University of Verona, Italy

University of Verona, Italy

English Literature (prof. Rita Severi)

SOURCES FOR SHAKESPEARE’S BIOGRAPHY

Four different types of sources, two certain and two hypothetical: 1) documents (ecclesiastical, administrative, legal, etc.) , 2) allusions to the author among his contemporaries & in contemporary writings, 3) traditional narrations that emerged after his death in 1616, 4) logical inferences and deductions from his works.

(G. Baldini, Fonti per la biografia di Shakespeare, LecturaShakespeareanaScaligera, Firenze, Le Monnier, 1963; G. Bullough, Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare, London- New York, Routledge &Kegan Paul-Columbia University Press, 157-1975, 8 vol.)

1669-1696 John Aubrey, Brief Lives

1709 –Nicholas Rowe

18th cent. Samuel Johnson, George Steevens, Edward Capell, Isaac Reed, George Chalmers

1741-1812 – Edward Malone, Third Variorum (third ed. by various authors, 1821) ed. by James Boswell jr.

1887 – J. O. Halliwell-Philips, Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare (data not well organized)

1898 – Sir Sidney Lee, biography (re-edited till 1925)

1923 – John Quincey Adams, A Life of William Shakespeare (Cambridge, Mass., 1923)

1930 – sir Edmund K. Chambers, William Shakespeare: a Study of Facts and Problems

1944 – “”””””””””””””””””””””” Shakespearean Gleanings

1931 – Leslie Hotson, Shakespeare versus Shallow

1937”””””””””””””””” I, William Shakespeare

1945””””””””””””””” The First Night of Twelfth Night

DOCUMENTS or Documentary Evidence:

1564, April 26, certificate of Baptism in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford on Avon (commonly accepted date of birth: April 23, 1564= feast of saint George, patron of England )- son of John Shakespeare, son of Richard Shakespeare, living in Henley St., Stratford in 1552; one of the two “chamberlains of the borough” in 1561; “alderman” in 1565; “high bailiff” (“mayor” of Stratford) in 1568. Richard died on Sept. 8, 1601. John probably married Mary Arden, eldest daughter of Robert, a wealthy landowner in Wilmecote (a village just a few miles from Stratford) in 1557. Robert’s father might have belonged to a noble family, the Ardens of Park Hall. So the poet’s family belonged to the rich middle-class. Mary Arden was buried in the parish church of Stratford on Sept. 9, 1608. William was the third son of John & Mary, who had 7 other children, born between 1558 and 1580, of which 3 sisters died in childhood and 3 brothers died before the poet, of which Gilbert had descendants and Edmund, who died in London when he was 27, in 1607, also became an actor. A sister, Joan, born in 1569, married William Hart and her descendants were still alive in 1963.

1582, Nov. 27, marriage certificate in the episcopal register of the Diocese of Worcester : “Wm Shaxpere et Annam Whateley de Temple Grafton”, also recorded as “WillmShgspere” & “Anne Hathwey of Stratford”.

1623, Aug. 8, Anne Hathaway was buried in Stratford next to WS. in front of the main altar as “Mrs. Shakespeare”

1583, May 26, after six months from the marriage, parish register records the baptism of “Susanna daughter of William Shakspere”

1585, Feb. 2, baptism of “Hamnet e Judeth, son and daughter of William Skakspere”, baptized with the names of the godfather, Hamnet Sadler, baker in Stratford and his wife, Judith Staunton.

1589 – London, Public Record Office: Shakespeare remembered as heir of John and Mary Shakespeare in a controversy his parents had brought against one of their nephews, John Lambert

1592, summer – epilogue to A Groatsworth of Wit, bought with a Million of Repentance by Robert Greene, “upstart crow” “beatified with our feathers” “Shakescene” & allusion to Henry VI (I, iv, v. 137). This shows that S. was well known also for reciting roles of the most famous playwrights.

