1598 – “Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever, one foot in sea and one on shore, to one thing constant never…”

1598 – “Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever, one foot in sea and one on shore, to one thing constant never…”

Although 1598 saw the publication of his plays Love's Labour's Lost and Henry IV Part 1, Shakespeare may not have received any money for these publications. The listing of Shakespeare’s name on as the principle actor for Ben Jonson’s Every Man in His Humour meant that he must have still been pursuing the triple life as playwright, actor and country land owner.

After the turmoil of the previous couple of years, Shakespeare must have been thinking much about what makes human nature when he penned ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ in 1598. It may seem like 1598 was a lean year for Shakespeare on paper but the fact of the matter is, he was probably reaping the benefits of revivals of his most successful recent plays ‘Romeo and Juliet’, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and the Henry IV plays. He also knew that he must milk the Henry IV plays as much as he could before writing the most anticipated play of this sequence ‘Henry V’.

The emergence back in 1598 in the streets of London of so many soldiers who had been fighting the wars in Ireland meant that Shakespeare was not lost for stories and background for ‘Henry V’. He would have been collecting stories and material for this play, but Shakespeare must have felt that the rumours that abounded about what was really happening in Ireland with the wars and rebellion must have made writing Henry V in 1598 a little too controversial. These rumours were further compounded by stories that Elizabeth I had started to make political overtures to James VI in Scotland. Shakespeare would have put this project on the shelf for the moment. On the business front, after buying the 2^nd biggest house in Stratford, Shakespeare had also bought a quite large granary in Stratford upon Avon. 

So with business in order, a history play almost complete, Shakespeare turned to more poetic pursuits. He probably continued writing sonnets and was thinking about writing a comedy when one day after greeting a bright spring day, Shakespeare went out into the streets of London and he probably saw soldiers in the street and lovers on the doorsteps. It was then that it probably occurred to Shakespeare to write a comedy set in the Italian country town of Messina as soldiers return from war. As the talk of Ireland and the wars filled the streets, Shakespeare probably thought of creating a play with meandering plots dependent on overheard conversations, mischievous plotting and misunderstandings. Shakespeare always liked multiple plots and having events within one plot balanced by other events so with these ideas in mind Shakespeare started to write Much Ado About Nothing.

1597 - “He hath studied her will, and translated her will, out of honesty into English.”

1597 - "He hath studied her will, and translated her will, out of honesty into English."  
Shakespeare probably returned from Stratford after the Lenten holiday in 1597 having done considerable work on the New House. Besides purchasing huge quantities of stone, some for building and some for stone walls, he also seems to have had two large sheds built presumably for grain storage. This could be seen as the normal actions of a normal country lad who who had acquired new wealth, but the famine and grain shortages which ravaged southern England in 1597 make this action opportunistic at least and criminal at worst. Court records from a few years later actually mention Shakespeare's property so the authorities had concerns about William Shakespeare's and his wife Anne Hathaway's purchases. Let's see this merely as opportunism. So, just as Shakespeare's wealth had afforded him the opportunity to expand his prospects, his new found fame afforded him other artistic opportunities.

The front page of the first publication of The Merry Wives of Windsor in 1602 gives the full title of the play as 'The Most Pleasaunt and Excellent Conceited Comedie, of Syr John Flagstaffe, and the Merrie Wives of Windsor'. On the same cover it later states that this play had been performed "...both before her Maiestie, and else-where." This is important and helps us to date the first performance of the play probably to Windsor Castle when aligned to play performance records. This theory sometimes called the Garter Theory, states that it is likely that the occasion at which this play was performed was at the ceremony of the investiture of knights into the Order of the Garter on April 23rd 1597. This theory also consistent with a story which supposedly was around in Shakespeare's day, but was first written down in 1702, that Queen Elizabeth I was so taken by the character of Flagstaff in the two parts of Henry IV that she commanded Shakespeare to write a play that showed Flagstaff in love. It is also all edged that she commanded Shakespeare to write it in fourteen days. If this is true, then that would mean that Shakespeare started writing The Merry Wives of Windsor on April 9th, started rehearsing the first scenes a week later and had it completed and rehearsed around April 22nd. The play would not have been difficult for Shakespeare to write since it has many elements of the Commedia dell'arte with English archetypes, intrigues, deceptions, disguised characters and characters with an over-inflated sense of their own self worth and so Shakespeare's actors would probably have had quite a bit of input into the scenes and the play as a whole. The play also starts with a scene in the streets of Windsor where Justice Shallow and Sir Hugh Evans (a man of the church) meet with the intent of bringing Sir John Flagstaff before the court because of a number of grievances. The recent death of William Brooke 10th Baron of Cobram in March 1597, on whom allegedly Flagstaff is modeled, meant that the re-appearance of this popular character in 1597 may have had the element of tribute to Cobram. Needless to say, it seems that Queen Elizabeth I would have been well pleased with the performance, and Shakespeare was probably paid about 3 pounds for the play and perhaps another 10 shillings if he performed in the play as an actor.

From the jovial atmosphere of April 1597, the climate started to change and by July of 1597, England seemed like a different place. Grain shortages persisted and famine seemed on the rise. London and other cities saw greater influxes of people from the provinces and in late July of 1597, the English Parliament had passed the Vagabond's Act which introduced penal transportation to British colonies for even petty criminals. The Privy Council had also started to clamp down on entertainments and plays such as Thomas Nashe and Ben Jonson's magnificent satire The Isle of Dogs was banned. It is in this climate that Shakespeare wrote the relatively conservative history Henry IV Part 2.

