- has holds both alike in dignity in fair Verona where we lay our scene ancient Grudge break to new mutiny where civil blood makes civil hands unclean from forth the fatal loins of these two foes a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life whose misadventured piteous overthrows does [Music] all the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players they have their exits and their entrances and one man in his time plays many parts his acts being seven ages [Music] these are familiar lines indeed and most people can identify the author as one William Shakespeare of stratford-upon-avon England poet actor and dramatist extraordinaire [Music] his face is almost instantly recognizable as a fine lace roughed Elizabethan gentleman and if you visit his birthplace you'll see this image just about everywhere you go [Music] but what of the man behind the ruff the William Shakespeare that his friends and family knew and loved you'll see book shops full of important looking texts however they won't tell you a great deal more than you already know they'll be packed full of interesting historical facts about the time in which the great man lived with plenty of insightful opinions formed by the many thousands of biographers who've put quill to parchment to wax lyrical a bank Shakespeare and his complete works yet by the time Shakespeare was 28 years old and starting to appear in London the only documentation there was about his early years are references to his baptism in 1560 for his marriage in 1582 and the births of his children in 1583 and 85 [Music] it's not much to go on which makes the seven ages of man speech from Shakespeare's play as you like it that you just heard the opening lines of all the more significant and as we step back in time on the trail of William Shakespeare his own words will have a great deal more to tell us than all the books that have been written about him [Music] so we'll be very traditional and start at the beginning and take a closer look at stratford-upon-avon in the county of Warwickshire where the great Barda was born even if you didn't know this fact before your arrival you'd certainly be aware it but the time you left because you quickly realize that every gift shop hotel restaurant and public gun appears to have a connection with Shakespeare everywhere you turn there's a statue of him a memorial or of Clark telling you that Shakespeare ate slept sat or simply was there the impressive Royal Shakespeare Theatre is as you may have guessed where you can see his place performed to this day and to experience productions of Romeo and Juliet Twelfth Night A Midsummer Night's Dram Hamlet Macbeth and Henry the fourth parts one and two there's probably no better place on earth now one thing you'll notice about all of Shakespeare's plays is the way in which he sets his scene so we'll take a leaf out of his not inconsiderable book and find the moment in time William Shakespeare actually inhabited Shakespeare lived most of his life during the Elizabethan era of English history the time was directly associated with Queen Elizabeth the first who reigned from 1558 to 1603 from where the name came and was generally referred to as a golden age this wasn't because the Sun shone all day long the English weather was as unpredictable back then as it is now no it was due to the fact that this was a time of great commercial growth and expansion for England with many explorers and adventurers setting sail for faraway lands trade flourished there was even a suspension of the centuries long conflict between France and England and it was in this climate that the arts were able to blossom especially Elizabethan theatre which exploded into the public consciousness as Shakespeare took full advantage of the situation [Music] of course when a country becomes prosperous and settled then fashion culture and the arts become more important and widely publicized when you see Shakespeare's plays perform today in period dress it all appears quite cumbersome and stifling the women were heavily influenced by the court fashions of Spain and France which included the farthingale a circular stiff looped petticoat that gave the skirts their distinctive fullness an Elizabethan lady would never have fretted about her derriere looking large that was the whole idea and as you can see for yourself the hips were definitely accentuated imagine trying to get through a narrow doorway in that the men wore snug fitting buttoned up codes called doublets with matching knee length trousers and stockings often referred to as a doublet and hose and this wasn't just to keep their legs warm either as it was a sign of a man's wealth if he had clean white stockings he was a man of money as well as all this grand paraphernalia one of the most common items of decorative clothing during Shakespeare's lifetime was the Ruff worn by men and women ruff started out as small fabric ruffles at the neck of the shirt or gown they were used to allow the wearer to stay in the same clothing longer as it kept the neckline from getting soiled or dirty then starch was discovered made from vegetables and added to