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The Elizabethan Age is the time period associated with the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) and is often considered to be a golden age in English history. It was an age considered to be the height of the English Renaissance, and saw the full flowering of English literature and English poetry. In Elizabethan theater, William Shakespeare, among others, composed and staged plays in a variety of settings that broke away from England's past style of plays. It was an age of expansion and exploration abroad, while at home the Protestant Reformation was established and successfully defended against the Catholic powers of the Continent.

The Elizabethan Age is viewed so highly because of the contrasts with the periods before and after. It was a brief period of largely internal peace between the English Reformation, with battles between Protestants and Catholics, and the battles between parliament and the monarchy that would engulf the seventeenth century. The Protestant Catholic divide was settled, for a time, by the Elizabethan Religious Settlement and parliament was still not strong enough to challenge royal absolutism.

Highlights

England was well-off compared to the other nations of Europe. The Italian Renaissance had come to an end under the weight of foreign domination of the peninsula. France was embroiled in its own religious battles that would only be settled in 1598 with the Edict of Nantes. In part because of this, but also because the English had been expelled from their last outposts on the continent, the centuries long conflict between France and England was suspended during the Elizabethan era.

England's one great rival was Spain, which fought with England both in Europe and the Americas in skirmishes that exploded into the Anglo-Spanish War of 1585-1604. An attempt by Philip II of Spain to invade England with the Spanish Armada in 1588 was famously defeated, but the tide of war turned against England with a disastrously unsuccessful attack upon Spain in 1589 called the Drake-Norris Expedition. Afterward, Spain provided some support for Irish Catholics in a draining guerrilla war against England, and Spanish naval and land forces inflicted a series of defeats upon English forces, which badly damaged both the English Exchequer and economy. Until then, English economics had been carefully restored under Elizabeth's guidance. English colonization and trade would be frustrated until the signing of the Treaty of London the year following Elizabeth's death, 1604.

During this period England had a centralized, well organized, and effective government, largely a result of the reforms of Henry VII and Henry VIII. Economically the country began to benefit greatly from the new era of Atlantic trade.

The Elizabethan era also saw England begin to play a leading role in the slave trade and saw a series of bloody English military campaigns in still Catholic Ireland -notably the Desmond Rebellions and the Nine Years' War.

Despite the heights achieved during the era, less than 40 years after the death of Elizabeth the country was to descend into the English Civil War.

Fashion and the Domestic Arts

Elizabethan court fashion was heavily influenced by Spanish and French styles. Notable garments of this period include the farthingale for women, military styles like the mandilion for men, and ruffs for both sexes.

The Elizabethan era also saw a great flowering of domestic embroidery for both clothing and furnishings. Predominant styles include canvas work generally done in tent stitch and blackwork in silk on linen. Toward the end of the reign the fashion for blackwork gradually gave way to polychrome work in silk that foreshadowed the crewelwork in wool that would dominate Jacobean embroidery.

The food of this time period included lear (an oatmeal like dish with peas or beans), all types of animal meat, and numerous types of fruits and vegetables. A banquet was used for a dessert or snack course.

Elizabethan Festivals, Holidays, and Celebrations

During the Elizabethan era, the years were broken up by annual holidays just as they are in the present age. People looked forward to each and every holiday because their opportunities for leisure were limited. Time away from hard work was restricted to periods after church on Sundays, and so for the most part, leisure and festivities took place on a public church holy day. Every month had its own holiday, some of which are listed below:

January: The first Monday of the second week (any time between seventh and 14th) of January was Plough Monday. It celebrated returning to work after the Christmas celebrations and the New Year.

February: February second was Candlemas. This was the day when all Christmas decorations were burnt. It included candlelight and torchlight processions. February 14th was Valentine's Day. Sending gifts to one another was a Pagan tradition that was still carried on under a Christian guise.

March: Sometime between the third and ninth of March was Shrove Tuesday. This was apprentices' favorite holiday, because they were allowed to run amok in the city in mobs, wreaking havoc and general mayhem. This was acceptable because it was supposedly cleansing the city of its vices before Lent. All the foods which would be forbidden during Lent were eaten up. They would also tie a cockerel to a stack and stone it to death, simply because the cockerel was the symbol of France. The day after Shrove Tuesday was Ash Wednesday. This was the first day of Lent when everyone began to abstain from eating certain foods, such as meat. A Jack-o-lent was set up in each city, a sort of scarecrow on which one could take out one's annoyance at being deprived of certain foods.

April: The first of April was All Fool's Day. This was a day for tricks, jests, jokes, and a general day of the jester.

May: The first day of May was May Day. This was a big and much appreciated festival. It was one of the few Pagan festivals that really had nothing to do with the Church. It was celebrated by sending the youth into the woods for a nighttime party. They did not return until the next morning, bringing with them a large tree trunk, which was put up as the phallic "maypole." The maypole was decorated and then feasting, dancing, and games took place around it.

June: On the 21st of June the people celebrated the summer solstice. This involved a large bonfire, and people celebrated the longest day and shortest night of the year. Mummers told stories and performed plays.

July: St. Swithin's Day was celebrated on the 15th of July. This was a very minor celebration, honoring the legend that after the ceremony of moving St. Swithin's bones, it rained for 40 days.

August: On the first of August, Lammastide, or Lammas Day, perhaps derived from "loof-mas," was the festival of the first wheat harvest of the year. People decorated horses with garlands, played games like apple-bobbing, and had processions of candles.

September: The 29th of September was Michaelmas. This celebrated St. Michael with a traditional feast of goose or chicken.

October: The 25th of October was St. Crispin's Day. Bonfires, revels, and an elected "King Crispin" were all featured in this celebration. St. Crispin's Day is noted in William Shakespeare's play King Henry V, when the king gives a famous speech to encourage his men when they are heavily outnumbered in battle, saying that they will all be remembered on St. Crispin's day. On the 28th was the Lord Mayor's Show, which still takes place today in London. The 31st of October was Hallowmas of Halloween (All-hallow's Eve). This was a Celtic festival celebrating the end of the Celtic year. The souls of the dead supposedly returned to walk the earth. Various masks were worn and bonfires lit to ward off evil spirits.

November: The day after Halloween, November first, was All Soul's Day. This was a Christian holiday, and also involved bonfires. The 17th of November was the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's ascension to the throne, celebrated even one hundred years after the Queen's death.

December: The biggest and perhaps most loved festival of all was an entire 12 days long. The Christmas season, the 12 days of Christmas, started on the 24th of December, Christmas Eve, and lasted until Epiphany on the sixth of January. A Lord of Misrule was selected, and he selected a council to help him. All together communities planned the parties and managed merrymaking. A King of the Bean was sometimes selected, by cooking a bean into a cake, and the finder of the bean became the king. A pea might also be cooked in, and a Queen of the Pea chosen as well, both regardless of gender. Carolers would set out to sing for money, and mummers came out to perform. Youths might run around with a wooden cup or bowl, asking the householders to fill it with ale, a coin, or some food for them: it was considered bad luck to refuse. Other youths might set out with a large bowl of spiced ale with roasted apples, offering the lord of the house a drink of the cider for a coin. Much begging was carried on during the season, and generosity was expected. The lords were expected to fill their houses with as much food as they could. Marchpane, or marzipan, was exceptionally popular. A yule log, a large portion of tree trunk expected to burn throughout the season, was brought in. All greenery, most notably holly and ivy was used. Gifts were presented at New Year instead of Christmas Day. The largest party was held by the Lord of Misrule on Epiphany, and thus ended the Christmas season.

