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    To Be or Not To Be

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    Keala Faye McCluskey
    William Shakespeare was born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. He married Anne Hathaway at age 18 and had three children, though his son Hamnet died at a young age. Shakespeare went on to have a successful career in theater in London, writing 37 plays and 154 sonnets. Some of his most famous plays include Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare retired from theater in 1616 and died later that year in his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon.

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    To Be or Not To Be

    Uploaded by

    Keala Faye McCluskey
    85 views3 pages
    William Shakespeare was born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. He married Anne Hathaway at age 18 and had three children, though his son Hamnet died at a young age. Shakespeare went on to have a successful career in theater in London, writing 37 plays and 154 sonnets. Some of his most famous plays include Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare retired from theater in 1616 and died later that year in his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon.

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    To Be or Not to Be

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    William Shakespeare was born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. He married Anne Hathaway at age 18 and had three children, though his son Hamnet died at a young age. Shakespeare went on to have a successful career in theater in London, writing 37 plays and 154 sonnets. Some of his most famous plays include Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare retired from theater in 1616 and died later that year in his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    85 views3 pages

    To Be or Not To Be

    Uploaded by

    Keala Faye McCluskey
    William Shakespeare was born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. He married Anne Hathaway at age 18 and had three children, though his son Hamnet died at a young age. Shakespeare went on to have a successful career in theater in London, writing 37 plays and 154 sonnets. Some of his most famous plays include Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare retired from theater in 1616 and died later that year in his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon.

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    Brent McCluskey William Shakespeare 1

    “To Be or Not To Be”


    As you can guess that I am writing on William Shakespeare. I will write on the

    main outline on how his life was spent. It will go from his birth to marriage and his

    schooling to the theater. I will include a list of his writings that include Tragedies,

    Histories, Comedies, and most known for his Poetry.

    William Shakespeare was speculated to be born on April 23 1564 in Stratford-

    upon-Avon, Warwickshire. His parents were John Shakespeare and Mar Arden. William

    was the first of four sons born and he has four sisters. John was employed as a local

    businessman and was part of the municipal affairs as Alderman and Bailiff. Later on in

    his career, John’s decline as a businessman and the loss of the Alderman title had an

    effect on William and his writings.

    William, at an early age, likely attended Elizabethan theater productions that

    traveling groups would put on. Such groups would be the Leicester’s Men, Worcester’s

    Men, Lord Strange’s Men, and Queen’s Men. The Queen, Queen Elizabeth was visiting

    a nearby town Kenilworth Castle and William was extremely impressed with the

    procession that he tried to recreate it in some of his writings. At this time William at age

    eleven is speculated to have started grammar school at King’s New School in Stratford.

    Here he would have studied theatre and acting along with history and Latin literature.

    After school, there is no mention to any specific job that William would have

    worked at. If is likely that he helped his father in the family business of leathers and

    grains. He was also to have been a law clerk, schoolmaster, scrivener, and traveled to

    Italy. It is even speculated that he served as a sailor from England threatened by Spain.
    Brent McCluskey William Shakespeare 2

    These speculations are taken from his knowledge that is shown in his plays that contained

    specific knowledge of the sea, Italy, astronomy, and law. Other parts of Williams life

    that is speculated on is his sexual orientation, religious affiliation, and the sources of

    collaborations.

    The next record that there is about William was in 1582. At the age of 18,

    William was still a minor and needed his fathers consent to marry Anne Hathaway in the

    village Temple Grafton. There was a daughter Susana, and twin’s daughter Judith and

    son Hamnet, who died at the age of eleven. He was Williams only heir.

    There is not much record of what William did in these first few years of his

    marriage but he is known to have gone to London and worked with the Queen’s Men

    theater group. In 1593 the plague was running rampant in London and those who were

    able moved into the country side to get into the open and clean air. At this time there was

    many theaters that were trying to start up but were shut down and even forbidden to open

    up for stretches of time. At these times William spent his time traveling between

    London, Stratford, and the provinces. He also had time to write many of his plays and

    sonnets.

    Williams’s works are not known when to have been written or even published.

    William is credited with 37 plays and 154 sonnets. There are many of his plays that have

    questionable authors and the chronology of the plays and sonnets. His writings include

    Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Othello from his plays that were tragedies. Some of

    the history plays were mainly of the kings Henry IV to Henry VIII and King John and

    Richard the II and Richard the III. Some of his comedies include Merry Wives of

    Windsor, Measure for Measure, Taming the Shrew and Winter’s Tale. What I think that
    Brent McCluskey William Shakespeare 3

    William is most memorable for was his poetry. These included the works of his Sonnets

    1-154, The Phoenix and The Turtle, The Rape of Lucrece, and A Lover’s Complaint.

    Williams’s plays have been the most produced in so many countries. This is because of

    the creative power that he had and installed a reality in his characters, such as Hamlet or

    King Lear. It would be easy to believe in these characters than even historical people

    such as Caesar or the Egyptian pharos. William was a very gifted name caller you could

    say. He would spew a sequence of words that could describe a person it is hard to get

    from the first to the last word and understand it all.

    At the year 1613, William retired from theater and returned to Stratford-upon-

    Avon. He died in 1616 and was buried there. He was a controversial writer but his

    works are will known through out the world today.

    To conclude, I have learned very much about what William is about and where

    some of his inspirations came from, his father to places and things seen. It is a new goal

    of mine to read as many of his plays and poems that I can be able to get a hold of, which

    will not be hard to do.

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