Shakespeares Background

Shakespeare background information

William Shakespeare

- Lived from 1564- 1616.

- English poet and play writer.

- His early plays were mainly comedies and histories

- He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608.

- Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon.

- At the age of 18, he married 26 year old Anne Hathaway, who bore him three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith.

- Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613.

Renaissance

- “Re birth”

- Spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century

- Started in Florence

Queen Elizabeth

- Live from 7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603

- Queen of England and Queen of Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death

- Elizabeth was born in Greenwich Palace

- She was the second child of Henry VIII of England to survive infancy

- Elizabeth became queen at the age of 25

King James

- 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625

- King of Scots as James VI from 1567 to 1625 at the age of thirteen months old.

- Born at Edinburgh Castle

- eldest son of the monarch

- James wrote two works, The True Law of Free Monarchies and Basilikon Doron

London in time of Shakespeare

- Some time between 1585 and 1592, Shakespeare left Stratford for London

- joined a company of actors as a performer and a playwright

- By 1592 Shakespeare had received some recognition.

- not entirely positive, as an actor and playwright

- the theaters in London closed due to the plague.

- By 1594 Shakespeare had joined a theater troupe known as the Lord Chamberlain's Men

The Globe Theater

- The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare.

- built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company.

- destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613.

- A second Globe Theatre was built on the same site by June 1614 and closed in 1642.

The puritans in Shakespeare time

- "purity"

- the Puritan movement involved both a political and a social component.

- Puritans felt that the English Reformation had not...