Notable Elizabethans

References

Hutton, Ronald. The Rise and Fall of Merry England: The Ritual Year, 1400-1700. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. 1994. ISBN 0198203632

Hutton, Ronald. The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. 1996. ISBN 0198205708

Strong, Roy C. The Cult of Elizabeth. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 1986. ISBN 0520058410

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The Elizabethan Age is the time period associated with the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) and is often considered to be a golden age in English history. It was an age considered to be the height of the English Renaissance, and saw the full flowering of English literature and English poetry.

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Clothing in Elizabethan England

Liza Picard describes the laws, trends and standards of hygiene that determined who wore what in Elizabethan England.

Status symbols

Cloth of gold and silver, tinselled satin, woollen cloth embroidered with gold and silver, sables and other furs... the clothes worn by the rich make any fashionista's mouth water. But that list was taken from one of a series of Proclamations against 'excess of apparel'. Who was allowed to wear what was supposed to be strictly controlled. It was essential that the Queen's subjects should know their place, and dress accordingly, so that no one could be misled.

The 1597 Proclamation went into minute detail. Only earls could wear cloth of gold, or purple silk. No one under the degree of knight was allowed silk 'netherstocks' (long stockings) or velvet outer garments. A knight's eldest son could wear velvet doublets and hose, but his younger brothers couldn't. A baron's eldest son's wife could wear gold or silver lace, forbidden to women below her in the pecking order.

Proclamation against Excess of Apparel by Queen Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I issued numerous proclamations about clothing. This edict, from 1574, details the colours and fabrics people could wear according to their social rank. Only barons and others of high degree could wear 'golde' or 'tinseld sattern'.

Furs in bewildering variety were similarly controlled. Elizabeth and her favourite the Earl of Leicester enjoyed the softness of sables. She had hers from an unexpected source - Ivan the Terrible, Tsar of Russia, who sent them, as well as two ermine gowns, with a proposal of marriage. She kept the furs but refused the proposal.

Proclamations do not always change human behaviour. Great offence was caused by prostitutes who dared to flaunt themselves in rich garments. Young apprentices who were supposed to dress in modest blue were apt to burst out in colours, such as popinjay blue or lusty-gallant red. 'Great ruffs' and over-long swords were regularly forbidden, too, and as regularly worn.

Rapier, c. 1600

Swords, such as this ornate rapier, were an important part of male dress.

Usage terms © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Held by© Victoria and Albert Museum

Ruffs

Ruffs were worn by both sexes, by old and young, courtiers and working people. They began as a simple frill at the neck of a full-cut shirt, where it was gathered into a neck band. They culminated in the astonishing structures worn by Elizabeth in her state portraits. At first they sagged limply round the neck, until someone hit on the idea of starching them - an art in which the Dutch excelled. Successive restorers of portraits have made all the ruffs in ancestral portraits a uniform white, but in fact they were tinted pink or yellow, much more becoming. Blue seems to have been reserved for prostitutes.

Doctor Lopez is accused of poisoning Elizabeth I

This illustration, from a 1627 book recounting an Elizabethan scandal, shows two men wearing large ruffs.

Portrait of William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, 1617

Pembroke, a favourite at King James's court, wears a handsome white ruff.

Usage terms Royal Collection Trust © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2016 / Bridgeman Images

Women's dress

Working women wore fitted bodices and long full skirts. For the more fashionable, the bodice was stiffened to lie flat across the bosom, and skirts were often divided in front to show an underskirt. The edges of the skirt could be adorned with jewelled borders. A fashionable Elizabethan woman's wardrobe was complex. Sleeves, bodice, ruff, skirt, underskirt - all came as separate pieces which were held in place by pins, and could be reassembled with other elements to look quite different. The Queen was always pleased to accept presents of valuable garments, such as a pair of sleeves embroidered with pearls, or a ruff with matching cuffs.

Photograph of Mark Rylance in Olivia costume in Shakespeare's Globe's production of Twelfth Night, 2002

Mark Rylance dresses for the role of Olivia, showing the many parts of an Elizabethan woman's outfit.

Usage terms © Photo of John Tramper, courtesy of Shakespeare's Globe

Portrait of Mary Fitton, c. 1595

This fashionable lady was soon to become a maid of honour at Elizabeth I's court. Each piece of her complex outfit - the sleeves, bodice, ruff and skirt - was a separate bit of clothing.

Skirts were held out on a frame or 'farthingale'. If you couldn't afford a farthingale, a 'bum roll' tied round your waist under the skirt would do almost as well.

Elizabeth's portraits show her wearing a staggering amount of jewellery, especially pearls. She bought the six ropes of pearls that had belonged to Mary Queen of Scots. New ones were coming in by the chestful from the New World, and needed only boring and polishing to be ready to wear. Diamonds needed careful cutting, and were never so prized. Other stones might be worn as charms. Sapphires and unicorn's horn averted the plague, coral was useful against witchcraft. A bezoar protected against poison, but was hardly attractive; the best came from the intestines of Persian goats.

Sieve Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, c. 1583

Queen Elizabeth in a lavish gown with ruff and jewellery.

Usage terms © Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) in Ceremonial Costume (oil on canvas), Zuccari, or Zuccaro, Federico (1540-1609) / Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena, Italy / Bridgeman Images

One essential garment for the English climate had not yet been invented: the raincoat. A starched ruff would collapse if it got wet. If you were going to a party you would carry your ruff - also known as a 'band' - in a bandbox, and get your maid to pin it on when you got there. A hooded cloak would keep off the worst, but unless it had been made colour-fast by that elusive alum, you risked arriving in a puddle of leaking dye.

Men's dress

'Except it were a dog in a doublet you shall not see any so disguised as are my countrymen of England', wrote a contemporary historian, and indeed the Elizabethan era saw men's clothes depart more widely from their physique than in any other time. At least if you had good legs - and they were important - you could show them off up to crotch level. Next to your skin, a white linen shirt, which might support your ruff unless it had become a separate item by then.

Photograph of Michael Brown as Viola/Cesario and Rhys Meredith as Sebastian in Shakespeare's Globe production of Twelfth Night, 2002

Designer Jenny Tiramani took inspiration from contemporary portraits to create costumes that resembled fashions for young men in c. 1600.

Usage terms © Colin Willoughby / ArenaPal

Portrait of a young man among roses by Nicholas Hilliard, c. 1587

If you had good legs, you could show them off up to crotch level.

Usage terms © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Held by© Victoria and Albert Museum

There were extreme fashions which surely were not always followed by every man, and did not always last long. Sleeves were swollen far beyond the shoulder line, kept that shape by mountains of stiffening and padding ('bombast'). The doublet was cut tight across the chest, swelling out at diaphragm level and back again, making an ugly - to our eyes - 'peasecod' shape, unrelated to the natural body.

