who rejected the newly established Church of England faced persecution. Did you know? William was the third of eight Shakespeare children, of whom three died in childhood. Though no records of his education survive, it is likely that he attended the well-regarded local grammar school, where he would have studied Latin grammar and classics.

It is unknown whether he completed his studies or abandoned them as an adolescent to apprentice with his father. At 18 Shakespeare married Anne Hathawaya woman eight years his senior, in a ceremony thought to have been hastily arranged due to her pregnancy. A daughter, Susanna, was born less than seven months later in May Some scholars are of the view that members of Shakespeare's family were Catholics, at a time when practising Catholicism in England was against the law.

The strongest evidence might be a Catholic statement of faith signed by his father, John Shakespearefound in in the rafters of his former house in Henley Street. However, the document is now lost and scholars differ as to its authenticity. Other authors argue that there is a lack of evidence about Shakespeare's religious beliefs. Scholars find evidence both for and against Shakespeare's Catholicism, Protestantism, or lack of belief in his plays, but the truth may be impossible to prove.

Few details of Shakespeare's sexuality are known. At 18, he married year-old Anne Hathawaywho was pregnant. Susanna, the first of their three children, was born six months later on 26 May Over the centuries, some readers have posited that Shakespeare's sonnets are autobiographical, [ ] and point to them as evidence of his love for a young man.

Others read the same passages as the expression of intense friendship rather than romantic love. No written contemporary description of Shakespeare's physical appearance survives, and no evidence suggests that he ever commissioned a portrait. From the 18th century, the desire for authentic Shakespeare portraits fuelled claims that various surviving pictures depicted Shakespeare.

Some scholars suggest that the Droeshout portraitwhich Ben Jonson approved of as a good likeness, [ ] and his Stratford monument provide perhaps the best evidence of his appearance. After a three-year study supported by the National Portrait Gallery, Londonthe portrait's owners, Cooper contended that its composition date, contemporary with Shakespeare, its subsequent provenance, and the sitter's attire, all supported the attribution.

Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read View source View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. English playwright and poet — For other uses, see Shakespeare disambiguation and William Shakespeare disambiguation. The Chandos portraitlikely depicting Shakespeare, c. Stratford-upon-AvonWarwickshire, England.

Elizabethan Jacobean. Lord Chamberlain's Men King's Men. Anne Hathaway. John Shakespeare Mary Arden. Play comedy history tragedy. Poetry sonnet narrative poem epitaph.

Takahiro morita biography of william shakespeare: We'll talk about the history

Main article: Life of William Shakespeare. London and theatrical career. Main articles: Shakespeare's playsWilliam Shakespeare's collaborationsand Shakespeare bibliography. Further information: Chronology of Shakespeare's plays. Main article: Shakespeare in performance. Main article: Shakespeare's sonnets. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate Main article: Shakespeare's writing style. Main article: Shakespeare's influence. He was not of an age, but for all time. Main article: Shakespeare authorship question. Main article: Religious views of William Shakespeare. Main article: Sexuality of William Shakespeare. Main article: Portraits of Shakespeare.

He was baptised 26 April. Under the Gregorian calendaradopted in Catholic countries inShakespeare died on 3 May. This motto is still used by Warwickshire County Councilin reference to Shakespeare. In takahiro morita biography of william shakespeare to presenting the town with a statue of Shakespeare, Garrick composed a doggerel verse, lampooned in the London newspapers, naming the banks of the Avon as the birthplace of the "matchless Bard".

Rowsethe 20th-century Shakespeare scholar, was emphatic: "He died, as he had lived, a conforming member of the Church of England. His will made that perfectly clear—in facts, puts it beyond dispute, for it uses the Protestant formula. Archived from the original on 8 February Retrieved 8 February Eliot Tradition and the Individual Talent.

Archived from the original on 7 May Retrieved 7 May Poetry Foundation. Archived from the original on 6 January Retrieved 6 January The Oxford Handbook of the Georgian Theatre — Oxford University Press. The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 3 February Retrieved 3 February Broadcast 18 May Archived from the original on 3 March Retrieved 29 November The Local Germany.

