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Unit 2: The Seven Ages of Man by William Shakespeare

During Shakespeare’s time Stratford-upon-Avon was a market town located 103 miles west of Notes
London, divided by the River Avon and the country road. With two older sisters Joan and Judith,
William was the third child of Mary Arden who was a local landed heiress and John Shakespeare
who was leather merchant, William also had three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard and
Edmund. William’s father climbed the ladder of success before his birth and became a successful
merchant. He also held official positions as bailiff and alderman. Records show that John’s
fortunes took a steep fall sometime in the late 1570s.
Limited records exist of William’s childhood, and practically none about his education. Scholars
believe that William Shakespeare completed his schooling from King’s New School in Stratford.
In this school he studied Greek and Latin and read about Roman dramatists. Scholars are also of
the opinion that this school taught William reading, writing and the classics. Being a public
official’s child, William Shakespeare may be getting free tuitions. This lack of sufficient information
about his education has led some people to doubt about the authorship of Shakespeare’s works
and also about whether William Shakespeare ever existed.

2.1.2 Married Life

At the age of 18, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, a woman about seven to eight years
senior to him. They got married on November 28, 1582, in Worcester, in Canterbury Province.
Shakespeare’s wife Anne was from Shottery, a small village a mile west of Stratford. It is
believed that while William was 18, Anne was 26 years of age when the two got married.
Together they raised three children: Susanna, who was born in 1583, and twins Hamnet and
Judith who were born in 1585, two years after the birth of their first child. Hamnet later died of
unknown causes at age 11.

2.1.3 Adult Years

Not much is known about William’s activities between 1585 and 1592. This is termed by scholars
as the period of “Lost Years” which came after his twins were born. Nobody had any news of
William and his works for seven long years. It is believed by scholars that William during this
period may have gone into hiding for stealing from the local landlord, Sir Thomas Lucy. Another
possibility could be that William may have taught at school during this period, but it seems
more probable that shortly after 1585 he went to London to begin his apprenticeship as an actor.
Due to the plague, the London theatres were usually shut between June 1592 and April 1594.
Throughout this period, Shakespeare possibly got income from his patron, Henry Wriothesley,
earl of Southampton. William dedicated his first two poems, Venus and Adonis (1593) and The
Rape of Lucrece (1594) to Henry. The former was a long narrative poem which showed the
rejection of Venus by Adonis, his death, resulting in the disappearance of beauty from the
world. In spite of conservative objections to this poem’s praise of sensuality, it became very
popular. It was later printed six times for nine years after its publication.

2.1.4 Theatrical Beginnings

There is evidence that by 1592 William Shakespeare worked as an actor and a playwright in
London to earn and had many of his plays produced. There is an article in the September 20, 1592
edition of a guide publication called the Stationers’ Register written by London playwright
Robert Greene that takes several 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 about William
Shakespeare.

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