WHO WAS SHAKESPEARE?
Everyone thinks they know who Shakespeare was. But sometimes, when someone is as influential and world-famous as William Shakespeare, it’s worth repeating the basics.
William Shakespeare was a professional actor and playwright from Stratford-Upon-Avon. He worked in London, writing on average three plays a year for the acting company the Lord Chamberlain’s - later King’s - Men, whilst sustaining his family in Stratford. Whatever we think about him as a writer, he was principally a man of the theatre: he worked collaboratively and knew his playhouses intimately. He acted in plays by other playwrights and, as a shareholder in the Globe he profited from every aspect of the playmaking business. This made him rich, and he is recorded as being a careful and conservative investor.
Shakespeare was born in 1564. His father was a glover and later an alderman. He was educated at the local grammar school, gaining a strong grounding in Latin and rhetoric, ideal skills for accessing classical source material for plays and writing dramatic dialogue. He married young, becoming a father at the age of eighteen; as such there were many things binding him to Stratford – this makes it all the more remarkable that he chose a career far away in the unpredictable and disreputable London theatres. However, Shakespeare remained rooted in Stratford, buying property and investing locally. His plays contain many allusions to Warwickshire dialogue, people and places. He died in Stratford in 1616.