Category Archives: Stratford-upon-Avon

A Crown of Daisies

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SPOILER ALERT: There are new sonnets, below, in honor of William Shakespeare’s birthday!

The actor and producer William Shakespeare was born four hundred and sixty years ago today, on April 23, 1564, in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. William’s father, John Shakespeare, was a glove-maker and wool dealer who also had a number of other occupations. William’s mother, Mary Arden, was the daughter of a gentleman farmer.

Less than three months after John and Mary welcomed baby William, Stratford-upon-Avon received a most unwelcome visitor: the bubonic plague. That year, over two hundred townspeople, representing one seventh of the population, would succumb to the devastating bacterial infection.

In November 1582, eighteen-year-old William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, a woman who lived in a village about a mile outside of town. Anne, born Agnes, came from a family of successful sheep farmers. William and Anne were best friends who wanted to create a family together. Theirs was the “marriage of true minds” the poet wrote about in Sonnet 116. Indeed, the two would remain wed for almost thirty-four years, until William’s passing, in 1616.

A daughter, Susanna, was born six months into their union. Hamnet and Judith arrived twenty months later. The twins were named after Hamnet and Judith Sadler, a couple with whom William and Anne were friends. The Sadlers would go on to name a son after William.

Undoubtedly, the greatest tragedy faced by the young Shakespeare family was the crushing loss of their Hamnet, in 1596, due to plague. He was just eleven years old.

In Elizabethan England, 30 to 40 percent of children died before their first birthday, and only three in five survived past the age of ten. Given these statistics, you might think the sudden death of a child would have been almost expected—and, therefore, met with a certain degree of detachment or resignation. You would be wrong.

Today I am sharing two sonnets that might have been written about Hamnet Shakespeare: the first while the poet’s son was still alive; and the second after young Hamnet had been buried in the yard at Holy Trinity Church, in Stratford-upon-Avon.

While Hamnet, the poet’s son, lived:

And after Hamnet died:

You might notice something unusual about these two sonnets as well as the last three I posted: They conclude with lyrics from the Beatles. The poems in this post, for example, borrow from “Good Day Sunshine” and “Baby’s in Black.” If you’d like, take a moment to observe how neatly the song lyrics fit into the rhythm of the poetry.

CREDITS: The image of a lamb was generated by Jay Schwartz. Information about John Shakespeare and Mary Arden came from Wikipedia. Statistics regarding the bubonic plague came from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and this site. Information about Hamnet and Judith Sadler came from this site. Statistics regarding child mortality in Elizabethan England came from this site.

’Tis I You Seek

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spoiler alertThe poem I am sharing today strongly suggests the identity of the person who wrote the works attributed to William Shakespeare. That’s right: the pesky “authorship question” has finally been solved!

If you’ve never heard of the authorship question, it’s the controversial theory that William Shakespeare, due to his humble upbringing, was not capable of writing the poems and plays credited to him. Therefore, someone else must have written them—but who?

If you’re wondering whether William Shakespeare was even a real person:

  • William Shakespeare’s baptism was recorded at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, on April 26, 1564.
  • According to surviving documents, William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway in November 1582. William was eighteen; Anne was twenty-six, and pregnant with their first child.
  • William Shakespeare’s legally validated will was signed on March 25, 1616, four weeks before his death.

If you’re curious how long the authorship question has been around, it originated during William Shakespeare’s lifetime.

As a Shakespeare fan since I was thirteen, an English Literature major in college, and a devoted theatergoer, I never had much time for the authorship question. To me, the works were the thing. Did it really matter who wrote them?

But when I realized who wrote the works of Shakespeare, I changed my mind. The realization arose more from common sense than from research. If you’d like the same joy of discovery, I have provided five clues, below!

Clue #1: The person who wrote Shakespeare’s works was very close to William Shakespeare, as this person’s plays were performed by William’s acting company. William Shakespeare belonged to the King’s Men acting company, known earlier as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, for most of his career.

Clue #2: This person was able to write fully realized female characters in an era when women were regarded as weak and subservient to men. Think about Shakespeare’s rich and memorable portrayals of Juliet, Lady Macbeth, Desdemona, Cleopatra, Rosalind, Portia, Viola, Beatrice, Katherine (Kate), Titania, Cordelia, and Ophelia, among other female characters.

Clue #3: This person hotly encouraged a young man to marry and to have a child. Of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets, the first 126 are addressed to a young man known as the “Fair Youth.” The first 17 of these sonnets are referred to as the “procreation sonnets.” In the procreation sonnets, Shakespeare urges the Fair Youth to wed and to become a father, so that this handsome young man might perpetuate his beauty and live forever through his offspring.

Clue #4: This person is someone whom scholars have overlooked for many years. If the “authorship question” holds merit, why hasn’t a definitive candidate for the author of Shakespeare’s works been recognized yet? What type of person would have been dismissed out of hand—or never considered in the first place?

Clue #5: A final nod to the identity of the individual who wrote the works of Shakespeare can be found in the following poem. This is the sonnet Shakespeare never wrote (until now!) about meeting the Dark Lady, the poet’s famous mistress. Of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets, the final 28 are devoted to the Dark Lady. Remember, I wrote this poem from the perspective of the person who penned the works of Shakespeare.

standing there

I’ll be back in a future post to let you know if your guess is the same as mine!

CREDIT: The featured image for this post is Woman in Triangles (1909), by the Czech painter František Kupka (1871–1957), photo taken by me at the Centre Pompidou, in Paris.