This play is strange History with elements of an Ancient Roman Comedy. Like a character from an ancient Roman comedy or "Fama," the goddess of rumour who appears in Virgil’s epic poem ‘The Aeneid’ or a Butcher’s Guild character in a medieval pageant, Rumor comes out to start this play with a Prologue. Although in Ancient Roman times and Medieval times Rumor’s costume would have been decorated and made in many ways (including sometimes decorated in real ox tongues), in Shakespeare’s times the costume would have been covered in painted tongues to represent the nature of gossip. Rumor tells of how he travels everywhere and is as fast as the wind and that people are always ready to believe him. He arrives at the house in Northern England of Northumberland. Rumour at this point quickly retells some of the background to Northumberland’s son, Hotspur, and the rebellion against King Henry IV, and states that he has come to spread lies including the lies that tell Northumberland’s son has won the battle and is alive and well. Rumor leaves as mysteriously as he appeared. And this is only the start of the play.

1596 - “Grief fills the room up of my absent child…”

1596  - “Grief fills the room up of my absent child…”

After the success of 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'A Midsummer's Night's Dream', and the relative absence of the plague in 1595, William Shakespeare could start to enjoy the relative quietness of his lodgings in Bishopsgate and get down to writing for the 1596 season. Although there were probably murmurings in the streets about the rebuilding of the Spanish Fleet and potential attacks to France and England and the wars in Ireland were looking to have no end, 1596 probably started well for Shakespeare as he put plume to paper to write The Life and Death of King John.

It was written sometime around 1596 and on one level it could be seen as a rather staid and relatively historically accurate play set in the 13^th century. It is much less dramatic and more histrionic than some of Shakespeare’s previous Histories. But on another level, for an Elizabethan audience, this could be seen as a radical examination of who has a legitimate claim to inheritance and the throne. We can see John or even Philip the Bastard as representative of either Elizabeth or even her father Henry VIII and Arthur as representative of Mary Queen of Scots. In this context, the play and events take on a whole new meaning.  In 1596, Queen Elizabeth I was 66 years old. Her beauty was fading and most of her hair had fallen out. To exacerbate her situation, Elizabeth I had started to grant monopolies as a simple and relatively cost free way of assuring patronage. This started to lead to price fixing and this soon became worse when the spring 1596 harvests started to fail. This environment makes King John an interesting choice of subject matter for Shakespeare.

In the context of 1596, the continuation of the Henry plays with Henry IV Part 1 is also an interesting choice for Shakespeare.

“I'll so offend, to make offence a skill; redeeming time when men think least I will,”

Queen Elizabeth I had no children or direct descendants in the wings. Speculation was rife, particularly with the rebuilt Spanish Armada and Spanish troops having captured Calais. James VI of Scotland (the son of Mary Queen of Scots) seemed like the major contender and this is known as the Stuart claim. The Suffolk claims had the Grey family and the Seymour and Beauchamp families at the centre of ascendency claims and the Yorkist claims had not disappeared. Having just turned thirty and having reigned for almost as many years in Scotland, James VI was starting to look like a true contender but just like Henry V in Henry IV, he did not start that way. Although seemingly initially virtuous and conservative, by 1596 rumours of James VI mixing with all unsavoury sorts in his interest (or some would say obsession) with witches and whisky. His troubles with Highlanders also started to create a schism in Scottish unity. In some senses, ‘Henry IV Part 1’ can be seen as a ‘coming of age’ drama where we see the making the boy Hal into the king, King Henry V. Oh, just to remind you (and myself) ‘Henry IV Part 1’ is set around 1403 and it is the second play in the Henry Tetralogy by Shakespeare (his great mini-series) which started with ‘Richard II’ and will eventually end with ‘Henry V’. The play could have been seen in its time as a plea for James VI to change his ways or a play advocating that young men can become great kings despite their pasts. Nevertheless, the continuing turmoil in London with food shortages, failed crops and an escalation of the conflicts in Ireland and Calais created a sense of uncertainty about the present and speculation about the future.

This environment of growing resentment also started to extend to the money lenders and merchants in London, many of whom were Jewish. It is in this environment that Shakespeare’s second new offering for the start of the 1596 season in May is The Merchant of Venice.

It is strange to think that in Shakespeare’s time a performance of ‘The Merchant of Venice’ would have been heralded with the raising of a white flag above The Rose or The Curtain to indicate that a comedy was to be performed that day in May of 1596. It certainly has some romantic comedy threads but stylistically it is eclectic and complex by any times definition and tastes.

Many modern critics and audiences see the greatest barrier for modern audiences for this play is that see it as anti-Semitic. I think that two things must be kept strongly in mind when contemplating such a question. ‘The Merchant of Venice’ was first staged in about 1596 and also it was listed as viewed as a comedy at the time.

Comedy is a wonderful form. Humour is a master of many styles and purposes and one of its essential purposes is that it allows through imitation, mockery and even satire the criticism of prejudices, attitudes and conceptions. It is also a fickle mistress to fashion and form and what seems hilarious or even astutely poignant in a piece one year can be embarrassing, not humorous and misunderstood a year hence. My point is that perhaps Shakespeare’s audience saw that even though it was dramatic in much of its form, that ‘The Merchant of Venice’ was mocking their prejudices. The way the play ends with Shylock’s punishment and conversion is stylistically a little overdone even for Shakespeare’s time and perhaps we miss the subtle social and cultural commentary that some or many of Shakespeare’s audiences would have picked up.

Jewish people had lived in England for centuries but from about 1300, the expulsion of and confiscation of Jewish property was continuous (or at least it kept coming in waves). There simply weren’t that many around in England anymore so ignorance abounded. Also, just as we go through waves of using ethic and religious groups as villains (remember when ever villain was a Russian or a South African, ah, those were the days), writers and audiences have always done this. Will we cringe in years to come at the way that nearly every second villain in our movies seems to be a Muslim or someone from a dis-enfranchised ex-Soviet state, or both? I certainly hope we do, because that will mean that we meeting our prejudices in the face. And let’s face it, villains are not meant to painted with the simple delicate brush strokes and hues of sympathy but with the broad emotionally charged slaps and dashes of a bright pallet that challenges our values, perceptions and prejudices. ‘The Merchant of Venice’ also begins with such beautiful simplicity. It begins at the end of a conversation about Antonio’s, a merchant of Venice, melancholy:

“In sooth, I know not why I am so sad:

It wearies me; you say it wearies you;

But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,

What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,

I am to learn;

And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,

That I have much ado to know myself.”