boiling water which solidified and stiffened when cooled it was used in the laundering process usually on the collars cuffs and of course ruffs to give them a stiff shape it was incredibly practical for an age when hygiene was not of paramount concern as any dirt and sweat from the person's neck or wrists would stick to the starch rather than the fabric and therefore was easily washed off the application of starch allowed ruffs to get bigger and wider which was another sign of wealth in Shakespeare's day especially amongst the men and the bigger the rough the better they thought they looked now as we can see from the pictures and statues of William Shakespeare he was evidently a wealthy man if his ruffs or anything to go by and you could be forgiven for imagining he was a member of the aristocracy [Music] however his background was far from being well connected and as a young man he was anything but respectable and his entrance into the world was far from grand most of us have a fair idea that Mary Arden had something to do with William Shakespeare and she was actually his mother a little way out of Stratford you'll find the picturesque village of Wilm coat and you can't miss the delightfully named featherbed lane complete with the 16th century half-timbered property famous the whole world over as mary arden's house before marrying John Shakespeare how her William's father this was thought to have been Mary's family home but recent discoveries suggest there might have been a bit of a mix-up [Music] the neighboring house glebe farm is actually far more likely to have been her home but the birthplace trust cares for both properties and visitors get to delightful houses for the price of one it's evident that whichever house belonged to Mary's family the Arden's were people of substance and it's well known that the lady in question married rather beneath her station when she joined forces with Shakespeare [Music] the Shakespeare's had something of a dubious reputation and although John was better than most of them being a successful Stratford glove maker in April 15 52 he was fined a shilling for making a dung heap and side his neighbor's house here in Henley Street Elizabethan towns were pretty revolting when it came to sewage disposal but rules were rules and each Road had its own muck heap which residents were obliged even by law to use it was claimed that if a shakespeare owed you money you'd struggle to get your cash but on this occasion John settled his fine immediately perhaps already aspiring to improve himself on the social scene John Shakespeare and Mary Arden are most likely to have been married here at the parish church of st. John the Baptist at Aston can blow in 1557 bart with parish records not introduced until a few years later there's no documentary evidence of this and so we come to the birth of William Shakespeare which again is the subject of a great deal of speculation folklore has it that he was born on the 23rd of April st. George's Day which commemorates the patron saint of England in 1564 he certainly christened on the 26th of April as shown in parish records so this is possible and everyone likes the idea that England's most famous export was born on st.
George's Day this becomes even more ironic when you discover that Shakespeare died on the 23rd of April 1616 there's his tombstone in Stratford's Holy Trinity Church testifies this is one Shakespearean fact that is undisputed william was the 3rd child born to John and Mary as there were two little girls who preceded him but both died in infancy fact it's fortunate that baby William survived because bubonic plague raged through Stratford when he was just three months old but it's likely that his mother whisked him away to the safety of her family home at wound coat until the worst of the danger had passed [Music] Shakespeare lived and most people believe was born in the house situated on Henley Street one of three properties that belonged to his father in the center of stratford-upon-avon today it's owned by the Shakespeare Birthplace trust and retains a number of treasured artifacts from Shakespeare's life the Trust purchased the house in 1847 but Shakespeare was continuing to attract visitors to the town they even have a copy of the visitors book which dates back to that time with such eminent signatures as the novelist Charles Dickens and the poet John Keats both of whom were great admirers of Shakespeare by the time William was of school age his father had risen both socially hand in business and was well on the way to becoming mayor of Stratford as an upwardly mobile gentleman of the town he sent his son perhaps as young as five years of age to the Kings new school also known as stratford grammar and as we discover in the next lines of shakespeare's seven ages of man's speech possibly young William did not relish the privilege very much at all [Music] at first the infant mewling and puking in the nurses arms then the whining schoolboy with his satchel and shining morning face creeping like a snail unwillingly to school an Elizabethan school day ran from 6:00 in the morning until 6:00 at night with lessons