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William Shakespeare: John Shakespeare
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The third of eight children, William Shakespeare was the eldest son of John Shakespeare, a locally prominent glovemaker and wool merchant, and Mary Arden, the daughter of a well-to-do landowner in the nearby village of Wilmcote. The young Shakespeare probably attended the Stratford grammar school, the King’s New School, which educated the sons of Stratford citizens. The school’s rigorous curriculum was based largely on the study of Latin and the major classical writers. Shakespeare’s writings show that he was well acquainted with the Latin poet Ovid as well as other Latin works, including comedies by Terence and Plautus, two much-admired Roman playwrights.
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William Shakespeare, in terms of his life and his body of work, is the most written-about author in the history of Western civilization. His canon includes 38 plays, 154 sonnets, and 2 epic narrative poems. The First Folio (cover shown at left) was published posthumously in 1623 by two of Shakespeare's acting companions, John Heminges and Henry Condell. Ever since then, the works of Shakespeare have been studied, analyzed, and enjoyed as some of the finest masterpieces of the English language.
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William Shakespeare was indeed lucky to survive to adulthood in sixteenth-century England. Waves of the plague swept across the countryside, and pestilence ravaged Stratford during the hot summer months. Mary and John Shakespeare became parents for the first time in September of 1558, when their daughter Joan was born. Nothing is known of Joan Shakespeare except for the fact that she was baptized in Stratford on September 15, and succumbed to the plague shortly after. Their second child, Margaret, was born in 1562 and was baptized on December 2. She died one year later.
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William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564 to an affluent family in Stratford-on-Avon, England. His father, John Shakespeare was a public official and his mother, Mary Arden was ... from a rich family. William was one of eight children, and his famiy lived near the town square. The square was a busy and happening place; the town's open-air market was there, and traveling bands of entertainers performed there as well. Living close by, William had no lack of entertainment, and most likely even got his first taste of the theatre there.
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William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on-Avon in April 1564. His father, John Shakespeare, was a glove-maker and commodities trader who rose to become a prominent local alderman and bailiff before suffering declining fortunes. His mother, Mary Arden, was the daughter of a substantial landowner. Little is known of Shakespeare's upbringing; he was locally schooled, likely at the King Edward IV Grammar School in Stratford, acquired a reasonable knowledge of Latin and Greek, and read the Roman dramatists.
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William was the first born son of Mary and John Shakespeare being one of eight brothers and sisters. The baptismal register of the Holy Trinity parish church, in Stratford, shows the following entry, in Latin, for April 26, 1564: Gulielmus Filius Johannes Shakespeare. Actual birthdays were not registered during the era... according to the Book of Common Prayer, it was required that a child be baptised on the nearest Sunday, or Holy Day, following the birth, unless the parents had a specific excuse not to do so. There is also another view that infants were baptised three days following their birth. The date Shakespeare's birth is, therefore, customarily set as the 23rd of April. This date is the feast day of St. George, the patron saint of England. John and Mary Shakespeare lived in a house in Henley Street, Stratford and it is safe to assume that this was the location of William Shakespeare's birthplace.
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