The Elizabethans used the Julian Calendar rather than the Gregorian Calendar. They also tended to date their years from the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth the 1st. So sometime on the morning of prabably August 4 in Anno 38 Reginae Elizabethae (August 4, 1596 AD in our system), an urgent message would have been dispatched from Stratford upon Avon for William Shakespeare resident of Bishopgate in London. The message probably was delivered by a family friend or by urgent dispatch and the message probably reached London in about 30-40 hours. So while Shakespeare was just leaving The Swan theatre or the White Hart or George Inn, he received the dispatch. It would have told him that his 11 year old son Hamnet was extremely sick and dying. William Shakespeare would have probably left on the evening coach for Stratford and hopefully managed to see his son before he died on August 10 Anno 38 Reginae Elizabethae. Then on August 11, William Shakespeare buried his only son Hamnet.

Before Shakespeare left Stratford to return to London after the tragic loss of his son, he probably spent some evenings drinking and thinking with his father John Shakespeare and together, they probably decided that John Shakespeare’s 1569 claim to acquire a family coat of arms should be taken up again and pursued. So William Shakespeare left Stratford near the end of August 1596 with a heavy heart and a heavy bag filled with documents to back up the application to the College of Arms. So as Shakespeare left on a coach for London, he probably thought of a new speech for his King John  play which was still new and still running in London. He probably thought of his son's death and the desperate feeling of permanent separation when he wrote an extra very touching speech for the character of Constance. The speech resonates even more when we think that Shakespeare had just lost his only son Hamnet.
"Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts...
My life, my joy, my food, my all the world!" (King John III iii 93-108)

1595 - “From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life…”

1595 - “From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life…”

When Shakespeare came back from visiting his home in Stratford-upon-Avon in January of 1595, he had a new sense of purpose. The success of Southampton’s patronage of his poetry, along with the success of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men meant that if the Plague did not close the theatres in 1595, Shakespeare would have a big year in front of him.

While 1595 seemed like a tumultuous year for the Ottoman Empire, the Russians, the Swedes and even Henry IV of France (who although he defeated the Spanish, he almost died in the process) in England it was a relatively quiet year. After the Catholic Robert Southwell was hung, drawn and quartered in London in February, nothing much happened except intermittent news arriving about Sir Walter Raleigh’s exploits in South America and Sir Francis Drake’s exploration in Spanish Main (Southern North America and Meso-America). Shakespeare probably put writing a history play on the backburner and probably started the year with writing a comedy.

With success of Love’s Labour’s Lost in 1594, Shakespeare probably started in earnest on the sequel Love’s Labour’s Won. It is probably a play that takes place a year after the original Love’s Labour’s Lost and using the same characters. This play may have been performed as early as late March 1595 with the opening of the Francis Langley’s The Swan theatre in Southwark across the Thames River and near the Paris Garden stairs. It was one of the grandest theatres to be built in London, a huge amphitheatre with a capacity of 3000 spectators. It was built of flint concrete with wooden support beams which were painted to resemble marble.

It is unlikely that Shakespeare thought that he was writing a highly politically charged History play when he put quill to parchment to write Richard II in April or May of 1595. Elizabeth the First was in good health and a force had been sent off to Ireland in what people in London thought would be quick campaign. Shakespeare probably just wanted to bring the ‘Henry IV Part 1’ and ‘Henry IV Part 2’ into a trilogy. Little would he know the furor ‘Richard II’ would cause in 1601 when the Earl of Essex commissioned a performance to stir a riot and a revolt in 1601. It was probably not seen as controversial in late May or June 1595 at the The Swan theatre when it was probably first performed. Later in December 1595, a private performance at Canon Row at Sir Edward Hoby’s house may have been more controversial since Queen Elizabeth I’s health was not so good in December of 1595.

Richard II is a great piece of theatre. It has lyrical rich poetic verse throughout the whole play with hardly any prose. It is cram packed with metaphors, symbolism and allegories yet despite that, it starts in what seems like a confusing way. Of course you have to remember that Elizabethan audiences knew their English history well, so to see history and the lives of nobles acted out with all the grittiness that the stage brings was a voyeuristic fantasy.

When Shakespeare started work on a new play to open the beginning of the summer season of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men at The Swan, he knew he would need a big innovative play to accompany his Love’s Labour’s Won and Richard II to draw in the 3,000 spectators most afternoons. Shakespeare probably thought about a performance he had seen the year before of one of Christopher Marlowe’s earliest plays and one Marlowe probably wrote with Thomas Nashe called Dido, Queen of Carthage. This intense short play was a tragedy but it was an intense tale of love, betrayal and suicide. So it was probably with Marlowe once again on his mind that Shakespeare came back to work on a project he had started on a couple of years prior, an adaptation of Arthur Brooke’s The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet.

Shakespeare probably read Arthur Brooke’s 1562 poem ‘The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet’ late in the 1580’s in Stratford upon Avon or early in the 1590’s in London. The story for Brooke’s poem was not original and he probably took it from an Italian novella based on the true 14^th century story of the feud in Verona between the Guelph and Ghibellines families and the legend that a girl from one family fell in love with someone from the other family and she committed suicide after he was killed by a member of her own family. Brooke in his Preface to the poem is almost apologetic for his poem about “… a couple of unfortunate lovers, thrilling themselves to unhonest desire…” This moral tale as told by Brooke would have died on stage. But still Shakespeare saw the potential in the story, but not as the Brooke’s languid moralistic parable bound by its time, verse and structure, but as a rougher, bawdy, rawer, fast-paced more universal story of fate, love and hate. He shelved away the idea for another day.

