William Shakespeare

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Standard Name: Shakespeare, William
The "Chandos" portrait of William Shakespeare, perhaps by John Taylor, c. 1610. Its claims to authenticity are doubtful, but better than most. It was the first portrait acquired by the National Portrait Gallery, 1856. An oval frame is painted round Shakespeare, who looks inscrutably at the viewer, with a bald forehead, moustache and small beard, wearing a black coat with white collar and a hoop earring in his left ear.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Education Emily Hickey
She demonstrated an early interest in reading. Scott , Tennyson , and Barrett Browning numbered among her early favourites. Her father, however, did not allow her to read Shakespeare , as he was repelled by...
Education Alice Walker
On her own the child AW was always reading. At eight she identified in someone else's house a photograph of Booker T. Washington —and asked, Why don't you give it to me, please?
White, Evelyn. Alice Walker. A Life. Norton, 2004.
31
After...
Education Michèle Roberts
She chose the medieval option. Her tutor was Rosemary Woolf , and she studied no authors later than Shakespeare . She reports the results of this in two different ways. In one version the course...
Education Frances Horovitz
As a sixth-form student, she went on a class trip to Italy, where she was introduced to the art of the Renaissance. Shakespeare was another important discovery. Her class also took trips to the...
Education Rose Tremain
At this stage of her life, Rosie's great interest and talent was not writing but painting, like her sister. She set out to make a huge, hanging, illustrated copy of Keats 's Ode to Autumn...
Education Elizabeth Barrett Browning
EBB 's early immersion in fairy stories and popular tales was followed by a more ambitious course of reading that began around the age of seven with history, classical poetry, and some of Shakespeare 's...
Education Harold Pinter
HP attended Hackney Downs Grammar School , where he excelled at sports, particularly as a runner. Joe Brearley , his teacher of English, was important in nurturing his love of poetry and drama, and casting...
Education Hélène Cixous
She had already begun courses to prepare for university entrance at the Lycée Bugeaud in Algiers a year earlier. In 1957 she earned her bachelor's degree in English literature from the University of Bordeaux ...
Education Rumer Godden
In India, RG later wrote, it was thought there were five things a girl needed to know if she were to take her place in any sort of society: to dance, to play the...
Education Kathleen Raine
KR wrote that she grew up reading the Bible daily and memorising passages from it. Her mother could recite long passages from Milton and other English poets, besides Scottish poems and ballads. She was glad...
Education Harriet Shaw Weaver
HSW 's family encouraged her in the regular pursuits of a young, middle-class Victorian woman. From her father she inherited an enthusiasm for poetry—she especially liked Shakespeare , Coleridge , and Whitman —and she read...
Education Susan Hill
Some years later she had a flirtation with the scholarly life that led her to register for a degree in Shakespeare Studies at the University of Birmingham . She abandoned this degree after a term...
Education Anne Grant
Of her childhood, AG wrote that she developed early powers of imagination and memory, but received little attention: no one fondled or caressed me . . . I did not till the sixth year of...
Education Sarah Josepha Hale
Sarah Josepha Buell (later SJH ) was taught at home by her mother, with her father and her brother Horatio (then a law student) joining in for such higher branches of learning as writing, Latin...
Education Marie Corelli
Looking back on her early education, MC wrote I managed to develop into a curiously determined independent little personality, with ideas and opinions more suited to some clever young man. . . . I instinctively...

Timeline

1 November 1604: Shakespeare's tragedy Othello, written since...

Writing climate item

1 November 1604

Shakespeare 's tragedy Othello, written since 30 September of the previous year, was performed before James I at Whitehall.
Kay, Dennis. Shakespeare: His Life, Work, and Era. William Morrow, 1992.
294

3 May 1606: An Act to Restrain Abuses of Players made...

Building item

3 May 1606

An Act to Restrain Abuses of Players made a powerful bid to prevent swearing on stage.
Dobson, Michael. “For his Nose was as sharpe as a Pen, and a Table of greene fields”. London Review of Books, 10 May 2007, pp. 3-8.
7

After 3 May 1606: From allusions in Shakespeare's Macbeth,...

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After 3 May 1606

From allusions in Shakespeare 's Macbeth, it seems that this tragedy was completed after this date.
Shakespeare, William. “Introduction”. Macbeth, edited by Kenneth Muir, Methuen, 1953, p. xi - lxxiv.
xviii-xx

5 September 1607: The crew of the merchant ship Red Dragon,...

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5 September 1607

The crew of the merchant ship Red Dragon, heading for Asia but becalmed for a month off the coast of Sierra Leone, put on a performance of Shakespeare 's Hamlet (a play only five...