are nothing but religion and the classics teachers were tyrannical beating the boys for the slightest misdemeanor and if these seven ages of man's speech is anything to go by William wouldn't have been too upset when his father's business went into a decline forcing him to be withdrawn from school at the age of 13 what happened next to young Will Shakespeare is something of a biographers nightmare as there's no solid evidence whatsoever to go on however they've been many interesting theories put forward over time logically he's most likely to have worked with his father making gloves in Henley Street but there are those who don't believe he remained in Stratford at all [Music] one of the most imaginative notions is that he ran away to sea and traveled around the world with Sir Francis Drke on the Golden Hind which would certainly explain Shakespeare's fascination with faraway lands like in Rhea in his play Twelfth Night but whatever Drams you Harbor of Shakespeare's youth the reality that he faced as an 18 year old Stratford lad about town brought him crashing down to earth with an almighty bump here are the next lines of the seven ages of man speech [Music] and then the lover sighing like furnace with a woeful ballad made to his mistress's eyebrow [Music] it was time for romance and if you read the tourist guides Shakespeare set out on a lover's journey to shatar e and the picturesque thatched cottage of Anne Hathaway the lady who had taken the young man's fancy [Music] whatever these circumstances of their relationship man this is another contentious issue Anne Hathaway claimed to be pregnant by William Shakespeare as a result it was a track that many a good-looking lad has fallen in tune before and since and as William was eight years and junior there are those who believe she'd engineered the situation and supporters made sure that Shakespeare had no choice in the matter and by May 15 83 William found himself married with a daughter Susanna at the ripe old age of 19 [Music] financial constraints forced William and his new family to move into the already crowded Henley Street house where the younger Shakespeare brothers and sisters ranged in age from Edmund and just to Richard eight and John 13 right through to Gilbert at sixty and then despite the fact that it's widely believed and no longer appealed to Shakespeare twins Hamnet and Judith were born in 1585 adding to Williams responsibilities [Music] nights out poaching nearby child cat park after the lord of the manors deer proved about as exciting as life could get but when Shakespeare was caught in the act and hauled before the duty magistrate it was Sir Thomas Lacey the wronged landowner himself rather than keeping a low profile William who evidently already had a way with words made matters worse by writing an insulting ballad about Lacey which he posted of the child cut park gates for all to see it was war the aggrieved Sir Thomas pursued William at every possible opportunity denying the young rogue even the pleasures of a night out poaching once in a while nevertheless another distraction did appear at Stratford's guild hall from time to time when visiting the theatre companies came to town and although pure speculation could have been the link for Shakespeare between Stratford and London William Shakespeare wasn't heard of a game between the baptism of the twins in 1585 and his appearance in London in 1592 could it be that Shakespeare joined a troupe of visiting actors on the way to London to escape Sir Thomas Lacey and the wife domesticity back at Henley Street [Music] [Music] in 1587 we know that a theater troupe called the Queen's men arrived to perform in Stratford a man short Jew to a drunken brawl near Oxford where one of their number had been stabbed to death which therefore perfectly feasible that Shakespeare stepped into the dead man's shoes to act his way to London and would neatly explain shakespeare's total disappearance from the historical record books when Shakespeare reimbursed as a London playwright in 1592 it was documented by a fellow author who was far from complimentary in a gropes worth of wit bought with a million of repentence university-educated richard green described Shakespeare as an upstart crow who supposes he is as well able to bombast out blank verse as the next man to this day there are still scholars who refuse to believe that an uneducated Warwickshire lad was responsible for writing the world's greatest drama and it was very definitely the case during Shakespeare's own lifetime it was during these early years that Shakespeare had to fight for his reputation just like the soldier in the seven ages of man then a soldier full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard jealous in honor sudden and quick in quarrel seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannons mouth he might not have been fighting in a war but he was determined to make his way in the world once he discovered he had a gift for writing plays his critical contemporaries had to sit up take note and listen to what he had to say it's difficult to date Shakespeare's plays precisely but by 1590 for at