The doublet had a skirt, of varying length, under which were ties ('points'), or hooks, onto which the breeches were tied or hooked. The breeches of a working man were baggy and knee-length, like old-fashioned plus fours. The fashionable Elizabethan could opt for short 'hose' (breeches), at groin level: or longer ones covering his thighs, or even down to knee level. But they were all padded, so that they looked like melons or marrows, and made it difficult to walk gracefully, let alone dance. That was not all; they were 'paned' - cut into narrow panels, joined at the waist and hem, with a coloured lining showing in the spaces between the panes. The great days of the codpiece were declining, giving way to a modest buttoned or lace-up opening; but they were still useful as somewhere to keep pins - they were heavily padded - or your purse, and maybe a refreshing orange or two. Both doublet and hose were decorated by 'pinking': slits cut in the fabric, in a pattern, with a differently coloured lining pulled through the slits in little puffs.

The Life of a Satirical Puppy Called Nim

17th-century male fashion: in this satire, a young dandy called Nim shows off his new suit of clothes.

Portrait of Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, c. 1600

The Earl of Southampton (1573-1624) was well-known for his showy, expensive clothes. In this painting, he wears a silk doublet, hose, coloured garters and embroidered gloves.

Usage terms NPG L114
Private collection; on loan to the National Portrait Gallery, London

The ensemble was completed by a hat or cap with a feather or a jewel, and a cloak, varying from a useless waist level to a practical full length.

Personal hygiene

For a modern lavatory, read 'close stool': a padded box with a hole in it, the lid making a comfortable back. For lavatory paper, read 'old linen rags'.

Former ages were rarely keen on washing. A deodorant could be made from camomile, wormwood and alum, which may have worked. (Alum is an ingredient in most modern deodorants.) But how often was it used? An advice book of 1547 suggests that after you've got out of bed and stretched, and coughed, and spat, and defecated, and put your breeches on, 'comb your head... and wash your hands and wrists, your face and eyes and your teeth with cold water' - and that was that. A really fastidious person might clean her teeth with burned rosemary wood, to 'make the teeth white and flee (drive out) the worms in them', which as everyone knew caused holes and toothache.

Cosmetics

Ceruse, a thick white toxic paste containing mercury, gave a smooth complexion until it melted and turned grey, shiny and smelly. Its pallor could be corrected by a round dab of vermilion on the cheeks. The Queen relied increasingly on ceruse.

Liza Picard researches and writes about the history of London. She spent many years working in the office of the Solicitor of the Inland Revenue and lived in Gray's Inn and Hackney, before retiring to live in Oxford.

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Clothing in Elizabethan England | The British Library

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By using this site, you agree we can set and use cookies. For more details of these cookies and how to disable them, see our cookie policy. Clothing in Elizabethan England Liza Picard describes the laws, trends and standards of hygiene that determined who wore what in Elizabethan England.

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Elizabethan Court Life : Queen's Court : Page 1

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The royal court of Queen Elizabeth I was an important and busy place. Read more about the Tudor court and the Queen's palaces.

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Life in Elizabethan England: A Compendium of Common Knowledge

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Everyday life in Tudor England - food, occupations, games, pastimes, religion, fashion, manners, and education in the time of Queen Elizabeth I and Shakespeare.

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(picture credit: Utrecht University Library)

The sketch at left is perhaps one of the most important in theatrical history. In 1596, a Dutch student by the name of Johannes de Witt attended a play in London at the Swan Theatre. While there, de Witt made a drawing of the theatre's interior. A friend, Arend van Buchell, copied this drawing—van Buchell's copy is the sketch rendered here—and in doing so contributed greatly to posterity. The sketch is the only surviving contemporary rendering of the interior of an Elizabethan-era public theatre. As such, it's the closest thing historians have to an original picture of what the Globe may have looked like in its heyday.

Shakespeare's company erected the storied Globe Theatre circa 1599 in London's Bankside district. It was one of four major theatres in the area, along with the Swan, the Rose, and the Hope. The open-air, polygonal amphitheater rose three stories high with a diameter of approximately 100 feet, holding a seating capacity of up to 3,000 spectators. The rectangular stage platform on which the plays were performed was nearly 43 feet wide and 28 feet deep. This staging area probably housed trap doors in its flooring and primitive rigging overhead for various stage effects.

The story of the original Globe's construction might be worthy of a Shakespearean play of its own. The Lord Chamberlain's Men had been performing in the Theatre, built by James Burbage (the father of Richard Burbage) in 1576. In 1597, although the company technically owned the Theatre, their lease on the land on which it stood expired. Their landlord, Giles Allen, desired to tear the Theatre down. This led the company to purchase property at Blackfriars in Upper Frater Hall, which they bought for £600 and set about converting for theatrical use.

Unfortunately, their aristocratic neighbors complained to the Privy Council about the plans for Blackfriars. Cuthbert Burbage tried to renegotiate the Theatre lease with Giles Allen in autumn of 1598; Allen vowed to put the wood and timber of the building "to better use." Richard and Cuthbert learned of his plans and set in motion a plot of their own. It seems that the company's lease had contained a provision allowing them to dismantle the building themselves.

In late December of 1598, Allen left London for the countryside. The Burbage brothers, their chief carpenter, and a party of workmen assembled at the Theatre on the night of December 28. The men stripped the Theatre down to its foundation, moved the materials across the Thames to Bankside, and proceeded to use them in constructing the Globe.

The endeavor was not without controversy. A furious Giles Allen later sued Peter Street, the Burbage's carpenter, for £800 in damages. The courts found in favor of the Lord Chamberlain's Men and ordered Allen to desist from any further legal wrangling. The Globe would play host to some of Shakespeare's greatest works over the next decade. In an ironic epilogue, the troupe won the right in 1609 to produce plays at Blackfriars, and subsequently split time between there and the Globe.

In 1613, the original Globe Theatre burned to the ground when a cannon shot during a performance of Henry VIII ignited the thatched roof of the gallery. The company completed a new Globe on the foundations of its predecessor before Shakespeare's death. It continued operating until 1642, when the Puritans closed it down (and all the other theatres, as well as any place, for that matter, where people might be entertained). Puritans razed the building two years later in 1644 to build tenements upon the premises. The Globe would remain a ghost for the next 352 years.

The foundations of the Globe were rediscovered in 1989, rekindling interest in a fitful attempt to erect a modern version of the amphitheater. Led by the vision of the late Sam Wanamaker, workers began construction in 1993 on the new theatre near the site of the original. The latest Globe Theatre was completed in 1996; Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the theatre on June 12, 1997 with a production of Henry V. The Globe is as faithful a reproduction as possible to the Elizabethan model, seating 1,500 people between the galleries and the "groundlings." In its initial 1997 season, the theatre attracted 210,000 patrons.

Cambridge History of English and American Literature—William Shakespeare

From the Bartleby.com website. This is the entry on the Globe Theatre; it also provides information on other theatres of the time, such as The Rose and The Blackfriars.

Elizabethan Playhouses, Actors, and Audiences

An overview of Elizabethan theatre presented by TheatreHistory.com. Reprinted from Bellinger's A Short History of the Theatre (1927).

Globe Theatre

Encyclopædia Brittanica's page on the Globe Theatre's history.