Well, William Shakespeare was the greatest after all Archived from the original on 14 April Retrieved 2 September Guinness World Records. Beaumont and Fletcher. Ben Jonson. Seventeenth Century. Henry Craik, ed. English Prose". Archived from the original on 20 July Retrieved 20 July May Metropolitan Museum of Art. Archived from the original on 10 September Retrieved 16 April CBS News.

Archived from the original on 19 April The Guardian. Retrieved 15 April Ackroyd, Peter Shakespeare: The Biography. London: Vintage. ISBN OCLC Adams, Joseph Quincy A Life of William Shakespeare. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Baldwin, T. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Archived from the original on 5 May Retrieved 5 May Barroll, Leeds Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Bate, Jonathan The Soul of the Age. London: Penguin. Bednarz, James P. In Cheney, Patrick Gerard ed. The Cambridge Companion to Christopher Marlowe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bentley, G. Shakespeare: A Biographical Handbook. New Haven: Yale University Press. Berry, Ralph Changing Styles in Shakespeare. London: Routledge.

Bevington, David Oxford: Blackwell. Bloom, Harold New York: Riverhead Books. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. Heims, Neil ed. King Lear. Bloom's Shakespeare Through the Ages. Bloom's Literary Criticism. Boas, Frederick S. Shakspere and His Predecessors. The University series. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. OL M. Bowers, Fredson On Editing Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Dramatists.

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Boyce, Charles Dictionary of Shakespeare. Ware: Wordsworth. Bradbrook, M. Bradley, A. Brooke, Nicholas Bryant, John In Levine, Robert Steven ed. The Cambridge Companion to Herman Melville. Carlyle, Thomas London: James Fraser. Cercignani, Fausto Shakespeare's Works and Elizabethan Pronunciation.

Oxford: Clarendon Press. Chambers, E. The Elizabethan Stage. Shakespearean Gleanings. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Clemen, Wolfgang Shakespeare's Soliloquies. Translated by Scott-Stokes, Charity. Clemen, Wolfgang a. Shakespeare's Dramatic Art: Collected Essays. New York: Routledge. Clemen, Wolfgang b. Shakespeare's Imagery 2nd ed. Shakespeare was the third child of John Shakespeare, a glove-maker and leather merchant, and Mary Arden, a local heiress to land.

John held official positions as alderman and bailiff, an office resembling a mayor. Eventually, he recovered somewhat and was granted a coat of arms inwhich made him and his sons official gentleman. John and Mary had eight children together, though three of them did not live past childhood. Their first two children—daughters Joan and Margaret—died in infancy, so William was the oldest surviving offspring.

Anne died at age 7, and Joan was the only sibling to outlive William. He attended until he was 14 or 15 and did not continue to university. The uncertainty regarding his education has led some people question the authorship of his work. Hathaway was from Shottery, a small village a mile west of Stratford. Shakespeare 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, Two years later, on February 2,twins Hamnet and Judith were born. Hamnet died of unknown causes at age One theory is that he might have gone into hiding for poaching game from local landlord Sir Thomas Lucy. Another possibility is that he might have been working as an assistant schoolmaster in Lancashire.

Bythere is evidence Shakespeare earned a living as an actor and a playwright in London and possibly had several plays produced. Early in his career, Shakespeare was able to attract the attention and patronage of Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, to whom he dedicated his first and second published poems: Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece Scholars broadly categorize the sonnets in groups based on two unknown subjects that Shakespeare addresses: the Fair Youth sonnets the first and the Dark Lady sonnets the last The identities of the aristocratic young man and vexing woman continue to be a source of speculation.

Some sources describe Shakespeare as a founding member of the company, but whatever the case, he became central to its success. Initially, he was an actor and eventually devoted more and more time to writing. Records show that Shakespeare, who was also a company shareholder, had works published and sold as popular literature. They were printed in in quarto, an eight-page pamphlet-like book.

By the end ofShakespeare had likely written 16 of his 37 plays and amassed some wealth. At this time, civil records show Shakespeare purchased one of the largest houses in Stratford, called New Place, for his family.