least six of them had been produced when he bought a share in the Lord Chamberlain's Men Shakespeare remained with this theater company throughout his career which became the King's Men when Elizabeth the first died and King James the first succeeded her the young country boy making his way in the big city was prolific in his writing but it certainly wasn't case of all work and no play if sexual frustration and a wife he couldn't stand the sight of was part of Stratford life he made the most of what was on offer in London in many of Shakespeare's sonnets you'll find a dark-eyed a beauty that stole his heart and her identity has never been revealed but there have also been plenty of suggestions that Shakespeare was bisexual in part due to his sonnets that mention a fair lord who is thought to have been Henry Wriothesley the 3rd Earl of Southampton Shakespeare's close friend and patron how much a new back in Stratford of her husband's carrying on we can only guess but the money he sent home began to increase as Shakespeare became more and more successful so maybe she preferred not to ask too many questions [Music] when Shakespeare did return to Stratford in 1596 it was for the most tragic of reasons as his son Hamlet died what caused the 11-year olds death isn't known but it was to be the end of the male Shakespeare line and whatever Williams feelings for his wife and domesticity he was devastated at the loss of his child [Music] Shakespeare had left Stratford a penniless vagabond but if word of his success in London had failed to reach the good folk of his hometown by this time a year after Hamlet's death he made sure that everyone who had ever despised him discovered just how important he'd become Shakespeare bought new place the biggest and grandest house in Stratford but sadly it is no longer standing the birthplace trust owns Nash house a superb black-and-white Tudor property that Shakespeare's granddaughter lived in with her husband the lawyer Thomas Nash but if you enter the gardens will actually be standing on the site of new place [Music] the untimely demolition of new place would no doubt have amused William Shakespeare and he would probably have written a play about it long after Shakespeare's death an eccentric eighteenth-century vicar bought new place which was well known as the bard Stratford home just like today pilgrims would come from far and wide to see Shakespeare's house but the Reverend gentleman found this most irritating people would annoy him still further by asking to see the mulberry tree in the garden planted allegedly by Shakespeare himself so the vicar soon put a stop to that by chopping it down when later local tax officials decided to try and put up the rates bill on new place they were dealt with equally efficiently the vicar vowed the no tax man would ever gain access to the property and he meant it completely demolishing new place to prevent them from doing so [Music] although you can see his point of view he nonetheless destroyed a significant part of the nation's Shakespearean heritage which is of course irreplaceable however when he came to property demolition Shakespeare was also a man of extreme principle [Music] the plays Shakespeare wrote for the Lord Chamberlain's Men to perform we're extremely popular and the company made large sums of money which their landlord at the Globe Theatre decided he should get a share of when the theaters lease expired he demanded a huge rent increase which Shakespeare and friends were having none of the argument went on for years until the exasperated landlord threatened to pull the theater down legally he had every right to do this back in Shakespeare's day but rather than making the actors pay up the extra cash instead he gave them an idea the theater building belonged to the Lord Chamberlain's Men so at the dead of night they dismantled the theater plank by plank and transported it across the River Thames this replica of the globe stands almost on the exact spot of the reconstruction which unfortunately burned down during a performance in 1613 the great wooden Oh Shakespeare was fond of describing his theater was open to the elements with no roof and few other comforts so the audience expected to be entertained there was nothing refined about Elizabethan or Jacobi and theater and if the audience wasn't happy the actors would be pelted with all kinds of disgusting missiles Shakespeare quickly became very skilled at adding comic bordey scenes after heavy dramatic moments just to keep the masses happy ironically when the globe burnt down in 1613 it was because of one of Shakespeare's plays at a performance of Henry the eighth an artillery salute to the nancy's the entrance of the king during the first act unfortunately a piece of burning material landed on the thatched roof and burnt the place to the ground this whole spectacle was recorded in a contemporary Ballad of the time and also tells of the theater being full to capacity which would have been around 3,000 people this certainly confirms just how popular Shakespeare's plays were and the best analogy is that he was the Elizabethan equivalent of a modern