Map of Early Modern London: The Globe

MoEML is a digital atlas of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century London that includes an encyclopedia of early modern London people and places.

Shakespeare's Globe

Shakespeare's Globe is a world-renowned performing arts venue, cultural attraction and education centre located on the bank of the River Thames in London, UK.

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

Rosalind Tedford is a liaison between Wake Forest University and the Globe Theatre. There are some great shots of the Globe here.

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre Summary (eNotes.com)

Explore Shakespeare's Globe Theater with this detailed discussion of the most famous venue in English literature.

Shakespeare's Staging

The Cal Berkeley Shakespeare Program provides a survey of resources involving Shakespeare's stage and Shakespearean performance, both during his lifetime and through its subsequent development.

The Globe Theatre: A Study Guide

This Cummings Study Guides page dedicated to Shakespeare's Globe presents a good overview on the theater and related topics.

Shakespeare Globe Centre, USA Research Archive

A site that did quite well in presenting the modern reconstruction of the Globe. SGC US is now shut down, but the site remains live as an archive of its work.

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (SBT)

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust presents the when, how, and why behind Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre at AbsoluteShakespeare.com

Another useful overview of the Globe Theatre.

The Virtual Globe

An animated imagined tour of the Elizabethan-era Globe courtesy of the University of Cambridge.

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Shakespeare's company erected the storied Globe Theatre circa 1598 in London's Bankside district. It was one of four major theatres in the area, along with the Swan, the Rose, and the Hope. The open-air, octagonal amphitheater rose three stories high with a diameter of approximately 100 feet, holding a seating capacity of up to 3,000 spectators.

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The Globe Theatre also known as the Shakespeare Globe Theatre was not only one of most famous playhouse's of all time, but the play house where Shakespeare performed many of his greatest plays. History: Shakespeare needs a new playhouse to compete. Built from oak, deal, and stolen playhouse frames, the 3 storey, 3000 capacity Globe Theatre, co-owned by William Shakespeare has become almost as famous as the playwright himself.

The 1598 decision to build the famous playhouse came about as the answer to many of The Lord Chamberlain's Men's problems. With the end of a lease on the Blackfriars Theatre in 1597, The Lord Chamberlain's Men (Shakespeare, J & R Burbage, G Byran, John Hemminges, Augustine Phillips, Thomas Pope and Will Sly) had no where else to readily perform their plays.
Paying for the Playhouse: Shareholders become the key.
This acting troupe needed a new playhouse and fast as their rivals, The Admiral's Men already had the the Rose Playhouse to perform their plays.

Clearly the Lord Chamberlain's Men would need a playhouse to compete, but there was one little problem; a lack of money.
Theft builds the Playhouse.
Though James and Richard Burbage of The Lord Chamberlain's Men had money, there still wasn't enough. Instead they came up with a novel idea; they would each own 25 % of the new playhouse whilst the rest of The Lord Chamberlain's men would each chip in the remaining 50%. This, the Chamberlain's men did, Shakespeare and the other four members of the acting troupe each owning a 12.5 % share when Will Kemp another member of the troupe, backed out.

Sure enough the playhouse was completed, opening in 1599. Not only could the circular playhouse hold up to 3000 patrons but it turned out to be a good earner, earning Shakespeare and his troupe both money from hiring out the playhouse and from ticket sales for their own performances there.

Construction of the famous playhouse, set near the Thames in a place called Bankside in Southwark, began in early 1599. Said to be built by Cuthbert Burbage, brother of the famous Shakespearean actor Robert Burbage and son of James Burbage.
Location, location, location.
Interestingly the famous playhouse was not the Burbage son's first choice for a playhouse since they already had one in "The Theatre", the first of its kind in London and an inheritance from his father. Unfortunately for Shakespeare and the rest of The Lord Chamberlain's Men, the lease of the land it was built on expired in 1597.

Theoretically this playhouse should have reverted to the landlord Giles Allen as well. Instead Burbage tore it down and then discretely removed several 12 inch oak beams, transporting them to Bankside where they formed the structural frame for a 100 foot circular polygon, the heart of the new playhouse's structure.

Though located near the river Thames, Shakespeare's playhouse was not in fact in central London but rather an outlying district called Southwark. Southwark had a "colorful" reputation of being not too different from what we would call a "bad" district today, certainly not the place to find respectable gentry.

Yet the famous playhouse by attracting commoners and gentry alike, brought people of all classes together in a region renowned for bear-baiting and other less than respectable activities.
Advertising.
Nonetheless, elements of England's strict class divisions remained; commoners were in the courtyard by comparison with England's gentry and nobility which were seated in the galleries or the balconies.
The Playhouse's motto and crest.
That playhouses could even exist at all was in part due to its Southwark location; it was outside the jurisdiction of a disapproving central London bureaucracy...
General Appearance.
To announce the arrival of the new playhouse, the Lord Chamberlain's Men took the bold move of flying a flag with Hercules carrying a Globe on his shoulders to announce the imminent performance of Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar.

True to it's name, above the main entrance was inscribed the words "Totus mundus agit histrionem" (the whole world is a playhouse), a phrase echoed in As You Like It ("All the world's a stage"). A crest displaying Hercules bearing the globe on his shoulders finished the effect...

Built to the engineering standards of 1599, the famous playhouse was a large circular structure, three stories high. A small straw hatched roof only partially covered the circular structure, giving it an appearance very much like a modern day football stadium where the center is uncovered.

In the center, pushed up against one interior side, extended the 5 feet high main stage. At the back of this stage facing the interior walls were two doors and a main entrance consisting of a central curtain. Behind this were changing rooms for the actors. To get back on stage, they would emerge from the arras or the two sidedoors at stage level. Above this stage was a balcony, flanked by two further balconies serving as playhouse boxes.
"All the World's a Stage".
On the third level was a small house like structure supported by columns from the stage where announcements were made and the playhouse's flag would often fly, advertising plays currently being performed.

Again like a stadium, three rows of seating forming circular bands wrapped around the interior. These galleries at two pennies, cost more, but offered the comfort of seating. Those in the central uncovered courtyard had to stand through what could be a three hour performance, rain or shine.
Balconies to be seen in...
Set in the middle of the playhouse, the playhouse's 44 wide by 26 foot long stage stood five foot off the ground, low enough to command a good view to courtyard watchers yet high enough to discourage the occasional stage jumper.
Cost of entry.
Two doors allowed actors backstage to enter, this being closed in by a central arras or hanging curtain. Above this was a balcony famously used in Romeo and Juliet when Romeo hears Juliet cry"Romeo, Romeo wherefore art thou Romeo". Similarly, the arras would have been pulled away in The Tempest to reveal the touchingly innocent scene of Miranda playing chess with Ferdinand and was also used for Hamlet's stabbing of Polionius in Hamlet.
Watching a play.
The balcony above the stage was not the only balcony in the playhouse. As mentioned, the central balcony was flanked by two balconies for the wealthy to be seen in just as celebrities today pick boxes and seats at sports games were they are likely to be noticed by today's media. Even vanity existed in the 1500's.

