The winter's tale [antikvár]

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE William Shakespeare was born 011 I lie 23rd of April loti'i al Stratford-on-Avon, a small town in the county of Warwick, which numbered then some 1^00 inhabitants. He was the third child and eldest son of John Shakespeare, a well-to-do merchant who in the course of his life rose the distinguished posts of Alderman and High Bailiff. At the age of seven, William was sent to the Free Grammar School at Stratford and there, if we are to believe Ben Jonson, was taught " little Latin and less Greek ", but made profitable studies in his mother tongue. His father was then Chief Alderman, and as companies of players (among others those of the Count of Leicester, of the Count of Worcester and of the Count of Warwick) would now and then visit Stratford, it is not improbable that the boy attended a number of performances given by them at the Town Hall. John Shakespeare however had difficulties, and in 1577 the boy was withdrawn from school, either to help his father in his business or to make an independent living. Five years later, at the age of eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, by whom he was to have three children : Susanna, christened on the 26th of May 1583, and the twins Hamnet and Judith, born in 1585. Hamnet, his only son, died and was buried at Stratford in 1596. The reasons which compelled him to leave Stratford are but imperfectly known. The story runs that he had stolen deer in the park of the worthy Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlcote, a Member of Parliament, and that this act of poaching and the threats of prosecution which ensued made it advisable for him to " clear out " (1585). In 1587 we find Shakespeare in London, where he soon became connected with the stage. Must we believe the legend which shows him holding the bridle of the gentlemen's horses outside the theatre during the performances ? It is at any rate certain that he began his dramatic career by fulfilling very humble duties. No document tells us at \fchat date he was accepted as an actor in the company of the Count of Leicester, but there is evidence that he belonged to it in 1594 1. The first original play of Shakespeare : Love s Labour's Lost was written in 1591 and probably produced in 1592. It was followed by The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Romeo and Juliet, and the first historical plays : llenry VI (in three 1 On companies of players, theatres and performances at the close of the .sixteenth century, see G. Guibillon, La Littérature anglaise par len léxtes, pp. 4 8-50.