10 Things You Didn’t Know About William Shakespeare

Cobbe portrait of
William Shakespeare
1. Shakespeare’s father held a lot of different
jobs, and at one point got paid to drink beer.
The son of a tenant farmer, John Shakespeare
was nothing if not upwardly mobile. He arrived in
Stratford-upon-Avon in 1551 and began dabbling
in various trades, selling leather goods, wool, malt
and corn. In 1556 he was appointed the
borough’s official “ale taster,” meaning he was
responsible for inspecting bread and malt liquors.
The next year he took another big step up the
social ladder by marrying Mary Arden, the
daughter of an aristocratic farmer who happened
to be his father’s former boss. John later became
a moneylender and held a series of municipal
positions, serving for some time as the mayor of
Stratford. In the 1570s he fell into debt and ran
into legal problems for reasons that remain
unclear.
2. Shakespeare married
an older woman who
was three months
pregnant at the time.
In November 1582, 18-
year-old William wed
Anne Hathaway, a
farmer’s daughter eight
years his senior.
Instead of the
customary three times,
the couple’s intention
to marry was only
announced at church
once—evidence that the
union was hastily
arranged because of
Anne’s eyebrow-raising
condition. Six months
after the wedding, the
Shakespeares
welcomed a daughter,
Susanna, and twins
Hamnet and Judith
followed in February
1585. Little is known
about the relationship
between William and
Anne, besides that they
often lived apart and he
only bequeathed her
his “second-best bed”
in his will.
3. Shakespeare’s
parents were probably
illiterate, and his
children almost
certainly were.
Nobody knows for sure,
but it’s quite likely that
John and Mary
Shakespeare never
learned to read or write,
as was often the case
for people of their
standing during the
Elizabethan era. Some
have argued that
John’s civic duties
would have required
basic literacy, but in
any event he always
signed his name with a
mark. William, on the
other hand, attended
Stratford’s local
grammar school, where
he mastered reading,
writing and Latin. His
wife and their two
children who lived to
adulthood, Susanna
and Judith, are thought
to have been illiterate,
though Susanna could
scrawl her signature.
4. Nobody knows what
Shakespeare did
between 1585 and
1592.
To the dismay of his
biographers,
Shakespeare
disappears from the
historical record
between 1585, when
his twins’ baptism was
recorded, and 1592,
when the playwright
Robert Greene
denounced him in a
pamphlet as an
“upstart crow.” The
insult suggests he’d
already made a name
for himself on the
London stage by then.
What did the newly
married father and
future literary icon do
during those seven
“lost” years? Historians
have speculated that he
worked as a
schoolteacher, studied
law, traveled across
continental Europe or
joined an acting troupe
that was passing
through Stratford.
According to one 17th-
century account, he fled
his hometown after
poaching deer from a
local politician’s estate.
5. Shakespeare’s plays
feature the first written
instances of hundreds
of familiar terms.
William Shakespeare is
believed to have
influenced the English
language more than
any other writer in
history, coining—or, at
the very least,
popularizing—terms
and phrases that still
regularly crop up in
everyday conversation.
Examples include the
words
“fashionable” (“Troilus
and Cressida”),
“sanctimonious” (“Measure
for Measure”),
“eyeball” (“A
Midsummer Night’s
Dream”) and
“lackluster” (“As You
Like It”); and the
expressions “foregone
conclusion” (“Othello”),
“in a pickle” (“The
Tempest”), “wild goose
chase” (“Romeo and
Juliet”) and “one fell
swoop” (“Macbeth”). He
is also credited with
inventing the given
names Olivia, Miranda,
Jessica and Cordelia,
which have become
common over the years
(as well as others, such
as Nerissa and Titania,
which have not).
6. We probably don’t
spell Shakespeare’s
name correctly—but,
then again, neither did
he.
Sources from William
Shakespeare’s lifetime
spell his last name in
more than 80 different
ways, ranging from
“Shappere” to
“Shaxberd.” In the
handful of signatures
that have survived, the
Bard never spelled his
own name “William
Shakespeare,” using
variations or
abbreviations such as
“Willm Shakp,” “Willm
Shakspere” and
“William Shakspeare”
instead. However it’s
spelled, Shakespeare is
thought to derive from
the Old English words
“schakken” (“to
brandish”) and
“speer” (“spear”), and
probably referred to a
confrontational or
argumentative person.
7. Shakespeare’s
epitaph wards off
would-be grave robbers
with a curse.
William Shakespeare
died on April 23, 1616,
at the age of 52—not
bad for an era when the
average life expectancy
ranged between 30 and
40 years. We may never
know what killed him,
although an
acquaintance wrote
that the Bard fell ill
after a night of heavy
drinking with fellow
playwright Ben Jonson.
Despite his swift
demise, Shakespeare
supposedly had the
wherewithal to pen the
epitaph over his tomb,
which is located inside
a Stratford church.
Intended to thwart the
numerous grave
robbers who plundered
England’s cemeteries at
the time, the verse
reads: “Good friend, for
Jesus’ sake forbeare, /
To dig the dust
enclosed here. Blessed
be the man that spares
these stones, / And
cursed be he that
moves my bones.” It
must have done the
trick, since
Shakespeare’s remains
have yet to be
disturbed.
8. Shakespeare wore a
gold hoop earring—or
so we think.
Our notion of William
Shakespeare’s
appearance comes
from several 17th-
century portraits that
may or may not have
been painted while the
Bard himself sat behind
the canvas. In one of
the most famous
depictions, known as
the Chandos portrait
after its onetime owner,
the subject has a full
beard, a receding
hairline, loosened shirt-
ties and a shiny gold
hoop dangling from his
left ear. Even back in
Shakespeare’s time,
earrings on men were
trendy hallmarks of a
bohemian lifestyle, as
evidenced by images of
other Elizabethan
artists. The fashion
may have been inspired
by sailors, who sported
a single gold earring to
cover funeral costs in
case they died at sea.
9. North America’s 200
million starlings have
Shakespeare to thank
for their existence.
William Shakespeare’s
works contain more
than 600 references to
various types of birds,
from swans and doves
to sparrows and
turkeys. The starling—a
lustrous songbird with
a gift for mimicry,
native to Europe and
western Asia—makes
just one appearance, in
“Henry IV, Part 1.” In
1890 an American
“bardolator” named
Eugene Schiffelin
decided to import every
kind of bird mentioned
in Shakespeare’s
oeuvre but absent from
the United States. As
part of this project, he
released two flocks of
60 starlings in New
York’s Central Park.
One hundred twenty
years later, the highly
adaptable species has
taken over the skies,
becoming invasive and
driving some native
birds to the brink of
extinction.
10. Some people think
Shakespeare was a
fraud.
How did a provincial
commoner who had
never gone to college
or ventured outside
Stratford become one
of the most prolific,
worldly and eloquent
writers in history? Even
early in his career,
Shakespeare was
spinning tales that
displayed in-depth
knowledge of
international affairs,
European capitals and
history, as well as
familiarity with the
royal court and high
society. For this reason,
some theorists have
suggested that one or
several authors wishing
to conceal their true
identity used the
person of William
Shakespeare as a front.
Proposed candidates
include Edward De
Vere, Francis Bacon,
Christopher Marlowe
and Mary Sidney
Herbert. Most scholars
and literary historians
remain skeptical about
this hypothesis,
although many suspect
Shakespeare
sometimes
collaborated with other
playwrights.