William Shakespeare Part I

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford on Avon, in England, in April 1564. His baptism was on 26^th April, and traditionally, his birthday is believed to have been on St Georges Day, 23^rd April. 
His father was a successful tradesman, a glove maker, and his mother, Mary Arden was the daughter of a prosperous farmer.  He was of the middle class, neither aristocratic nor poor.   This gave him a position in the middle of the social ranks, comfortably off enough to have received a reasonable education and removed from poverty, but not rich or removed from ordinary life.   He was probably educated at the local grammar school, which provided teaching for boys of the middle rank.   He would have studied Latin and Greek.  At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, a woman about 8 years his senior, who was pregnant at the time of their marriage.   The marriage was rather hasty, and Susanna, their daughter was born 6 months later.  However probably he and Anne were engaged and her pregnancy put forward the marriage… so while it was improper behaviour it was not all that scandalous.  Two years later, Anne had twins, Hamnet and Judith.  They were born in 1585 and nothing is known of Shakespeare for some time after that, until he begins to be mentioned in 1592 as taking part in the London theatrical scene.  

Because there is such gap in our knowledge of him, these lost years have been the subject of much speculation and fiction.  It has been suggested that he had to leave Stratford because he was caught deer poaching in a local landowner’s estate.  But there is no evidence of this. There has been speculation, based on the knowledge that he shows in his plays that he might have had other occupations during the “missing years” that he might have become a soldier, or worked as a country schoolmaster. 

No one knows when Shakespeare went to London, or how he got a start in the theatre.   He may well have done so when his twins were very young...

But within a few years he was writing many plays which were popular and well received.  He was criticised by some writers for not having the University education that some playwrights had, but he proved that he could understand human nature and life, and use language more flexibly, than most other writers.