William Shakespeare Research Paper

William Shakespeare, born on April 23, 1564 according to the Church baptism registry

(Potter,1), in Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom, had a very strange and peculiar history. His oddness about himself and his strange writings and morbid plays made his name become something that everyone thinks of when it comes to plays and playwrights, hence making himself somewhat of a strange legend in the theater scene.

According to research done by many historians and experts, William Shakespeare, born of John and Mary Shakespeare, was born on April 23, 1564. William was the third of eight children (Goldstein,6,#3). In his family, his father John came from a family of local farmers, but had a big interest in business (Morley,13) so he moved around from

Not too much later, John has made his mark in the town as an entrepreneur, not only dressing leather and selling gloves, but also being a dealer in wool and farm produce. In 1558, John was sworn in as the town constable, six years later a burgess (member of the town council), and then in 1567, an alderman (Honan,20). Finally, in

1569, John was given the honor of being elected as the bailiff of Stratford, which is the equivalent to being elected as a mayor in our day and age.

William’s mother, Mary Shakespeare, previously Mary Arden came from a much more distinguished family. Her ancestry was traced all the way back to Thorkell of Arden, who was a

Braswell 2 major landowner in Saxon times. The Arden family fought for Simon de Montfort when he rebelled against King Henry III. Mary was distantly related to all of these people of course but nevertheless she still has the name Arden. Just to show about how important her family name is, there is a massive wooded area that covered a majority of Warwickshire which enclosed

Birmingham. This giant forest was dubbed the Forest of Arden.

Around the age of five years old, William Shakespeare started something called

This place also served as a temporary theatre when travelling players came into town. Schooling however, was a very tough thing for William. Shakespeare would have to wake up and be at school around six or seven in the morning, have an incredibly short breakfast consisting only of bread and ale, school up until around twelve noon and go home for lunch and be back for schooling around one in the afternoon. From there, he would have to remain in school till about five or six every night on hard wooden benches for hours on end. To make matters more difficult, only one main subject was studied, which was Latin grammar, and translating, learning and repeating classical texts so it was nothing but studying over and over again Latin grammar and texts and having to eventually repeat entire classical texts from pure memory. Even further, pupils in this school would have to know how to write and speak fluently in Latin. All of this extensive studied occurred for six days a week with no exceptions, and

Braswell 3 according to law, William had to attend morning and evening church service as this was required

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