The plague had decimated the numbers in many companies but Shakespeare’s new amalgamated troupe had fortuitously acquired a feast of strong actors particularly some fine boy actors to play female roles. So, Shakespeare had the actors to put on a masterpiece. With either The Swan or The Rose in mind as a venue, Shakespeare wrote one of his first masterpieces Romeo and Juliet.

I like the idea that perhaps straight after writing Romeo and Juliet, that Shakespeare quickly whipped up over the course of a week, the magnificent magical comedy ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. It gives a symmetry to his work. Besides, Elizabethan playwright’s often wrote a comedy after writing a tragedy mostly to give variety to their audiences and maybe some playwright’s did this as a homage to the Ancient Greek playwrights and festivals where playwrights had to write both tragedy and comedy.

Besides the Elizabethan court seemed to favour light comedies and masques and after over a year of the Plague, distraction pastoral idealism seemed to be back fashion.

Shakespeare went back to read Spenser's 'Epithalamion' as a source for the play. He probably had a deadline, since the play was either performed at the wedding of Elizabeth Carey (Lady Berkeley) and done in a garden setting or performed at court for Elizabeth I in midsummer of 1595. It would later have most of its early public performances at The Swan and The Theatre. 

‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ opens on a festive note at the palace of Theseus, Duke of Athens, four days before his wedding to Hippolyta. He is anxious for the wedding but she preaches patience. Theseus orders some “merriments” to be developed for the occasion and Philostrate leaves and this leads to the Mechanicals rehearsing and developing their play for the wedding. So Shakespeare ended 1595, in triumph with a comedy with fairies, players, lovers, multiple weddings, a dance and a song.

“Philomel with melody

Sing in our sweet lullaby.

Lulla, lulla, lullaby: lulla, lulla, lullaby.

Never harm

Nor spell nor charm

Come our lovely lady nigh.

So good night, with lullaby.”

1594 – “The drops are infinite, that make a flood, and yet, thou knowest, we call it but a Rain.”

1594 – “The drops are infinite, that make a flood, and yet, thou knowest, we call it but a Rain.”

As Shakespeare held out in London for the end of winter, he like most actors had no idea if and when the theatres would open again. When the theatres and inn yards did not open at the end of January, he must have rethought whether he had chosen the right profession. With Henry Wriothesley (3rd Earl of Southampton) having agreed to be his patron, Shakespeare had some breathing space and time to write poetry and plays.

Sometime after receiving money from Southampton for the poem Venus and Adonis and probably money for the delivery of seventeen sonnets (Sonnets 1-17 are often called the Procreation sonnets since together they address a young man and encourage him to marry and father children), Shakespeare was probably encouraged by Southampton to write a longer and more serious poem.

Shakespeare wrote his long narrative poem The Rape of Lucrece probably in a couple of weeks in February and March of 1594. This ‘graver work’, is a masterful piece of poetic writing compared to ‘Venus and Adonis’. While it lacks the humour and irony of ‘Venus and Adonis’, it is a powerful poetic piece.

While waiting for payment for this long narrative poem, Shakespeare decided to write a couple of plays ready for the reopening of the theatres after the plague. He knew that he would have to have a history in his new batch of plays, but he also knew that comedies would go down well after the long year of the plague and the theatres and other entertainments being closed.

Shakespeare probably started with Edward III. Edward III was a Plantagenet king and the precursor to Richard II. He, like Elizabeth I had great military successes that often turned in his favour due to the weather. Like Elizabeth, Edward III had brought stability and like Elizabeth I, he reigned for a long time (over 50 years). With this play written, Shakespeare would have taken some time to relax before writing a few comedies in the hope that the theatres would open in April or May of 1594.

The wine and ale probably flowed less freely in March and April of 1594, due to shortages because of the plague. Shakespeare probably still had it delivered to his lodgings since the inns and alehouses still remained closed. We know that Shakespeare had lodgings in Bishopsgate at this time because in 1597 court records indicate that he owed taxes in this period and that he resided in Bishopsgate. On Sundays after some gatherings were allowed in late March, Shakespeare probably starting worshipping at the historic medieval church St Helen’s.

After the hardships of the year of the plague, Shakespeare knew the people would love a good old fashioned short comedy. ‘The Comedy of Errors’ is Shakespeare’s shortest play. It has puns and is essentially an old fashioned farce. It was heavily influenced by the commedia dell arte and the plot revolves around mistaken identity and two sets of identical twins who were separated at birth. Shakespeare must have had fun writing it.

In May 1594 with the re-opening of the theatres, Shakespeare felt ready with for the season with a history and comedy already written and he must have heaved a sigh of relief when many of the actors from the Lord Strange's Men arrived back in London from touring the provinces and were ready for rehearsals and performances. However, the Lord Strange's Men were in turmoil after the death of Lord Strange Ferdinando Stanley himself and the company seemed to be disbanding. Shakespeare followed Burbage and others over to the Lord Chamberlain's Men. He would have lost his money over the loss of his share in the Lord Strange's Men but some share in the profits would have been negotiated with the Lord Chamberlain's Men.

The company, under the patronage of the Lord Chamberlain Henry Carey, First Baron Hunsdon, seemed destined for a bright future with the young playwright Shakespeare. In fact, Shakespeare had been appointed the official House Playwright of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men around this time, so he now got a healthy cut of the profits of any of their performances of his plays at theatres like the Rose Theatre.

