William Shakespeare may have spent some of his "lost" early years working as a schoolmaster in a Hampshire village. Local historians in Titchfield near Southampton believe the Bard worked as a schoolmaster at a school there for three years between 1589 and 1592. The theory has its roots in his relationship with the third Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, who sponsored Shakespeare for a time. Read more
Source of Shakespeare's inaccurate Richard III portrayal explored
While Shakespeare's mastery of language and stagecraft is universally recognised, the historical accuracy of many of his plays is open to question and the recent discovery of Richard IIIs remains has reminded us of this. A new book edited by Oxford University academics has gone further than ever before in explaining why this is by studying The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland published in the later C16 under the name of Raphael Holinshed. These ground-breaking chronicles gave rise to more Renaissance plays than any other source, including Shakespeare's histories, King Lear, Macbeth, and Cymbeline. Read more
-- Edited by Blobrana on Thursday 7th of February 2013 02:33:26 PM
All's Well that Ends Well may be a collaboration between William Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton, Oxford University academics have found. It has long been thought the comedy in the First Folio of 1623 is textually problematic: it has a low incidence of Shakespeare's spelling, inconsistent speech prefixes and unusually narrative phrasing in its stage directions. Read more
William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564; died 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. Read more