Top 10 Facts about William Shakespeare


 

By John Taylor – wikimedia

In April 1564, in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, John Shakespeare and Mary Arden welcomed a baby boy they named William Shakespeare.

Shakespeare got basic education at the Stratford grammar school where he mastered the art of reading and writing. He did not go to university due to lack of finances.

William Shakespeare is known worldwide through his greatest plays; Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear. He wrote other plays that were a success too.

His work has been translated to every major language.  The TV series Star Trek adapted some of his work into their created Klingon language.

Hamlet and Much Ado about Nothing are available in that language.

By the time he hung up his pen aged 47, he had written 38 plays and 154 sonnets. He has no direct descendant’s today. His family tree is linked to his sister Joan’s greatest grand children.

Here are our top 10 facts about William Shakespeare…

1. William Shakespeare had two sisters called Joan

Photo by Roberto Nickson on Unsplash

Shakespeare had 7 siblings in total, 3 brothers and 4 sisters. He was the third born. His eldest sister was named Joan and sadly died two months later in 1558.

When he turned five, they had another addition to the family and it was a girl. She was named Joan after their deceased firstborn sister.

Younger Joan lived the longest of all the siblings and is credited to having enabled the continuation of the Shakespeare bloodline through her children and grandchildren.

She died aged 77, thirty years after Shakespeare passed on.

2. Joan and Margaret, Shakespeare’s unknown sisters

Shakespeare never got to meet two of his older sisters. Child mortality rate was high in those days.

Joan, the firstborn unfortunately died of unknown cause 60 days after she was born. Four years later, the second born Margaret was born (1562).

Margaret sadly died a year later. Speculations have it that she died of Bubonic plague which was quite rife during in Europe and Asia in those days.

3. Shakespeare had a favorite sister

Shakespeare was very fond of his sister Joan.

He left her a legacy of £20, some clothing, and allowed her to live in the western part of the double family house on Henley Street in Stratford.

She was to pay a small fee-rent of one shilling. She lived there  for the remainder of her life.

4. Shakespeare’s actors were all men 

Women were not allowed to be on stage during Shakespeare’s time.

Although women characters were featured in the plays, their roles were performed by young men who had not broken their voices. They would dress up as women.

5. Shakespeare left a bed for his wife Anne 

While Shakespeare left his sister Joan money and a house, he left his wife a bed, which he wrote in his will as his ‘second best’ bed, together with the bedding.

Not much is known about their relationship, but it is believed that they used to live apart. This then may be the explanation for the bed inheritance.

6. Shakespeare’s work mostly talked of Suicide

If you have read Shakespeare works, then you are familiar with the fate of most of his characters. Suicide scenes happen 13 times in the list of Shakespearean plays.

During the Elizabethan time, just like now, the church and the state considered suicide as a mortal sin which was associated with deep despair and demonic pride. They referred to it as ‘self-murder’.

Shakespeare addressed this taboo subject in his plays.

7. No popcorn at Shakespeare’s theatrical shows

There was no popcorn at theater during Shakespeare’s time. The spectators bought apples and pears to eat during the show.

Performances that did not live up to the spectators taste and expectations would get pelted with the fruits as a sign of dissatisfaction. It must have been tough for the actors.

There were no curtains on stage that could be quickly drawn during those times, so one had to run off the stage.

8. Shakespeare the master of words

You probably know this by now from reading his work.

It is interesting to note that he greatly influenced the English language. He was considered the greatest English writer of his time.

Some words that he invented and are still used to date, you have probably used one or all of them; fashionable, lackluster, in a pickle, vanish into thin air, play fast and loose, foul play, tower of strength, flesh and blood, be cruel to be kind, with bated breath and one fell swoop.

He has been credited with over 3000 worlds in the oxford dictionary.

9. Some people questioned William Shakespeare’s Sexual Orientation

By John Taylor – wikimedia

Shakespeare is thought to have been very fond of one of patrons Henry Wriothesley.

In one of his sonnets, Shakespeare wrote of ‘a young beautiful man’, ‘the fair youth’. An unknown writer wrote that Wriothesley shared his house with a fellow whom he would “hug in his arms and was very affectionate with.

One of the most famous paintings of Shakespeare shows the playwright with a gold hoop earring in his left ear.

In Wriothesley portrait, he also spots an elaborate double earring, is wearing lipstick, and his long hair hangs down in very feminine hairstyle while his hand was on his heart in a somewhat camp gesture.

10. William Shakespeare is thought to have died of typhus

Early 1616, Shakespeare is believed to have caught a fever due to a serious outbreak of typhus that year.

In March 1616, he revised his will, the evidence of this is his shaky signatures an indication that he may have been under the weather.


After he died on April 23, 1616, aged 52, he left most of his real estate to his daughter Susanna.

William Shakespeare was buried in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church in his hometown of Stratford, Warwickshire.

Before his death, Shakespeare wrote his epitaph daring anyone to move his grave.

In those days, the grave site was considered temporary and Shakespeare wanted to rest in peace. His wishes have been respected to date.

You can visit his grave at the Holy Trinity Church, United Kingdom, which is open to the public.

 

 

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