William Shakespeare, una vita come una storia

Also the life of William Shakespeare is legendary. There are no certain sources about him, somebody even says he did not properly exist, others sya it was Francis Bacon’s pen-name.

However, legends say he was born in April 1564 in Stratford upon Avon, the son of Mary Arden and John Shakespeare, a glover, a tradesman and a yeoman (farmer= coltivatore).  William studied Latin, composition and rethoric at the local Grammar School. When he was 18, he married a girl called Anne Hathaway, probably eight years older than he, and they had three children, a daughter Susanna and twins (=gemelli) Hamnet and Judith. The tradition tells that, around 1584, Shakespeare left Stratford because he had got  into trouble 8=si era messo nei pasticci) through hunting(=cacciando) in the territories of Sir Thomas Lucy, and  in order to avoid (=per evitare) punishment (=punizione) he left his native town.  The legend also narrates that the character of Justice Shallow in The Merry Wives of Windsor is a parody of  Sir Lucy. Then there are about 8 years during which it there are no news about the Bard. Probably he emerged in London as an actor and a successful playwright.  By 1594 Shakespeare had become the principal member of the company of the Chamberlain’s Men, which became  the King’s Men when James I became king. They performed at first in their own theatre the Globe, built in 1599 and later in the covered (=coperto) Blackfriars theatre. Shakespeare bought a house,

New Place

, in Stratford where it seems he finally went to live in 1610 and where he died on April 23, 1616.