day soap writer Shakespeare worked at great speed to please his audience with new plays being completed and performed one after the other in quick succession but this is also why it took such a long time for his complete works to be published long after he died [Music] scripts were often composed line by line and then presented to the actors to be learned sometimes within hours of the curtain going up it was eventually seven years after Shakespeare's death the two of his actor friends successfully managed to find and collect together all the plays and published them as the first folio of 1623 the intention of John Hemings and Henry Condell had been to keep the memory of so worthy a friend and fellow worker alive and a visit to stratford-upon-avon today will prove beyond all doubt that they achieved precisely what they set out to do [Music] however it wasn't only the public that appreciated Shakespeare's work Queen Elizabeth the first enjoyed many command performances of Shakespeare's plays and her Royal Seal of Approval certainly helped to promote even greater success we know that she watched 12 19 1603 and the play got its name because of the date on which it was performed [Music] the last day of the Christmas celebrations is Twelfth Night January the 6th which today we hardly notice as it's only remembered as the day we take our festive decorations down however in Shakespeare's time Twelfth Night was if anything a bigger celebration than Christmas itself [Music] 12 night parties were great occasions and is probable that this play was first performed on the 6th of January 1602 as you can imagine a place suitable for a festive party night had to be as jolly and light-hearted as possible and Twelfth Night is certainly that and to this day it's a play often selected for festivals and celebrations however there were occasions when Shakespeare took risks writing about topical political issues at a time when displeasing the Queen could cost you your life in his play richard ii the king is deposed and the divine right of the monarchy is questioned it may not sound a big deal today but back in the Elizabethan era it might well have been considered treason and Shakespeare could have found himself packed off to the Tower of London to await execution [Music] fortunately Shakespeare was sharp-witted enough to keep his head to write another day and interestingly when Queen Elizabeth died in 1603 and James the sixth of Scotland came to the throne as King James the first Shakespeare created a play that was designed to please the new monarch just to be on the safe side Macbeth took a complete reworking of Scottish historical fact to boost the already enormous royal ego and as well as flattering the new King's dubious lineage Shakespeare also kept the play very short about half the length of his usual literary offerings in keeping with King James's preferences [Music] the new king was the first Moloch to rule a united England and Scotland and James was far from popular when he traveled to London he was understandably worried about assassinations was concerned but spending too long in the theater might give his enemies the perfect opportunity to attack him [Music] consequently any play went to see needed to be short and in Macbeth's case there wasn't even an interval [Music] the plan worked well King James the first became a great aficionado of Shakespeare's art and the Lord Chamberlain's Men were soon honoured with a name changed to the king's man after which they made even more regular Royal Command performances when faced with the huge list of Shakespeare's plays it's often hard to know where to start especially for theater goers new to his work but don't let this put you off such classics as Twelfth Night Macbeth Fanta Romeo and Juliet are still performed to this day because they are superb and cover issues as contemporary to a 21st century audience as one from the late 15th and early 16th centuries so here are a few pointers to help you pick a Shakespeare play to go and see beginning with Twelfth Night probably written in 1601 we have a shipwreck a mix-up with twins one of Shakespeare's favorite storytelling tricks and perhaps the best-known opening line of all if music be the food of love play on 12th 90s classed as a comedy and although it's extremely funny in places in Shakespeare's day a comedy had a slightly different meaning and when used to describe one of his plays indicates that there'll be a happy ending [Music] other comedies are much ado about nothing a Midsummer Night's Dram the Merchant of Venice and of course as the name suggests all's well that ends well conversely Romeo and Juliet is classed as a tragedy from the outset the prologue tells us in no uncertain terms but there'll be no happy ever after for these star-crossed lovers two households both alike in dignity in fair Verona where we lay our scene from ancient Grudge break to new mutiny where civil blood makes civil hands unclean from forth the fatal loins of these two foes a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life whose misadventured piteous overthrows doth with their death bury their parents strife