Open to all for the modest fee of just one-penny (roughly 10 % of a worker's daily wage), you could stand in the yard at the center of the playhouse. Without an overhead roof, such a view was exposed, but with the stage set at eye level some 5 feet off the ground, you got the closest view in the house. For a little more (roughly two pennies), you could pay to sit in one of the playhouse's three circular galleries; the gentry with time on their hands and comfort on the minds frequently paying more for the comfort and status, the gallery seats conferred.
Plays performed.
Unlike today's spectacles, a Shakespearean playhouse-goer really had to use their imagination; there were no backdrops, no lighting to speak of, horrific acoustics, and few if any props. As such watching a play would involve watching the actors exaggerating their movements for patrons in the galleries and shouting their lines to be heard by all.

Much of the illusion of a play had to occur in the viewer's own imagination, the only notable exceptions, being the colorful use of costumes, heralds, banners, the odd cannon, and the dramatic use of the balcony's and arras. Because there was no artificial lighting, plays typically occurred in the early afternoon, lasting from 2 pm until roughly 4 or 5 pm.
Burnt to the ground and rebuilt again.
The first play we know of that was performed at Shakespeare's famous playhouse was Julius Caesar in 1599 when a Swiss tourist Thomas Platter recorded in his diary that on September the 21st " we witnessed an excellent performance of the tragedy of the first Emperor Julius Caesar " said to be performed by some 15 actors.
End of an era.
Other plays known to have been performed by Shakespeare and rest of his acting troupe were Hamlet (1600-1601), Twelfth Night Or What You Will (1601), Richard II (February 7th 1601) Troilus and Cressida (1601-1602), All's Well That Ends Well (circa 1602), Timon of Athens (c1604), King Lear (1605), Macbeth (1606), Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1607) possibly The Tempest in 1610, The Two Noble Kinsmen in 1611, Shakespeare's "lost" play Cardenio in 1612 and Henry VIII in 1613.
Today's Replica.
Tragedy struck the playhouse when amidst a performance of Henry VIII on June the 29th, 1613, a cannon fired during the play ignited the playhouse's thatched roof burning the playhouse to the ground. Rebuilt just one year later, the famous playhouse again opened its doors for business but on the opposite side of the Thames river in 1614, with the original's dangerous straw thatched roof now wisely replaced with tiles.

In 1642 as Puritanical forces made their presence felt in England, playhouses no longer were a place of laughter but one of evil sin. Predictably then, all of England's playhouses were promptly closed down to protect the good people of England. Just two years later in 1644, where Hamlet was once performed, the famous playhouse was taken down, its presence replaced by housing instead. One of the greatest eras in playhouse was at an end...

Though the original playhouse is no longer with us, we can enjoy a very close approximation of it today in Southwark, the very same place the original was built in.
Acting: Safe if you had the right connections...
However the 1996 approximation is just that; first the replica's exits had to be enlarged to comply with today's rather more stringent fire regulations (few existed when the original burnt down!) and the new replica despite being built of the very same oak and deal timbers, is not in the same Maiden Lane (called Park Street today) location of the original, but is nearby.

The attention to detail has been painstaking; even the thatched roof made of Norfolk reeds has been faithfully recreated. Today with play's being performed there, only a little imagination is needed to recreate watching a play in Shakespeare's time...

Before the advent of Shakespearean and Elizabethan playhouse, there were no true playhouses or acting troupes in England.
Famous actors who performed at the Playhouse: Richard Burbage.
Instead, traveling actors recreated religious plays held at market squares, inns or make shift stages. These actors traveled the country and were regarded as little more than layabouts or vagabonds. So when playhouse emerged in the late 1500s, acting was still considered a pretty vulgar profession to practice.

There were enemies of actors especially officials who could easily arrest actors for vagrancy. Only actors enjoying noble protection were safe, The Lord Chamberlain's Men were safe by virtue of first being sponsored by The Lord Chamberlain of Elizabeth I and later by King James' patent and patronage of Shakespeare's acting troupe.

Of The Lord Chamberlain's Men (Later named The King's Men to honour King James I), perhaps the acting troupe's most famous actor was not William Shakespeare who legend has it played King Hamlet's ghost, but was Richard Burbage.
Other Actors in The Lord Chamberlain's Men.
Inheriting the smaller Blackfriar's playhouse from his father who built it, and the son of James Burbage who initially ran the Lord Chamberlain's Men, Richard Burbage was considered the greatest Elizabethan actor of them all, playing such challenging roles as Hamlet, King Lear and Othello.

His influence on Shakespeare is not certain but many have speculated that Shakespeare wrote the tragic figures of Othello, King Lear and Hamlet with this subtle-performing actor in mind.

Despite the fame accompanying Shakespeare and Richard Burbage's association with the acting troupe, many others were famous in The Lord Chamberlain's Men.

Will Kemp who was a comic actor in their troupe, originally was one of the shareholder's in the famous playhouse. He is thought to have played amongst other characters, that of Falstaff in the King Henry IV plays, certainly Peter, a servant to Juliet's nurse in Romeo and Juliet and in all probability, Bottom, a weaver in A Midsummer Night's dream.

Instead of staying with The Lord Chamberlain's men, he left the other actors in 1599 to pick up his contribution to the new playhouse and instead Morris danced his way from London to Norwich.

Unhappy with this, he then danced across the Alps to take up acting at The Rose, one of the famous playhouse's competitors.

Arguably replacing Will Kemp in the more famous comic roles of Shakespeare's plays was Robert Armin. Most famous for his role as the deceptively wise Fool in King Lear, Robert Armin also distinguished himself as the insightful clown Feste in Twelfth Night and as Touchstone in As You Like It.

John Hemminges, known to us in history as one of the actors (the other was Henry Condell) who compiled The First Folio, from which all records of Shakespeare's plays are derived was with The Lord Chamberlain's Men from, 1594, later becoming its manager.

Augustine Phillips was known as a musician and jig writer; a merry jig or dance always followed the conclusion of a play.
The plot to kill Queen Elizabeth.
Thomas Pope joined in 1594, becoming a co-owner of the famous playhouse and playing comic roles like Will Kemp before him, thought to include that of Falstaff in the King Henry IV plays before passing away in 1604.

Will Sly joined The Lord Chamberlain's men in 1594 along with Shakespeare at the same time. Along with becoming a co-owner in 1605, he also became a co-owner in the Blackfriar's playhouse in 1608.

Shakespeare and his famous playhouse, also distinguished themselves in controversy. In 1601, Sir Gilly Meyrick asked The Lord Chamberlain's Men to perform Richard II for two pounds. This was an old play and it was only the money that convinced the actors to perform it.

However the reason Meyrick wanted the play performed was because of its anti-monarchic message; King Richard II, a rightful king is removed from power for being a tyrant who breaks his own laws to be replaced by those who understood his subjects better.

Meyrick was obviously hoping that a well-attended performance the very day before the Essex rebellion began, would generate public sympathy for those attempting to kill Queen Elizabeth.

The Essex rebellion failed, The Earl of Essex and most of his supporters being killed. Shakespeare and the rest of the Chamberlain's Men were questioned for their part in this conspiracy, only having to play before the Queen as a consequence.

There is still some doubt as to whether Shakespeare could really not have known what he was doing. Perhaps Shakespeare may have been sympathetic to the conspirators? Little is known with complete certainty.