‘The Comedy of Errors’ had been a success and would get some runs in the provinces and maybe a late autumn or winter performance at one of the barrister’s societies or clubs, perhaps even at the ever popular Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn. That would bring in some extra cash. But for Shakespeare, the highlights also probably included two performances he saw early in the season. In May, the combined companies of the Queen Elizabeth’s Men and the Sussex Men put on a curious play called ‘The moste famous Chronicle historye of King Leire of England and his Three Daughters’. Shakespeare thought the story had promise and with more time, he thought he could himself rejig this story later. The other play that blew him away was a revival production at the Rose Theatre by the same company of Marlowe’s ‘The Jew of Malta’.

Shakespeare knew that Marlowe was the master. His stories were new and innovative and Shakespeare knew that he had to at some point write his own original stories rather than re-hashing and improving the stories of others. But the climate for a large tragedy or a histrionic piece didn’t seem quite right to him so soon after the plague. Besides, light comedies seemed all the rage in London at the close of summer. Henslowe would probably pay five to ten pounds up front for another comedy before the end of the season. He also knew he could whip up a comedy in a little over a week and with a week of rehearsal slipped in around other performances, he could have extra money in his pocket in three weeks. More if it moved into the company’s repertoire. So his mind started to dwell on a comedy; a love story based around the words from a poem by John Florio called ‘His Firste Fruites’ written in 1578. Shakespeare had probably read it in a collection of poems he had picked up cheap in the marketplace (along with other collections sold cheap by families of victims of the plague). The lines of the poem that stuck in his head and on his bookshelf were:

"We neede not speak so much of loue,

al books are ful of lou,

with so many authours,

that it were labour lost to speake of Loue."

Shakespeare’s ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ begins with the Duke of Navarre and his three lords’ quest to devote their lives, for three years, to their academy and their pursuit of learning. They believe this will bring them fame amongst others.

"Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,

Live regist'red upon our brazen tombs"

And so for three years, they will swear to devote their lives to their academy and their pursuit of learning. Their oath involves fasting, forsaking some sleep and staying away from women.

The play is a sophisticated comedy with puns, literary allusions and wordplay and it was probably performed in October of 1594 at the Inns of Court where the students and young nobles would appreciate its style, themes, irony, satire and sophisticated language humour.

1593 - “Love comforeth like sunshine after rain, But Lust's effect is tempest after sun…”

1593 - “Love comforeth like sunshine after rain, But Lust's effect is tempest after sun…”

The plague hit London very badly late in 1592 and into 1593. The watchmen and death cart carriers had started to move through the streets around Bishopsgate where Shakespeare had recently moved. The bodies did not seem to even stop through the Winter and Spring and by May, with the temperatures increasing, the death cart’s appearance seemed to be a daily occurrence.

Shakespeare had spent a considerable amount of money (probably about £11) at the end of 1592 acquiring a one twelfth share in the Lord Strange’s Men (later to be known as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men) and he had expected this would pay dividends in 1593. Shakespeare must have heaved a sigh of relief when the theatres re-opened on January 1^st 1593 and he probably went back to playwrighting in earnest. But by January 21^st, the deaths had started to build up again and the theatres were closed again. As the deaths started to mount up and almost 10 percent of London had died, Shakespeare knew no plays would be performed that season. He may have done some provincial touring as an actor with the company during some months in 1593 or he may have started on ‘Edward III’ and the comedy ‘Love’s Labour Lost’ with the hope of the playhouses or with the hope of the inn yards opening up again in early 1593 as performance venues. But with the playhouses indefinitely shut and controls tightening on any activities in London’s inns due to the plague, Shakespeare had to find another avenue for revenue and another outlet for his writing. He needed to do this quickly since his one twelfth share in the Lord Strange’s men would not be paying dividends in 1593.

After talking to player friends and perhaps even having a chin wag with Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare started to toy with the idea of writing poetry and dedicating it to a sponsor. He had probably started on his own poetic version of ‘Venus and Adonis’ late in 1592 based on the story and passages from Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ as translated by Arthur Golding in 1567. He had heard that the family of Henry Wriothesley (The Third Earl of Southampton) were keen for him to get married. Although he wasn’t a very rich patron, Southampton would probably accept (and pay for) being a “muse” for Shakespeare’s poetic offerings. Besides, the 1580’s trend of poets and the aristocracy reading and recreating Ovidian and erotic poetry had continued into the 1590’s. The form was full of lustful metaphors, aphorisms and parisons, ripe to flatter the young Southampton and elicit his excitement and his patronage.

When Henry Wriothesley (the third Earl of Southampton) saw his father (Henry Wriothesley, the second Earl of Southampton) die in 1581 when he was only eight years old, William Cecil (Lord Burghley and one of Queen Elizabeth's ministers, became his legal guardian until Southampton turned 21 years old. William Cecil wanted Southampton to marry well and when Southampton turned 17 in 1590, Cecil made a contract for Southampton to marry Lady Elizabeth. Southampton knew that the marriage contract would be binding but like Adonis, he wanted to remain unattached and single. By 1593 things were getting a little desperate for Southampton because he knew that if he didn't fulfill the contract by his 21st birthday, Cecil could impose fines and cripple Southampton's estates. In 1593, Southampton had 1 year left to fulfill the contract. So although Shakespeare's 'Venus and Adonis' is dedicated to Southampton, Shakespeare (an excellent but obscure writer at the time) is likely to have received some payment from William Cecil for the poem to encourage Southampton to marry Lady Elizabeth and then got paid something from Southampton on delivery of the poems. Southampton may have never known that Cecil had paid Shakespeare. 