the fearful passage of their death marked love and the continuance of their parents rage which but their children's end nought could remove is now the two hours traffic of our stage the width if you with patient ears attend what here shall miss our toil shall strive to mend other great tragedies our Macbeth Othello and Hamlet where hardly anyone on the stage survives to tell the tale Hamlet's father dies his mother dies his uncle dies his best friend's die his girlfriend dies her father and brother die and yes you guessed it even Hamlet dies nevertheless it's a magnificent play if you're a fan of the to be or not to be soliloquy this is where you'll find it there's another category of Shakespeare's plays known as The Histories and when Richard the third is crying a horse a horse my kingdom for a horse or Henry the fifth is stirring his soldiers with the immortal words once more unto the breach dear friends you will be experiencing the power of Shakespeare's unique and at times colorful take on history even if you're not a fan of history the Richards Henry's and the lesser-known John are well worth an evening of anyone's time by the time the Globe Theater burnt down in 1613 Shakespeare was at the height of his success and according to his seven ages of man speech had reached the fifth age and then the justice in fair round belly with good Capon lined with eyes severe and beard of formal cut full of wise saws and modern instances and so he plays his part [Music] nevertheless he definitely had quite enough of playing parts and writing them it was in this year that William Shakespeare retired from the theater gave up his celebrity lifestyle in London and came back to his wife Ann and the magnificent new place in stratford-upon-avon [Music] whatever Shakespeare's shortcomings as a husband and father down the years he'd provided for his family financially in some style as if to repay her father shakespeare's firstborn daughter Susanna made very appropriate provision for her father's old age having some years earlier married John Hall the finest doctor in Stratford upon when Shakespeare finally took up permanent residence in new place HOUSE Susanna and the good doctor lived at halls Croft just a short distance away which was just as well because the prodigal father's health was beginning to falter the halls lovely 16th century house was much enlarged and improved by the prosperous doctor and having been purchased by the birthplace trust in 1949 vistas can see where Shakespeare's daughter lived in some style but even the finest health provision proved to be of little avail because no matter how good a physician dr. John Hall was Shakespeare's fondness for strong ale and lively company counteracted any medicine his son-in-law prescribed [Music] it's interesting to note that Shakespeare had written his seven ages of man's speech while only in his 30s but by the time he retired to Stratford he could well have been harboring real concerns that his predicted definition of the sixth and final seventh age might turn out to be his destiny the sixth age shifts into the lean and slippered Pantaloon with spectacles on nose and pouch on side his youthful hose well saved a world too wide for his shrunk shank and his big manly voice turning again toward childish treble pipes and whistles his sand last scene of all that ends this strange eventful history is second childishness and mere oblivion storm's teeth sans eyes sans taste sans everything not that Shakespeare allotted time on earth was going to permit him to reach the seventh age as his days were numbered [Music] 1616 was far from being a good year for the shakespeare's of stratford despite williams prosperous retirement judith shakespeare's youngest daughter married a wine merchant Thomas Quinn at Holy Trinity Church on the 10th of February just days before the wedding news broke that the groom was expecting a child with another woman certainly giving the gossip mongers of Stratford something to talk about [Music] somewhat surprisingly the wedding went ahead as planned but within the month the other woman in question had died in childbirth has had the baby it was hardly a promising start to Judith's married life but the wedding day itself was to lead to yet another tragedy all the dignitaries of Strathfield and the father of the bride's associates from London were invited to the wedding and Shakespeare had a merry meeting with a number of old companions the guest list included the writer Ben Jonson perhaps the closest Shakespeare ever came to having a literary rival who also even so one of his greatest friends [Music] then Johnson spurred Shakespeare on to enjoy too much Rhenish wine and a good time was had by all it's also claimed that Shakespeare at rather a lot of pickled herrings which with all the wine would have required a strong constitution to say the least Shakespeare was definitely the worse for wear but a day or so later it was obvious the great bard of Aven was suffering from far more than a hangover unfortunately the deterioration was then rapid and despite John Hall's ministrations William Shakespeare died on the 23rd of April st.