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Globe theatre is one of most famous of all theatres as well as the venue for Shakespeare's plays

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Who Was William Shakespeare?

William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor of the Renaissance era. He was an important member of the King's Men company of theatrical players from roughly 1594 onward.

Known throughout the world, Shakespeare's writings capture the range of human emotion and conflict and have been celebrated for more than 400 years. And yet, the personal life of William Shakespeare is somewhat a mystery.

There are two primary sources that provide historians with an outline of his life. One is his work - the plays, poems and sonnets - and the other is official documentation such as church and court records. However, these provide only brief sketches of specific events in his life and yield little insight into the man himself.

When Was Shakespeare Born?

No birth records exist, but an old church record indicates that a William Shakespeare was baptized at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26, 1564. From this, it is believed he was born on or near April 23, 1564, and this is the date scholars acknowledge as Shakespeare's birthday.

Located about 100 miles northwest of London, during Shakespeare's time Stratford-upon-Avon was a bustling market town along the River Avon and bisected by a country road.

Family

Shakespeare was the third child of John Shakespeare, a leather merchant, and Mary Arden, a local landed heiress. Shakespeare had two older sisters, Joan and Judith, and three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard and Edmund.

Before Shakespeare's birth, his father became a successful merchant and held official positions as alderman and bailiff, an office resembling a mayor. However, records indicate John's fortunes declined sometime in the late 1570s.

Childhood and Education

Scant records exist of Shakespeare's childhood and virtually none regarding his education. Scholars have surmised that he most likely attended the King's New School, in Stratford, which taught reading, writing and the classics.

Being a public official's child, Shakespeare would have undoubtedly qualified for free tuition. But this uncertainty regarding his education has led some to raise questions about the authorship of his work (and even about whether or not Shakespeare really existed).

Wife and Children

Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway on November 28, 1582, in Worcester, in Canterbury Province. Hathaway was from Shottery, a small village a mile west of Stratford. Shakespeare was 18 and Anne was 26, and, as it turns out, pregnant.

Their first child, a daughter they named Susanna, was born on May 26, 1583. Two years later, on February 2, 1585, twins Hamnet and Judith were born. Hamnet later died of unknown causes at age 11.

Shakespeare's Lost Years

There are seven years of Shakespeare's life where no records exist after the birth of his twins in 1585. Scholars call this period the "lost years," and there is wide speculation on what he was doing during this period.

One theory is that he might have gone into hiding for poaching game from the local landlord, Sir Thomas Lucy. Another possibility is that he might have been working as an assistant schoolmaster in Lancashire.

It's generally believed he arrived in London in the mid- to late 1580s and may have found work as a horse attendant at some of London's finer theaters, a scenario updated centuries later by the countless aspiring actors and playwrights in Hollywood and Broadway.

The King's Men

By the early 1590s, documents show Shakespeare was a managing partner in the Lord Chamberlain's Men, an acting company in London with which he was connected for most of his career.

Considered the most important troupe of its time, the company changed its name to the King's Men following the crowning of King James I in 1603. From all accounts, the King's Men company was very popular. Records show that Shakespeare had works published and sold as popular literature.

Although the theater culture in 16th century England was not highly admired by people of high rank, some of the nobility were good patrons of the performing arts and friends of the actors.

DOWNLOAD BIOGRAPHY'S WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE FACT CARD

Actor and Playwright

By 1592, there is evidence Shakespeare earned a living as an actor and a playwright in London and possibly had several plays produced.

The September 20, 1592 edition of the Stationers' Register (a guild publication) includes an article by London playwright Robert Greene that takes a few jabs at Shakespeare: "...There is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country," Greene wrote of Shakespeare.

Scholars differ on the interpretation of this criticism, but most agree that it was Greene's way of saying Shakespeare was reaching above his rank, trying to match better known and educated playwrights like Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe or Greene himself.

Early in his career, Shakespeare was able to attract the attention of Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, to whom he dedicated his first and second published poems: "Venus and Adonis" (1593) and "The Rape of Lucrece" (1594).

By 1597, Shakespeare had already written and published 15 of his 37 plays. Civil records show that at this time he purchased the second-largest house in Stratford, called New House, for his family.

It was a four-day ride by horse from Stratford to London, so it's believed that Shakespeare spent most of his time in the city writing and acting and came home once a year during the 40-day Lenten period, when the theaters were closed.

Globe Theater

By 1599, Shakespeare and his business partners built their own theater on the south bank of the Thames River, which they called the Globe Theater.

In 1605, Shakespeare purchased leases of real estate near Stratford for 440 pounds, which doubled in value and earned him 60 pounds a year. This made him an entrepreneur as well as an artist, and scholars believe these investments gave him the time to write his plays uninterrupted.

Shakespeare's Writing Style

Shakespeare's early plays were written in the conventional style of the day, with elaborate metaphors and rhetorical phrases that didn't always align naturally with the story's plot or characters.

However, Shakespeare was very innovative, adapting the traditional style to his own purposes and creating a freer flow of words.

With only small degrees of variation, Shakespeare primarily used a metrical pattern consisting of lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter, or blank verse, to compose his plays. At the same time, there are passages in all the plays that deviate from this and use forms of poetry or simple prose.

William Shakespeare's Plays

While it's difficult to determine the exact chronology of Shakespeare's plays, over the course of two decades, from about 1590 to 1613, he wrote a total of 37 plays revolving around several main themes: histories, tragedies, comedies and tragicomedies.

Early Works: Histories and Comedies

With the exception of the tragic love story Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare's first plays were mostly histories. Henry VI (Parts I, II and III), Richard II and Henry V dramatize the destructive results of weak or corrupt rulers and have been interpreted by drama historians as Shakespeare's way of justifying the origins of the Tudor Dynasty.

Julius Caesar portrays upheaval in Roman politics that may have resonated with viewers at a time when England's aging monarch, Queen Elizabeth I, had no legitimate heir, thus creating the potential for future power struggles.

Shakespeare also wrote several comedies during his early period: the whimsical A Midsummer Night's Dream, the romantic Merchant of Venice, the wit and wordplay of Much Ado About Nothing and the charming As You Like It and Twelfth Night.

Other plays written before 1600 include Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, Love's Labour's Lost, King John, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry V.

Works after 1600: Tragedies and Tragicomedies

It was in Shakespeare's later period, after 1600, that he wrote the tragedies Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. In these, Shakespeare's characters present vivid impressions of human temperament that are timeless and universal.

Possibly the best known of these plays is Hamlet, which explores betrayal, retribution, incest and moral failure. These moral failures often drive the twists and turns of Shakespeare's plots, destroying the hero and those he loves.

In Shakespeare's final period, he wrote several tragicomedies. Among these are Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest. Though graver in tone than the comedies, they are not the dark tragedies of King Lear or Macbeth because they end with reconciliation and forgiveness.

Other plays written during this period include All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Timon of Athens, Coriolanus, Pericles and Henry VIII.

When Did Shakespeare Die?

Tradition holds that Shakespeare died on his 52nd birthday, April 23, 1616, but some scholars believe this is a myth. Church records show he was interred at Trinity Church on April 25, 1616.