1592 – allusion to Henry VI also in Thomas Nashe, Pierce Pennilesse (Lord Talbot); allusion to S. in Henry Chettle (who ed. Greene’s Groatsworth), Kind Heart’s Dreame (dec. 1592)

1593, 18 April-1594, 9, May – S. publishes Venus and AdonisLucrece, both dedicated to Lord Southampton. These are the only 2 works S. saw published. Praise for the poems in An. Willobie His Avisa(Sept. 3, 1594) and M. Drayton, Matilda (1594, 6th stanza). Drayrton will praise S. again in 1627.

1595 – March 15, payment on behalf of the actors WS, William Kempe & Richard Burbage in the presence of Queen Elisabeth on Dec. 26 & 28. WS then important member of Lord Chamberlain’s Company.

1596, Aug. 11 – Burial of Hamnet Shakespeare- End 1596 John Shakespeare request for royal arms (gold field subdivided in two parts by an oblique stripe containing a spear with its silver spear pointing towards the top, surmounted by a falcon with open wings, set on top of a crown and bearing a spear & a motto “Non sans droict”. The arms are reproduced on S’s monument in Holy Trinity Church 6 on Susanna’s tomb.

1596-98 – London, Public Record Office. 4 documents regarding taxes.WS. was iving in the parish of St. Helen, north of the Thames in the plains of Finsbury, near the theatres of Shoreditch – The theatre & The Curtain. By 1597 he changed address & in 1599 he was south of the Thames in Southwark.

1598 – S’s name appears in the frontispiece of some of his plays: Richard II & Richard III, Love’s Labours’ Lost.

1598, summer – Francis Meres’ Palladis Tamia where S. & some of his works (Venus & Adonis, Lucrece,The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Comedy of Errors, Love’s Labours’ Lost & Won, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Richard II & III, Henry IV, King John, Titus Andronicus & Romeo & Juliet) are mentioned along with important contemporary authors (Sidney, Spenser, Drayton, Warner, Marlowe, Chapman). Richard Barnfield in Poems in Divers Humours praises S’s art.

1598-1601- Gabriel Harvey in his copy of Chaucer’s works praises S. & mentions Hamlet.

1598-S. played in Jonson’s Every Man in his Humour & in Sejanus (1603).

1598, 25 Oct.- letter from Richard Quiney to WS where he asks for 30pounds borrowing, money that was readily lent by S.

1598- Jaggard ed. of The Passionate Pilgrim all 20 poems attributed to S.; but only 5 were really his. Thomas Heywood protested in An Apology for Actors (1612) where he mentions S.

1598-1602 allusions to S.(Venus & Adonis-Romeo &Juliet) in the plays The Pilgrimage to Parnassus Return from Parnassus, performed in St. John’s College, Cambridge.

1603, May 17-London, Public Record Office- charter of King’s Men. Main actors: Lawrence Fletcher, WS, Richard Burbage.

1603 – William Camden mentions WS in Remains of a Greater work Concerning Britain (published 1605) WS. mentioned among the greatest writers of GB.

1604 – Coronation of James I, WS. was allotted four yards of red cloth & given the privilege to follow the coronation procession of March 15 , as “groom of the King’s Chamber”.

1604-1605-Nov. 1 to mardigras 1605 7 plays of WS. were represented (among them The Merchant of Venice)

1605, July 24- business transaction. WS. bought more than a fourth of the decime (taxes) of Stratford for 440 pounds.

1607, June 5 – Susanna marries John Hall.

1609-1612 a few documents that reveal business transactions.

1610-WS. appears as witness in the Belott-Mountjoy trial.

1612 , Feb.- Gilbert Shakespeare dies.

1613, Feb., Richard Shakespeare dies.

1613, March 10 – British Museum: WS. buys house in Blackfriars.

1613, June: debut of Henry VIII at the Globe Theatre, but the play was interrupted at Act I, scene iv because the theatre caught fire.

1616, Feb. 10: Judith marries Thomas, son of Richard Quiney, a vintner.

1616, March 25 first draft Somerset House -Shakespeare’s last will.

1616, April 23: Shakespeare’s death; April 25: funeral (parish register).

1623, Folio edition of Shakespeare’s plays.