William Shakespeare 1564-1616

Actor and playwright in London: 1592-1608

By 1592, Shakespeare had left his family in Stratford and he had moved to London. There, he was an actor and a well-known playwright. So, he earned his money by acting in plays and by writing plays. There is very little information about what roles he played and about the quality of his performance. He was connected to a theatre company called “The Lord Chamberlain’s Men”. In this theatre company Shakespeare was an actor, a leading shareholder and the principal playwright. His close association with this theatre company is remarkable. Most playwrights would work on a freelance basis, writing plays for whoever would pay them and not be tied to one theatre company only.

During 1592-93 there was another outbreak of the plague in London. Because of this, the playhouses and theatres were closed. The consequence of this was that some of Shakespeare’s early plays could not be performed. Or at least, their performance was delayed until the re-opening of the playhouses. Shakespeare then turned to writing poetry. In 1593, his narrative poem Venus and Adonis was published and in 1594 The Rape of Lucrece followed. Both poems are dedicated to the Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley. We do not know the exact nature of Shakespeare’s relationship with this man. It is possible that they were lovers and that Henry is also the man, the “fair friend,” that is referred to in the sonnets. But again, this is guesswork.

From 1594 onward Shakespeare produced a lot of high-quality plays. Examples are A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet and The Merchant of Venice. Financially he prospered from this. He invested in land and real estate in Stratford. And in 1599 he was one of the owners of the Globe, the most prestigious playhouse in London of that time.

In 1603, when James I ascended the throne, Shakespeare’s theatre company’s name was changed into “The King’s Men”. This meant that the company was under royal patronage and would perform a lot of their plays at the court. Somewhere between 1599 and 1601 Shakespeare wrote his first great tragedy, Hamlet. It seems that after this he focussed on this genre and did not write anymore of the comedies he had written in the 1590’s. Up to 1608 he probably wrote all his great tragedies such as Othello, King Lear and Macbeth.

Retirement and Death: 1608-1616

From 1608 onward, there seems to be another shift in genre. After the tragedies, Shakespeare turned to writing the so-called “romance plays”, a much lighter sort of plays with music, romance and magic. Examples of these are The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest. The general idea is that from 1613 onward, Shakespeare retired and moved back to Stratford. But, there is also still evidence that he was in London, so this is not sure. We do know that he stopped working for the theatre.

Shakespeare died in 1616 in Stratford. Just like we know little for sure about his life, the cause of his death is also unknown. We know that one month before his death he revised his will, probably because his daughter Judith just got married to a man he did not approve of. He is buried in Stratford. Ben Jonson, one of his friends, wrote him an epitaph: “He was not of an age, but for all time”.¹