The exact cause of Shakespeare's death is unknown, though many believe he died following a brief illness.

In his will, he left the bulk of his possessions to his eldest daughter, Susanna. Though entitled to a third of his estate, little seems to have gone to his wife, Anne, whom he bequeathed his "second-best bed." This has drawn speculation that she had fallen out of favor, or that the couple was not close.

However, there is very little evidence the two had a difficult marriage. Other scholars note that the term "second-best bed" often refers to the bed belonging to the household's master and mistress - the marital bed - and the "first-best bed" was reserved for guests.

Did Shakespeare Write His Own Plays?

About 150 years after his death, questions arose about the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. Scholars and literary critics began to float names like Christopher Marlowe, Edward de Vere and Francis Bacon - men of more known backgrounds, literary accreditation, or inspiration - as the true authors of the plays.

Much of this stemmed from the sketchy details of Shakespeare's life and the dearth of contemporary primary sources. Official records from the Holy Trinity Church and the Stratford government record the existence of a Shakespeare, but none of these attest to him being an actor or playwright.

Skeptics also questioned how anyone of such modest education could write with the intellectual perceptiveness and poetic power that is displayed in Shakespeare's works. Over the centuries, several groups have emerged that question the authorship of Shakespeare's plays.

The most serious and intense skepticism began in the 19th century when adoration for Shakespeare was at its highest. The detractors believed that the only hard evidence surrounding Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon described a man from modest beginnings who married young and became successful in real estate.

Members of the Shakespeare Oxford Society (founded in 1957) put forth arguments that English aristocrat and poet Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the true author of the poems and plays of "William Shakespeare."

The Oxfordians cite de Vere's extensive knowledge of aristocratic society, his education, and the structural similarities between his poetry and that found in the works attributed to Shakespeare. They contend that Shakespeare had neither the education nor the literary training to write such eloquent prose and create such rich characters.

However, the vast majority of Shakespearean scholars contend that Shakespeare wrote all his own plays. They point out that other playwrights of the time also had sketchy histories and came from modest backgrounds.

They contend that Stratford's New Grammar School curriculum of Latin and the classics could have provided a good foundation for literary writers. Supporters of Shakespeare's authorship argue that the lack of evidence about Shakespeare's life doesn't mean his life didn't exist. They point to evidence that displays his name on the title pages of published poems and plays.

Examples exist of authors and critics of the time acknowledging Shakespeare as the author of plays such as The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Comedy of Errors and King John.

Royal records from 1601 show that Shakespeare was recognized as a member of the King's Men theater company and a Groom of the Chamber by the court of King James I, where the company performed seven of Shakespeare's plays.

There is also strong circumstantial evidence of personal relationships by contemporaries who interacted with Shakespeare as an actor and a playwright.

Literary Legacy

What seems to be true is that Shakespeare was a respected man of the dramatic arts who wrote plays and acted in some in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. But his reputation as a dramatic genius wasn't recognized until the 19th century.

Beginning with the Romantic period of the early 1800s and continuing through the Victorian period, acclaim and reverence for Shakespeare and his work reached its height. In the 20th century, new movements in scholarship and performance have rediscovered and adopted his works.

Today, his plays are highly popular and constantly studied and reinterpreted in performances with diverse cultural and political contexts. The genius of Shakespeare's characters and plots are that they present real human beings in a wide range of emotions and conflicts that transcend their origins in Elizabethan England.

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William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor of the Renaissance era. He was an important member of the King's Men company of theatrical players from roughly 1594 onward. Known throughout the world, Shakespeare's writings capture the range of human emotion and conflict and have been celebrated for more than 400 years.

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Since William Shakespeare lived more than 400 years ago, and many records from that time are lost or never existed in the first place, we don't know everything about his life. For example, we know that he was baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, 100 miles northwest of London, on April 26, 1564. But we don't know his exact birthdate, which must have been a few days earlier.

We do know that Shakespeare's life revolved around two locations: Stratford and London. He grew up, had a family, and bought property in Stratford, but he worked in London, the center of English theater. As an actor, a playwright, and a partner in a leading acting company, he became both prosperous and well-known. Even without knowing everything about his life, fans of Shakespeare have imagined and reimagined him according to their own tastes, just as we see with the 19th-century family scene at the top of this page.

Primary sources: Shakespeare Documented
Visit Shakespeare Documented to see primary-source materials documenting Shakespeare's life. This online resource of items from the Folger and other institutions brings together all known manuscript and print references to Shakespeare and his works, as well as additional references to his family, in his lifetime and shortly thereafter.

On This Page: Birth and Childhood | Marriage and Children | London Theater | Final Years

William Shakespeare was probably born on about April 23, 1564, the date that is traditionally given for his birth. He was John and Mary Shakespeare's oldest surviving child; their first two children, both girls, did not live beyond infancy. Growing up as the big brother of the family, William had three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard, and Edmund, and two younger sisters: Anne, who died at seven, and Joan.

Their father, John Shakespeare, was a leatherworker who specialized in the soft white leather used for gloves and similar items. A prosperous businessman, he married Mary Arden, of the prominent Arden family. John rose through local offices in Stratford, becoming an alderman and eventually, when William was five, the town bailiff-much like a mayor. Not long after that, however, John Shakespeare stepped back from public life; we don't know why.

Shakespeare, as the son of a leading Stratford citizen, almost certainly attended Stratford's grammar school. Like all such schools, its curriculum consisted of an intense emphasis on the Latin classics, including memorization, writing, and acting classic Latin plays. Shakespeare most likely attended until about age 15.
On Shakespeare Documented: Primary-source materials relating to Shakespeare's family

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An overview of Shakespeare's life from the Folger Shakespeare Library, including his birth and childhood in Stratford-upon-Avon, his marriage to Anne Hathaway and their children, his work in the London theaters, and his final years before his death in 1616.

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from BBC

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Shakespeare is England's most celebrated dramatist and poet. His works have been translated into 80 languages, including Star Trek's Klingon. He helped shape the English we use today, introducing up to 300 words and dozens of well-known phrases.
His plays are known around the world for their universal themes and insight into the human condition. Yet much about the playwright is a mystery. Historians don't know his date of birth, where he was educated or how he spent seven years of his life.

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William Shakespeare: The life and legacy of England's bard

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Shakespeare is England's most celebrated dramatist and poet. His works have been translated into 80 languages, including Star Trek's Klingon. He helped shape the English we use today, introducing up to 300 words and dozens of well-known phrases. His plays are known around the world for their universal themes and insight into the human condition.

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BBC Radio Presents: Romeo and Juliet- Act Two

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Act Two of BBC Radio Presents: Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, Unabridged Presented by the Renaissance Theatre Company Starring Kenneth Branagh as Romeo Samantha Bond as Juliet Judi Dench as The Nurse and John Gielgud as Friar Lawrence. Copyright 1994, BBC.

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BBC Radio Presents: Romeo and Juliet- Act One

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Act One of BBC Radio Presents: Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, Unabridged Presented by the Renaissance Theatre Company Starring Kenneth Branagh as Romeo Samantha Bond as Juliet Judi Dench as The Nurse and John Gielgud as Friar Lawrence. Copyright 1994, BBC.

