They had three children and the
marriage survived for 34 years until
Shakespeare’s death.
3. Copyright didn’t exist in Shakespeare’s
time, so there was a thriving trade in
copied plays.
To help counter this, actors got their
lines only when the play was in progress, often in the form of cue-acting.
Someone backstage whispered prompts
shortly before they delivered their lines.
And Shakespeare never published his
plays himself – that was actually two of
his fellow actors,John Heminges and
Henry Condell, who published 36 posthumously.
4. Shakespeare’s works have been translated into more than 80 languages, including the Star Trek argot of Klingon.
That’s right! A bunch of nerds over at
the Klingon Language Institute (no kidding!) translated a number of sonnets
and a few plays into the inter-galactic
language of Klingon, including Hamlet
and Macbeth. Other famous translations include Catherine the Great’s
adaptations into Russian, and those
of Julius Nyerere, first president of
Tanzania, who made translations into
Swahili.
5. There are more than 80 variations recorded for the spelling of Shakespeare’s
name. In the few original signatures
that have survived, Shakespeare spelt
his name Willm Shaksp, William
Shakespe, Wm Shakspe, William Shakspere, Willm Shakspere, and William
Shakspeare. There is no record of him
ever having spelt it the way we know
him today, “William Shakespeare.”
6. Unlike most artists of his time, Shakespeare died a very wealthy man with a
large property portfolio.
Many great historical figures of the arts
including Edgar Allen Poe, Oscar Wilde and Leonardo da Vinci are believed
to have died penniless. And you could
be forgiven for thinking Shakespeare
did too. Not so. In fact, the Bard was a
wealthy man when he exited stage left
on the 23rd April, 1616. He was quite a
sharp businessman. He set up a jointstock company with his actors, and
he took a share in the theatre
company’s profits, as well as
earning a fee for each play he
wrote.
7. There are many conspiracy theories that Shakespeare
never wrote any of his plays or
sonnets.
The essential plank of
such speculation is that
Shakespeare did not have the education
or life experience necessary to construct
the convincing dramatic narratives of
his plays. He ’d never travelled to foreign
lands, taken part in aristocratic sports –
like hunting, falconry, tennis and bowling – and had no personal knowledge of
military matters or courtly life.
Ergo, only an aristocrat, nobleman, or
lord could have authored such vivid dramas. Candidates with such experience, it
is suggested, included Sir Francis Bacon
and the Earl of Oxford Edward de Vere.
So, to celebrate this momentous anniversary, you could do worse than catch up on
love’s labour lost at your boyhood school
desk, and make up for lost salad days by
booking a special weekend at his home
town of Stratford-upon-Avon, or even arranging to see one of his plays at the town’s
Royal Shakespeare Theatre. n
Where for art though my love...
Romeo and Juliet
Celebrating with some fine words... Twelfth Night
Something strange this way comes... Macbeth
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