It is possible that the first poems that Shakespeare wrote to and for Southampton were his Sonnets 1-17 which are sometimes known as the Procreation sonnets. They centre around the theme and purpose of praising a young man's beauty and encouraging him to marry and procreate. When they appear with all the other sonnets years later, they are dedicated to Southampton but Shakespeare may have written and sent off Sonnets 1-17 in early 1593. Venus and Adonis was probably written in February or March of 1593 since the poem was registered with the Stationer's Company, without attribution. on April 18, 1593. This long poem (over 1000 lines)  would have taken over 100 hours to write. It is a narrative poem which revolves around the tale of a young man who is desired by Venus, the goddess of Love). But the young Adonis spurns her advances preferring the bachelor's life. The story ends in tragedy with Adonis killed by a boar, leaving Venus to lament her loss.

So Shakespeare obviously avoided the Plague, poverty and starvation in 1593. It is alleged that he was paid £100 (£50,000 in today's money) by Southampton (though for £50 (£25,000 in today's money) is another figure sometimes estimated) Venus and Adonis. Some other sources suggest higher. Some other sources suggest that Shakespeare was also paid by Lord Burghley for the poem to be written and given to Southampton. Lord Burghley may have paid Shakespeare £100-150 for his services and the poem.

Ultimately, while the poem Venus and Adonis may have been successful and widely read, it purpose as an encouragement for Southampton to marry the young Lady Elizabeth was not. When Southampton reached the age of 21 on October 6^th 1594, he still refused to marry and he was fined £5000. Southampton was forced to take out a loan to pay the fine and was burdened with the interest on that loan.

With the money he had received, Shakespeare was able to send money to his wife Anne Hathaway back in Stratford upon Avon. She probably invested wisely in more grain storage and grain. Anne Hathaway was a beer brewer too so this money may have gone towards setting up this business properly. Shakespeare was able to stay in London and get down to writing more plays in anticipation of the Plague abating and the playhouses opening again. 

When the summer season of 1593 came and went without the playhouses reopening, Shakespeare knew that he had more time to write for the 1594 season. Shakespeare probably felt despondent during May and June of 1593 not only due to the closure of the theatres and the plague but due to the strange circumstances surrounding the death of Christopher Marlowe. William Shakespeare would have thought of all the great plays which Marlowe had written Dido, Queen of Carthage, Tamburlaine Part 1 and Part 2, The Jew of Malta, Doctor Faustus, Edward II and Marlowe's most recent offering The Massacre at Paris. So, as the days grew shorter and 1593 headed towards December and a mild winter, Shakespeare thought of Marlowe and the multitude of deaths due to the plague and knew he would need a range of plays for the new year that matched the brilliance of Marlowe. So Shakespeare sat down to start work on another history play and a couple more comedies.

1591-1592 - “…his Tiger’s heart wrapped in a Player’s hide…”

“... there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country…”

On his deathbed in 1592, the relatively young 32 year old, bitter and impoverished playwright Robert Greene, penned these words in his last pamphlet ‘Greenes, Groats-worth of Witte, bought with a million of Repentance’. Robert Greene was a celebrity, a playwright, a poet and a prose writer. By the time he was on his deathbed, Greene had written over 50 pieces of prose and 5 plays. His swipe at the young Shakespeare is probably the first mention of Shakespeare as a playwright. Greene's complaint about the young Shakespeare as "an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers" is not unwarranted, but Shakespeare seems to have shown by the early 1590's how to use the feathers he had plucked from others to make wings to fly on the winds of his imagination.

Shakespeare had had a busy year in 1591.Following the success of the History play that became known as Henry VI Part 2, Shakespeare had written two more Henry VI plays Henry VI Part 3 then Henry VI Part 1. He took up the reigns on the pieces of a project that had probably stumped three or four playwrights before him – Titus Andronicus.

The winter at the beginning 1591 was very cold and grain was in short supply. With the profit from his Henry VI Part 2 play, Shakespeare had probably sent money through a middleman back to Henley Street in Stratford for his wife to invest in grain storage back in October 1590 and they were probably starting to reap the rewards. Grain hoarding was highly illegal but widespread in England at this time and Shakespeare’s wife Anne was starting to probably prove a shrewd and wise investor. So as winter set in in London, Shakespeare felt secure in his choice to come to London and he knew that writing plays could support him in London and his family back in Stratford.

So, Shakespeare knew that he had to write the Henry VI sequel and prequel. He probably had noted the success of Spenser’s narrative poem ‘The Faerie Queene’ and he knew that he could write narrative poetry as good as Spenser but he knew that that sort of writing would have to wait. He knew playwriting was competitive and dangerous. How could he ever match the verse of Marlowe whose Tamburlaine had been revived even in winter?

Shakespeare would have poured over Hall’s ‘Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York’ and Holingshed’s ‘Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland’ and he knew that the next challenge was how to stage the battles and horrors of the ‘War of the Roses’ on the stage. He knew he also had to be careful since many of the horrors of this war had been committed by Queen Margaret, a woman and a monarch.

How could he avoid the fate of a trip to The Tower that had befallen some playwrights and even some of his Catholic relatives? Shakespeare knew that he needed to tread a thin line. He knew he needed to also dramatically do more than to just display the horror and disunity of the times. He pillages from a number of sources including the enigmatic character of Joan of Arc (probably as tribute to Elizabeth I and her defeat of the Spanish Armada back in 1588. He moved quickly between real historical events and events which he invented to evoke a chivalry and patriotism which made the play popular in its time. 

In late April, when the plays were performed probably at polygon-shaped building called The Theatre.

The Theatre was located in the disreputable Shoreditch and had a thrust stage which extended from one side of the polygon shaped building. The two plays were a success and were perhaps performed with Henry VI Part 2 as a trilogy over three afternoons. The audience in the open yard stood for the play and had paid a penny. The people in the galleries probably paid two pennies except for those who sat on a stool who paid three pennies for the privilege. The Theatre could probably hold 1500 people at a time, so you can imagine the resentment which the success of Shakespeare’s plays caused more seasoned playwrights like Greene.