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BBC Radio Presents: Romeo and Juliet- Act Three

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Act Three of BBC Radio Presents: Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, Unabridged Presented by the Renaissance Theatre Company Starring Kenneth Branagh as Romeo Samantha Bond as Juliet Judi Dench as The Nurse and John Gielgud as Friar Lawrence. Copyright 1994, BBC.

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BBC Radio Presents: Romeo and Juliet- Act Four

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Act Four of BBC Radio Presents: Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, Unabridged Presented by the Renaissance Theatre Company Starring Kenneth Branagh as Romeo Samantha Bond as Juliet Judi Dench as The Nurse and John Gielgud as Friar Lawrence. Copyright 1994, BBC.

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BBC Radio Presents: Romeo and Juliet- Act 5 (Final Act) and Credits

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The fifth and final act of BBC Radio Presents: Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, Unabridged Presented by the Renaissance Theatre Company Starring Kenneth Branagh as Romeo Samantha Bond as Juliet Judi Dench as The Nurse and John Gielgud as Friar Lawrence. Copyright 1994, BBC.

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puts Shakespeare's language side-by-side with a facing-page translation into modern English—the kind of English people actually speak today.

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Romeo and Juliet study guide contains a biography of William Shakespeare, literature essays, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

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By John Green

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Of Pentameter & Bear Baiting - Romeo & Juliet Part 1: Crash Course English Literature #2

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By John Green

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Love or Lust? Romeo and Juliet Part 2: Crash Course English Literature #3

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Shakespeare: Original pronunciation (The Open University)

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Ten Things You Might Not Know About Shakespeare

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Ten Things You Might Not Know About Shakespeare

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Chances are you could name most -- if not all -- of his plays. You'll doubtless be able to name a fair few of his most famous characters. And perhaps you're even able to recite some of his most famous lines. In fact, Shakespeare's life and work is so well-known these days that even the names of his three children (Susanna, Hamnet, Judith), the seemingly bizarre item he left his wife in his will (the family's second-best bed), and the fact that his wife shares her name with an Oscar-winning actress (Anne Hathaway), are all so widely know they might well pop up as questions on games show or at your local pub quiz.

But how much do we really know about Shakespeare? Well, here are 10 much less familiar facts about arguably the world's most famous writer...

1. His father was a professional beer taster
John Shakespeare was born in Snitterfield in Warwickshire, England, in the early 1530s and moved to William's eventual birthplace, Stratford-on-Avon, in 1551. Despite being fairly poorly educated and illiterate (he used a drawing of a pair of compasses as his signature), John worked his way up from running a shop selling his family's farm produce to opening his own glove-making business, and eventually being appointed to one of the town's most important roles -- the official ale-taster of Stratford. In Elizabethan England, ale-tasting (or "conning," as it was known) was a fairly serious business, and "conners" like John Shakespeare not only put themselves at risk to ensure that all the local ale supplies were safe and unpolluted, but were required to swear an oath promising that they would ensure all locally-produced ale was sold at a fair enough price to raise enough taxable revenue.

2. He inadvertently changed America's wildlife
In 1877, the American Acclimatization Society -- an ecological society that sought to introduce European flora and fauna in the United States -- decided to release every single species of bird mentioned in the works of Shakespeare into America. And thanks to a line in the opening act of Henry IV: Part 1, one the species on the Society's list was the European starling; there are now 200,000,000 of them all across North America.

3. We don't always know what he's talking about
Shakespeare's writing can often seem impenetrable to audiences and readers, but cutting through the enigmatic wordplay and the jumbled syntax is only half the battle: the fact is that there are numerous examples in Shakespeare's plays wherein, even now after years of academic study, no one is entirely sure exactly what he's on about. In Twelfth Night, for instance, the clown Feste states that he "did impeticos" some money that was given to him. Does he mean he's "impocketed" the money? Or has he " im-petticoated" it, and spent it on new clothes? Or on a woman? Or on a prostitute? No one knows precisely what this particularly Shakespearism was meant to mean -- and it's likely we never will.

4. He invented a lot of words. A LOT.
Everyone knows Shakespeare played around with language to suit his needs, but are you aware of just how many words his words provide the earliest attestations of? Of the roughly 31,500 different words in his Complete Works, as many as 1 in every 30 is thought to be of his own invention -- or, to put that into context, imagine that two of the words in this 60-word paragraph are completely new to you.

5. ...but your vocabulary is still probably better than his.
Let's be fair -- for an Elizabethan gentleman, Shakespeare's vocabulary wasn't too bad, but the chances are that yours is more than twice as large as his. Shakespeare's 31,500 words pales in light of the fact that today an average adult's vocabulary (depending on their level of education, their job, their interests, and so on) is probably in the region of 50,000-75,000 words.

6. He never spelled his name the same way twice
Or at least, he never did in his surviving signatures. There are six known records of Shakespeare's handwritten signature (including three from the same document), all of which are spelled differently. In chronological order, they read (1) Willm Shakp, signed on a legal deposition in 1612; (2) William Shakspēr, in 1613; (3) Wm Shakspē, on a mortgage document in 1613; (4) William Shakspere, on the first page of his will; (5) Willm Shakspere, on the second page of his will; and (6) William Shakspeare, on the last page of his will, signed in 1616. Notice also that not one of them says "William Shakespeare"...

7. He apparently wore an earring
The Chandos portrait -- one of only a few portraits of Shakespeare in existence -- seems to show that Shakespeare wore a small gold hoop earring in his left ear.

8. One of his relatives was beheaded for plotting against Elizabeth I
In 1583, Shakespeare's third cousin Edward Arden (the son of William Arden, his mother Mary Arden's second cousin) was caught up in a plot hatched by his son-in-law, John Somerville, to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I. The plot, however, was discovered long before Somerville had the opportunity to carry it out, and unfortunately Arden found himself embroiled in the subsequent investigation and was eventually executed.

9. He once gave evidence in court
In 1612, Shakespeare was called to London to give evidence in a bitter court case between his former landlord, Christopher Mountjoy, and his son-in-law, Stephen Bellott, who had been employed as Mountjoy's apprentice during Shakespeare's tenancy. Speaking in court, he confirmed that Bellott was a "very good and industrious servant" and "a very honest fellow," and that he had been approached by Mountjoy's wife to act as matchmaker, helping to set Bellott up with the Mountjoys' daughter, Mary. Although the case ended somewhat inconclusively, the transcription of Shakespeare's testimony provides us with a remarkable record of how he actually spoke.

10. He completely disappeared in 1585
In fact, Shakespeare disappeared for seven years: there is no historical record of him at all between the baptism of his twins' in 1585 and a mention to him in a derogatory article written by the playwright Robert Greene in 1592 (that denounced him as "an upstart cow beautified with our feathers.") What did he do for those seven years? Well, different theories claim he studied law, toured Britain or travelled Europe, worked as a schoolteacher -- or perhaps went into hiding after being caught poaching deer on a Warwickshire estate. Unfortunately, we'll probably never know for sure.

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10 Things You Might Not Know About Shakespeare

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Chances are you could name most -- if not all -- of his plays. You'll doubtless be able to name a fair few of his most famous characters. And perhaps you're even able to recite some of his most famous lines.

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