Everybody knows the name of the great English poet and playwright William Shakespeare. Nevertheless, his biography is fraught with many mysteries that researchers are trying in vain to solve.
Provincial career
Biographical information about Shakespeare looks extremely scarce. According to some reports, he was born on April 26, 1564 in the English city of Stratford-upon-Avon and died there on April 23 (May 3) 1616. William's father John Shakespeare was a wealthy glove-maker who held important city posts. At the age of 18, the young man married Anne Hathaway, also from a wealthy family, eight years older than himself. In this marriage, three children were born - daughter Suzanne and twins Hemnet and Judith.
In 1585, Shakespeare unexpectedly moved to London, where he made a successful career as an actor and playwright, and also became a co-owner of the theater company "The Lord Chamberlain's Servant". However, around 1613 he returned back to Stratford, where he died three years later.
What preceded the start of your theatrical career? Why did an exemplary family man from a provincial town decide to start a new life in the capital? In medieval England, this was not at all the norm, as in our time. But one way or another, Shakespeare was able to fully reveal his talents while in London. Why, in the prime of his fame, did he leave London and no longer write plays? Some Shakespearean scholars believe that he was seriously ill, as evidenced by the uncertain handwriting in the signatures on the documents.
Has an author named Shakespeare ever existed?
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It is believed that the man we know as William Shakespeare was not at all the author of King Lear, Othello, Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, as well as the famous sonnets. The fact is that the originals of Shakespeare's manuscripts have not survived, and the surviving portraits of Shakespeare do not correspond to the death mask made from him. Also, there is no information about what kind of education Shakespeare received (except for school), and all Shakespeare scholars agree that the author of works could only be a highly educated person with an unusually broad outlook.
Many experts are surprised by the fact that most of Shakespeare's sonnets are addressed to a male person. This is how the hypothesis appeared that the poet could be homosexual. But what about marriage and having children? Another version claims that the author of all supposedly Shakespeare's creations is a woman!
Is Shakespeare a pseudonym?
The very word "Shakespeare" literally means "to shake with a spear." What if it's a pseudonym at all? - this was the question asked by the experts. Various versions have been put forward as to who actually wrote the works under this name. Some researchers believed that this is a group pseudonym under which Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, and her sons were hiding. Others - that it could be Queen Elizabeth herself. But since the monarch had no time to study literature because of state affairs, the "blacks" did it for her. Among the candidates for such is another famous poet of that era, Christopher Marlowe, who is considered the illegitimate son of Elizabeth, her favorite Walter Reilly and even the famous philosopher Francis Bacon.
Russian researchers also contributed to the study of this issue. So, according to Ilya Gililov, Roger Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland, and his wife Elizabeth could be “Shakespeare”.
Shakespeare's skull was kidnapped after death?
In 1879, a note appeared in the Argosy magazine that Shakespeare's skull had been stolen back in the 18th century from a burial under the floor of the Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon. And this was indirectly confirmed. Several years ago, a team of British archaeologists led by Kevin Colls examined Shakespeare's alleged grave using an electromagnetic scan. Although, according to sources, the poet's body was buried in the family crypt at a depth of five meters, and in a vertical position, in fact, the remains were found at a depth of only about a meter, and they lay in a standard horizontal position and not even in a coffin, but wrapped in a shroud.
In the same place where the head should have been, traces of someone's interference were found. The impression was that someone had dug the grave and then buried it again.
By the way, according to Shakespeare scholar Philip Schweiser, Shakespeare feared during his lifetime that his remains would be disturbed. He even ordered the following lines to be carved on his tombstone:
Friend, for God's sake, don't swarm
The remains taken by this land;
Untouched is blessed for centuries, And cursed - who touched my ashes.
However, the poet's peace after death was still violated. Kevin Colls believes that the kidnappers wanted to study Shakespeare's brain in order to understand the secret of his genius.
True, there was another version that, in fact, Shakespeare's skull was kept in the crypt of St. Leonard's temple in Worcestershire. But the study revealed that the skull located there does not belong to Shakespeare at all, but to an unknown woman aged about 70 years.
Irina Shlionskaya