TABULAR VIEW. THE RENAISSANCE FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY VII TO THE DEATH OF ELIZABETH: 1485-1603 Bible translated by TYNDALE and .1515 .1530-1553 1545 ...1557 ASCHAM'S Toxophilus. MIRACLE PLAYS, MORALITY PLAYS, INTERLUDES Earliest preserved miracle plays in Eng- Miracle plays flourish until middle of Earliest preserved morality plays date EARLY COMEDY AND TRAGEDY: NICHOLAS UDALL'S Ralph Roister Translations of SENECA, 1560-1581. 1577 DRAMA SHAKESPEARE'S FORERUNNERS JOHN LYLY, 1554-1606. Endymion; etc. GEORGE PEELE, 1558-1597. David SHAKESPEARE, 1564-1616 Chief plays falling in this period (dates CHAPTER VII SHAKESPEARE AND HIS FELLOW-DRAMATISTS I. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: 1564-1616 Shakespeare's Early Life.-William Shakespeare was born on or about the 23rd of April, 1564, in the village of Stratford. He was the third child of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden. His mother was of gentle blood, and was possessed of some wealth by inheritance. His father, though a man of consideration in the village, was of lower station, a tanner and glover by trade. Until the age of fourteen the boy attended the Stratford grammar school, where he picked up the "small Latin and less Greek," to which his learned friend Ben Jonson rather scornfully refers. The better part of his education, a wonderfully deep and sure insight into Nature, and a wide acquaintance with the folk-lore of his native district, he doubtless began to acquire in boyhood, by rambles through the meadows and along the streams of Warwickshire, and by converse with the simple folk of the country side. Only a few miles away was the picturesque town of Warwick, with its magnificent castle, to set him dreaming of the past. Within an easy day's walk lay Kenilworth Castle, the seat of Elizabeth's favorite, Leicester; and the historic town of Coventry, where one might still see miracle plays performed on certain festival days. Travelling companies of actors visited Stratford two or three times a year, and had to apply to Shakespeare's father, who was at that time a village official, for leave to play. At their performances young Shakespeare was doubtless sometimes present, drinking in his first impressions of the fascinating world of the stage. About 1578 the fortunes of his father began to decline, and Shakespeare was withdrawn from school. In spite of the rapidly failing prosperity of the family, he was married at eighteen to Ann Hathaway, a young woman eight years. his senior, the daughter of a peasant family of Shottery, near Stratford. Some time between 1585 and 1587, he left Stratford to seek his fortune in the capital, and until the close of his life he returned to his native town only at intervals. The immediate cause of his leaving is said by doubtful tradition to have been the anger of Sir Thomas Lucy, a local magnate, over a deer-stealing prank in which Shakespeare and other wild young blades of the village had engaged. Shakespeare in London.-Outside the walls of London to the north, not far from where the road from Shakespeare's country entered the suburbs of the capital, stood The Theatre, one of two or three play houses which London then boasted. It had at the head of its company the famous actor James Burbage. Tradition says that the youthful Shakespeare, on first coming to London, picked up a living by holding horses at the doors of The Theatre. Whether this is true or not, he soon found himself connected with Burbage's company, as actor and as retoucher of old plays. He continued with Burbage's company, as actor, playwright, and stockholder, when the Theatre was pulled down, and rebuilt as the Globe on the south bank of the Thames. Of the external facts of Shakespeare's life in London we know few. Early in his career he was attacked by Robert Greene, who, in a deathbed exhortation to Marlowe, Peele, and others, called him "an upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the rest of us." The publishers of Greene's pamphlet afterward printed a formal apology, testifying to young Shakespeare's worth and amiability. We know of his friendship with William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and with the Earl of Southampton; of his friendly rivalry, in art and talk, with "rare Ben Jonson," the second dramatist of the age; of his careful conduct of his business affairs, and of his popularity as a playwright. Except for these few gleams of light, his external life is wrapped in mystery; and the very breadth and dramatic greatness of his plays prevent us from drawing from them any but the broadest inferences concerning his personal history. |