History of English Literature from "Beowulf" to SwinburneLang, Andrew
History
History of English Literature from "Beowulf" to Swinburne
Lang, Andrew
English literature -- History and criticism
As there was a free Grammar School at Stratford, it is natural to
suppose that William was educated there from his seventh or eighth to
his thirteenth year. If so, he would learn Latin grammar, and read more
or less in the popular classics, including, "old Mantuan"--not Virgil,
but a writer of the Italian Renaissance. Supposing Shakespeare to have
left school at thirteen, he was at the age of Bacon when he went up
to Cambridge. Books have been written about the learning or want of
learning of Shakespeare. In all probability he could make out most
of the meaning of a Roman writer of comedies, like Plautus, or of a
philosopher like Seneca. But his use of English translations, whenever
he could get them, does not look as if he read Latin with ease: he
could ask a friend or pay a poor scholar to help him when he had no
translations; and to Ben Jonson his Latin seemed "small," because
Ben had so much scholarship, and was so proud of it. All general
information Shakespeare acquired as easily as he drew breath. Of
schoolmasters, judging from allusions in the plays, he entertained the
same opinion as Sir Walter Scott. The classics are most in view in his
early plays, in some of which he worked over an earlier manuscript by
a more scholarly hand. Moreover classical allusions, mythological and
historical, lay loose on the surface of all contemporary literature;
and abounded in the conversation of the wits.[4] No man ever cared less
for historical accuracy and correct "local colour" than Shakespeare: he
piled up anachronisms, making Aristotle live before the Trojan war.
When not yet 19 years of age, at the close of 1582, Shakespeare married
Anne Hathaway, who had the same dowry, in money (£6. 13s. 4d.) as
his mother. She was seven or eight years older than he: their first
child was born at the end of May, 1583, and the circumstances did not
promise domestic happiness. Twins, Hamnet (who died young) and Judith,
were born in 1585, and whether Shakespeare did, or did not get into
trouble for poaching on the lands of Lucy of Charlecote (against whom
his heraldic ridicule, in "Merry Wives," Act I, Scene I, indicates
a grudge), it was time for him to seek his fortune. Perhaps he made
ventures near home (Aubrey, who knew an old actor that had traditions,
says he was a schoolmaster), but by 1587 he was probably "hanging loose
on the town" in London. Here he had a fellow townsman, Field, who later
printed his "Venus," and his "Lucrece". The story that Shakespeare held
the horses of playgoers outside the doors of a theatre comes late into
literary anecdote.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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