7 October 1607: The Revenger's Tragedy (formerly ascribed...

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7 October 1607

The Revenger's Tragedy (formerly ascribed to Cyril Tourneur but now seen by scholars as Thomas Middleton 's answer to Shakespeare 's Hamlet) was entered in the Stationers' Register .
Cox, Michael, editor. The Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Oxford University Press, 2002, 2 vols.

26 November 1607: Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear was registered...

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26 November 1607

Shakespeare 's tragedy King Lear was registered with the Stationers' Company for publication in a quarto edition the following year.
Kay, Dennis. Shakespeare: His Life, Work, and Era. William Morrow, 1992.
313
Neill, Michael. “Glimpsed in the Glare”. London Revew of Books, Vol.
37
, No. 24, 17 Dec. 2015, pp. 39-41.
40

20 May 1609: Shakespeare's Sonnets were registered with...

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20 May 1609

Shakespeare 's Sonnets were registered with the Stationers' Company ; they were published (whether by the author or as some kind of piracy) the same year.
Kay, Dennis. Shakespeare: His Life, Work, and Era. William Morrow, 1992.
12
Shakespeare, William. “Introduction”. Sonnets, edited by Alfred Leslie Rowse, Macmillan, 1964, p. vii - xxxvii.
xiii
Everett, Barbara. “Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Sonnet”. London Review of Books, Vol.
30
, No. 4, 8 May 2008, pp. 12-15.
12-13

20 April 1611: Simon Forman's diary describes the earliest...

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20 April 1611

Simon Forman 's diary describes the earliest recorded performance of Shakespeare 's Macbeth, which was probably completed soon after early May 1606.
Shakespeare, William. “Introduction”. Macbeth, edited by Kenneth Muir, Methuen, 1953, p. xi - lxxiv.
xvi

Before 29 June 1613: Henry VIII, by Shakespeare (probably with...

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Before 29 June 1613

Henry VIII, by Shakespeare (probably with the collaboration of Fletcher ), had its first performance: when it was acted on this date, a fire broke out which destroyed the Globe Theatre .
Kay, Dennis. Shakespeare: His Life, Work, and Era. William Morrow, 1992.
326

8 November 1623: Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies,...

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8 November 1623

Shakespeare 's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, collected (with one or two omissions) and posthumously published this year in a handsome large-format edition (the First Folio) were registered with the Stationers' Company .
Dobson, Michael. “Whatever you do, buy”. London Review of Books, 15 Nov. 2001, pp. 8-10.
8-9
Kay, Dennis. Shakespeare: His Life, Work, and Era. William Morrow, 1992.
12
Lea, Richard. “Shakespeare’s First Folio fetches ¥2.8m”. Guardian Unlimited, 13 July 2006.
Smith, Emma. Shakespeare’s First Folio: Four Centuries of an Iconic Book. Oxford University Press, 2016.
2-3, 16, 56

1633: Dramatist John Ford published a particularly...

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1633

Dramatist John Ford published a particularly violent and disturbing tragedy entitled 'Tis Pity She's a Whore.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

15 April 1644: The Globe Theatre in London, once the home...

Building item

15 April 1644

The Globe Theatre in London, once the home of Shakespeare 's company, was demolished as part of the ongoing parliamentarian campaign against the theatres.
Purkiss, Diane. The English Civil War, A People’s History. Harper Perennial, 2007.
300-1

August 1667: John Dryden published An Essay of Dramatick...

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August 1667

John Dryden published An Essay of Dramatick Poesie, bearing the title-page date of 1668.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
Johnson, Samuel. The Lives of the Poets. Editor Lonsdale, Roger, Clarendon Press, 2006, 4 vols.
2: 314n27

7 November 1670: The joint operatic adaptation of Shakespeare's...

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7 November 1670

The joint operatic adaptation of Shakespeare 's The Tempest by John Dryden and the late Sir William Davenant was first staged.
The London Stage 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1960–1968, 5 vols.
1: 123

12 December 1677: John Dryden's tragedy All for Love; or, The...

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12 December 1677

John Dryden 's tragedy All for Love; or, The World Well Lost (a blank-verse re-writing of Shakespeare 's Antony and Cleopatra) received its first known (perhaps not its first) performance at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane .
Watson, George, and Ian Roy Wilson, editors. The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. Cambridge University Press, 1969, 5 vols., http://U of A, HSS Ruth N Flr 1 Ref.
Dryden, John. Dryden, Poetry, Prose and Plays. Editor Grant, Douglas, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1952.
586

Texts

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