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ROMEO

&

JULIET

Introduction        

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire and was baptised there on 26th April 1564. John Shakespeare, William Shakespeare’s father seems to have been reasonably wealthy at the time of William Shakespeare’s birth. It seems likely from his father’s high and respectable position that William Shakespeare was educated at the Stratford grammar school. He did not, however, go to university and so did not have the kind of education which many playwrights experienced.

In 1582, when William Shakespeare was eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway. The couple had three children, Susanna born shortly after their marriage, and the twins Judith and Hamnet born in 1585. We cannot be sure of the time that Shakespeare moved to London, it is thought that he moved in 1585 when a group of playwrights visited Stratford and performed their play there, this may have been the time of when he moved. We do know that he was living in London in 1592, by this time he was already known as a dramatist and actor. Even at this early stage he had become popular because, in 1592 Shakespeare was criticised in a pamphlet by a less successful writer Robert Greene, who wrote that a new and largely uneducated dramatist (Shakespeare) was taking over the position, which rightly belonged to university men.

In 1596 Shakespeare’s son Hamnet died, apart from this grief there was also achievement, John and William Shakespeare (father and son) were granted a coat of arms which means their status as ‘gentlemen’ was recognised by the college of Heralds. In 1597 Shakespeare bought a New place, one of the largest houses in Stratford. In 1599 he bought shares in the Globe Theatre and in 1609 he became part owner of the newly built Black friars theatre. In this year also he published a collection of sonnets. William Shakespeare retired to New place in 1611. It is thought that he did not break all his business contacts with London.

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He died in Stratford on 23rd April 1616 at the age of fifty-two.

THE ELIZABETHAN THEATRE

Drama became increasingly secularised during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and plays ceased to be performed in or near a church. Instead, they were often staged in the courtyard of an inn. A performance in a courtyard such as this had many advantages. There were many doors that could be used for exits and entrances, balconies that could represent battlements or towers and, best of ...

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