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Shakespeare marries Anne Hathaway, also of Stratford. The pair have three children: Susanna (baptized May 26, 1583) and twins Hamnet and Judith (baptized February 2, 1585). Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son, dies at age 11.
c. 1589–92
Shakespeare composes his first full-length tragedy, Titus Andronicus, a violent story of revenge and political strife in ancient Rome. The exact date range of its composition has never been determined, but he likely wrote it after relocating to London sometime in the late 1580s.
1592
The first reference to Shakespeare as a part of the literary world of London comes from a pamphlet written by Robert Greene, a fellow dramatist. In the pamphlet Greene insults the young Shakespeare as an “upstart crow.”
c. 1592–94
William ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare, detail of an oil painting attributed to John Taylor, c. 1610. The portrait is called the “Chandos Shakespeare” because it once belonged to the duke of Chandos.
Shakespeare joins the Lord Chamberlain’s Men theatrical company (later called the King’s Men), with whom he works for the remainder of his career as a dramatist. The company features actor Richard Burbage, who was widely acclaimed as the best English actor of the era.
Autumn 1599
Globe TheatreThe Globe Theatre is shown in an enlarged copy of a 1612 engraving.
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection (accession no. B1977.14.18550)Construction of the Globe Theatre, home of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, is completed. It is the first theater to be specifically built for an existing acting company. Most of Shakespeare’s greatest plays were first performed at the open-air Globe. The theater was destroyed in 1644 but its lasting fame, because of its connection with Shakespeare, led to a replica being constructed near the original site in 1997.
April 23, 1616
Shakespeare dies in his hometown of Stratford. Knowing that his end was near, he had made his will the previous month, bequeathing his property to the male heirs of his elder daughter, Susanna. Historians have long puzzled over his decision to leave his wife, Anne (who would die in 1623), his “second-best bed.” Shakespeare is buried on the grounds of the parish church of Stratford.
Lord Chamberlain’s Men, a London-based theatrical company with which William Shakespeare was intimately connected for most of his professional career as a dramatist. It was the most important company of players in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. The troupe’s early history is somewhat complicated.
Globe Theatre, famous London theatre in which after 1599 the plays of William Shakespeare were performed. Early in 1599 Shakespeare, who had been acting with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men since 1594, paid into the coffers of the company a sum of money amounting to 12.5 percent of the cost of building