Some other seasoned playwrights saw collaboration as the key to keeping drama alive against other entertainments in Shoreditch like bear baiting, brothels, bowls and gambling games like cherry-pit and cards. After a great success with his play in the 1580’s entitled The Arraignment of Paris, George Peele unlike Robert Greene saw the future in collaboration. One story maintains that three or four playwrights had attempted to write a treatment of Titus Andronicus. Philip Henslowe had made his money and career through a range of interests including dyeing of fabrics, pawn-broking, money lending, the timber trade, brothels and property. 

In 1587, Henslowe built The Rose Theatre and in 1591 when the Admiral’s Men split with James Burbage and The Theatre, he ceased the opportunity to draw the best company of players in Elizabethan London. The story goes that in late May of 1591 when the Admiral’s Men came over to Henslowe’s Rose Theatre he had to have a play written and mounted in a couple of weeks and Henslowe wanted Titus Andronicus to be performed. Someone suggested Shakespeare was the man to pull this off successfully. Shakespeare was riding on the success of the Henry VI plays and he was given the task. Shakespeare consulted and collaborated with George Peele and by late in June 1591, Shakespeare had written his first tragedy Titus Andronicus. He and Peele were probably paid £2 each for the play and a share in the profits if it became a success. It did.

The play is set in the last days of the Roman Empire and it centres around a story of revenge and the conflict between a Roman General called Titus and Tamora, the Queen of the Goths. The play has graphic violence. It has at least five violent acts in each act, rape, mutilation and a death every 100 lines. Act One even ends with Tamora threatening to massacre all of Titus’ family. It must have been popular because even 3 years later it is still earning over three pounds a performance at every performance and it was still in the repertoire of plays performed.

It is after this, early in 1592, that Shakespeare writes his first great tragedy the Tragedy of King Richard the Third. Around this time, Shakespeare moved to lodgings in Bishopsgate. His rent was probably a little more here, perhaps 10p a week but this perhaps included a morning ale and bread and butter left on the sideboard each morning and he might even pay the extra 2p for a stew of mutton. 

Shakespeare probably then walked to The Rose Theatre located on Bankside, Southwark outside of the jurisdiction of the City of London in the ‘liberty’ area of Clink. The walk was about a mile and took about 30 minutes depending on whether Shakespeare walked across London Bridge with its shops and stalls or whether he decided to take a punt (1p one way) across the Thames River.

Rehearsals probably started about 10 am and it is likely only two hours of rehearsals were done each day before the 12 noon break for dinner (the major meal of the day). Time was tight since companies produced about 5 performances each week of three to six different plays. Minor parts would often be allocated the day of the performance. Main actors were paid about 20p a day for rehearsals of a play and a performance in the afternoon. Bit players and boy players who played female parts got paid about 8p a day. Players in Shakespeare’s day had a good memory for lines and even if they didn’t two techniques helped them to perform the lines from a play. Cue Scripting meant that actors were often only given their lines and the cues just before their lines on their scripts. Actors often then were not familiar with the whole of a scene and actors would often pin their Cue Scripts backstage so that when they came off stage they would look at the lines for their next scene. The other technique used was Cue Acting. This is where the actor on stage would receive a whispered prompt or cue from a person offstage or behind stage and the actor would say those lines before being cued the next lines just before uttering them ‘with feeling’.

At 12 noon, the actors would break for dinner of either fresh water or salt water fish, beef or a leg or neck of mutton. Shakespeare and his fellow theatre men would go to an inn for dinner. Three of their favorites in Southwark were the White Hart Inn (on the London Bridge road), The Tabard (mentioned in Chaucer) and the George Inn and coaching house (which was rebuilt on the same site after the Great London Fire). 

They would have probably had boiled ‘sallet’ greens like sorrel or spinach normally served with mustard. They would have had bread and butter with this. Normally the bread was made of a combination of grains including wheat, barley, oats and rye. This would be accompanied by a pint of ale, claret or Rhenish (German wine). The players would probably start to leave the inn at about 1pm ready for a 2pm show. Shakespeare would then have to make sure that he got back to his lodgings before the gates of the city were shut just after sunset (otherwise he would have to stay at a friend's lodgings until the next day). 

When rehearsals had finished sometime in April or May of 1592, Shakespeare’s much anticipated ‘The Tragedy of Richard the Third’ premiered. Shakespeare had probably read Machiavelli’s The Prince before finishing writing this play since besides blood and gore it has political intrigue and machinations. Shakespeare starts the play with the main character (and villain of the play) Richard III talking directly to the audience. So sometime in April or May of 1592, Edward Alleyn probably ambled out to the front of the stage at The Rose Theatre and in front of almost 1500 people, he uttered the famous first lines of ‘Richard III’:

“ Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York…”

1589-1590 - “The play’s the thing…”

“The play’s the thing…” 1589 - 1590

Sometime late in the 1580’s, Shakespeare probably joined the Pembroke’s Men (sponsored by the Earl of Pembroke, Henry Herbert). He probably also did some acting also for the Lord Strange’s Men and the Lord Admiral’s Men. There were three categories of players and payments were organized accordingly. There were sharers (or shareholders), hired men and apprentices. As a hired man, Shakespeare was probably paid 5 shillings (60p a week) at a time when an ale cost 1-2p, lodging 6-8p a week, eggs 6 for 1p and beef 2p or one half groat.

In 1589, William Shakespeare wrote or collaborated to write his first play which was probably written for Pembroke’s men. He probably got paid about 10 Shillings to £1-as an untested playwright. The play was Two Gentlemen of Verona. 

