What We Know About the Least Known Literary Figure

What We Know About The Least Known Literary Figure

Do you know when Shakespeare was born? No? Neither does anybody else. William’s birthday is amongst many things that are unknown about him. Shakespeare is one of the least known literary figures in history. There are many chunks of his life that are not recorded and there are only ideas of what he did in that time. In Bill Bryson’s ‘Shakespeare: The World as Stage’, Bill works to reveal Shakespeare and inform his audience on what we currently know about the celebrated playwright.

People throughout the years have been trying to figure out another unknown mystery about William, how his name is spelled. One might think it is very obviously spelled ‘William Shakespeare’. But in fact, he signed his name many different ways. The spelling we are used to today just happens to be what stuck. It is very hard to find anything about Shakespeare in public records for this reason. Bill Bryson states, “...Shakespeare’s name, if it appeared at all, might be spelled in some eighty different ways, or be blotted or abbreviated beyond recognition..” Could Shakespeare have done this on purpose to create confusion? His last found signature was in abbreviated form: “Wllm Shaksp.” It was common for some names to be changed on documents, but it’s very peculiar that we aren’t shown a consistent spelling with William. You would think we would be shown some kind of base for his spelling.

What became of Shakespeare after he stopped formal education at fifteen is unknown for certain. Although, some people think he left town in a hurry. Roy Strong says he left Stratford “to avoid prosecution for poaching at Charlecote.” It’s said that he was poaching deer. Bryson states, “It is, in any case unlikely that he poached deer from Charlecote, as it didn’t have a deer park until the following century.” None of this has ever been proven. People have just created ideas of what became of him after he finished formal education. I wonder why he did not further his education. He was clearly very intelligent, why not add a few more years of school? There is also very little that we know about Shakespeare’s social life. We don’t really know if he had a lot of friends or any at all for that matter.

One thing we do know about Shakespeare is that he did indeed have a family. Bill Bryson tells us that “in late November of 1582, a clerk at Worcester recorded that William Shakespeare had applied for a license to marry. The bride, according to the ledger, was not Anne Hathaway but Anne Whateley..” This is very odd considering we know that Shakespeare ended up married to Anne Hathaway and had children with her. So who was this other girl? Biographers have created a theory that he was courting two women at the same time but Anne Hathaway became pregnant with Shakespeare’s child. Out of respect for Hathaway, he stood up to Anne Whateley. “Anne