Shakespeare may have written the whole play or parts of the play with the comic actor Richard Tarlton in his mind as playing Launce since Tarlton was famous for his comic scenes with dogs. Tarlton’s death in 1588 would have put an end to that idea. Shakespeare probably read the Bartholomew Young translation of the Spanish Prose Romance Los Siete Libros de la Diana (‘The Seven Books of the Diana’) around this time because he draws strongly on this for Two Gentlemen of Verona. He also used John Lyly’s Euphues, The Anatomy of Wit and probably used ideas from Arthur Brooke’s narrative poem The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet. Shakespeare probably knew that this narrative poem had greater potential and thought he would save using too many ideas from this narrative poem for a later, perhaps using them in one whole complete play.

When comic theatre started thriving again in London in 1589 and with the public liking Ancient Roman comedies and the new comedies of the Commedia dell Arte, Shakespeare probably knew that he should revisit the ideas he had for a comedy. Shakespeare would have first read or showed parts of the script to players in the Lord Strange’s Men and either William Kempe, Thomas Pope or George Bryan probably encouraged Will Shakespeare to submit them for some playwrighting payments. Probably Pembroke’s Men saw the opportunity and either through loyalty or the promise of payment in hand, Shakespeare gave the play over to Pembroke’s Men for copying the actor’s parts and their cues ready for the three or four days of morning rehearsals and then performances. Of course every morning of rehearsal was followed by afternoon performances of other plays, so any rewrites or additions were done by the young Shakespeare late at night under the midnight candle before the next morning’s rehearsal.

So sometime in 1590 or 1591, Shakespeare’s first play was performed probably at Cross Keys Inn outside London since the Lord Mayor of London had banned plays within the city in 1589 and 1590. In the cobbled courtyard of the Inn, about 300 people probably gathered (the courtyard held about 500 people for major plays and events) to witness Shakespeare’s debut as a playwright. It could have been one of any eight early Shakespeare plays including The Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus, KIng John, Henry VI Part 1, Henry VI Part II or Henry VI Part III. Shakespeare was probably paid about £2 for the play. A successful play would bring in £2 each performance for the owners of the company and the theatre. If the play was a success, then early in the winter of 1591 it was probably performed at Court and when the London theatres opened again in the summer of 1591, it would have been performed at the Curtain or The Theatre. The play was possibly performed by 10 actors and had only sixteen characters (and a dog). The actors (which probably included Shakespeare himself) were paid about six pence a week if they were a main actor and two pence for a non-main actor (no wonder Shakespeare went into playwrighting and buying shares in his own company of players). It was probably one of Shakespeare’s shortest plays at 2233 lines or 2 hours and 10 minutes of playing time. It was most probably a light comedy filled with humor, the themes of sex, violence and love, clever dialogue, witty banter, deception, mistaken identities, disguises, family drama, multiple plots with multiple twists and turns and a play where ultimately love triumphs with a marriages ending the play. The play was probably Two Gentlemen of Verona.

As the summer of 1591 came closer, Shakespeare the player was slowly becoming Shakespeare the playwright. With Two Gentlemen of Verona under his belt, Shakespeare probably prepared two plays for the summer season - another comedy and a history play.

The comedy he prepared was The Taming of the Shrew. It is essentially a play within a play, a frame play. Shakespeare probably talked through the ideas for this play with other players. Probably stories from ‘Arabian Nights’ were floating around the actor circuit and Marlowe and other playwrights talked about Commedia troupes in Europe using some of the ideas from these stories. Shakespeare would have also been familiar with Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and elements of ‘The Miller’s Tale’ were perhaps commonly used in plays around that time. Shakespeare may have even appropriated the main plot from a poem of the period sometimes known as ‘The Merry Jest’. Shakespeare also used elements of tales from Ancient Greek times and Socrates as well as Gascoigne’s 1573 version of a story based on the 1551 Ariosto’s version entitled ‘Suppositi’. The Induction scene which starts the play within the play or frame play technique was probably a common stylistic device which started to become popular again in the early 1590’s. ‘The Taming of the Shrew probably opened at The Theatre in May of 1591.

To add to this success, Shakespeare had written a history play, a smaller part of a potential sequence of plays. History plays were becoming popular after England and Queen Elizabeth's defeat of the great Spanish Armada in 1588. England seem to revel in and become proud of its own history and its war exploits. In 1591, with the plague abating and the theatres were open again, it seems that longer entertainments of a more serious nature were again fashionable, popular and profitable. While also working on The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare was probably pouring over Edward Hall’s The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York and Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles. In fact Holinshed’s Chronicles was a source that Shakespeare used for much of his life and he even uses parts of this text verbatim for his history plays. He probably was first introduced to the bookstalls surrounding and attached to St Paul’s Cathedral in 1590 but in early 1591, he probably had enough money to purchase a number of texts and pamphlets including his beloved Holinshed’s Chronicles. He probably also discovered that around the bookstalls were watering holes and inns that were great places to meet other writers and intellectuals and pick up ideas and the latest gossip. It is undoubtedly here that he met Christopher Marlowe for the first time early in 1591.

Shakespeare knew that certain types of history plays were popular but tricky to pull off since any element of political undertone might be seen as libelous by the authorities. He would have carefully crafted the ideas from Holinshed and for the summer season had the history play which was to become known as Henry VI Part 2. Shakespeare may have even got £4 for this play and an advance of another £4 for the promise of two sequels. Henry VI Part 2 is a play of the political machinations which inevitably lead up to the War of the Roses and it focuses on the damage caused by nobles fighting and bickering amongst themselves. The play had everything Elizabethan audiences wanted intrigue, strong characters, the rise of a man of royal blood and the play ends with the first battle of the War of Roses. It was a success and Shakespeare’s name as a playwright was finally on the map. So by 1590, with a number of plays to his name and still acting during the season, William Shakespeare was now a player and a playwright making £22 a year (£11,000 a year in today's money).