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to his time that he used his instrument, the Elizabethan theatre, to the full, but placed his ultimate reliance on the communication between his imagination and that of his audience through the medium of words. It is, above all, his rich and wonderful use of language that must have made play-going at that time a memorable experience for people of widely different kinds. Fortunately, the deep satisfaction of appreciating and enjoying Shakespeare’s work can be ours also, if we are willing to overcome the language difficulty produced by the passing of time.
Shakespeare: A Timeline
Very little indeed is known about Shakespeare’s private life; the facts included here are almost the only indisputable ones. The dates of Shakespeare’s plays are those on which they were first produced.
| 1558 | Queen Elizabeth crowned. | |
| 1561 | Francis Bacon born. | |
| 1564 | Christopher Marlowe born. | William Shakespeare born, April 23rd, baptized April 26th. |
| 1566 | Shakespeare’s brother, Gilbert, born. | |
| 1567 | Mary, Queen of Scots, deposed. James VI (later James I of England) crowned King of Scotland. | |
| 1572 | Ben Jonson born. Lord Leicester’s Company (of players) licensed; later called Lord Strange’s, then the Lord Chamberlain’s and fi nally (under James) the King’s Men. | |
| 1573 | John Donne born. | |
| 1574 | The Common Council of London directs that all plays and playhouses in London must be licensed. | |
| 1576 | James Burbage builds the first public playhouse, The Theatre, at Shoreditch, outside the walls of the City. | |
| 1577 | Francis Drake begins his voyage round the world (completed 1580). Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland published (which Shakespeare later used extensively). | |
| 1582 | Shakespeare married to Anne Hathaway. | |
| 1583 | The Queen’s Company founded by royal warrant. | Shakespeare’s daughter, Susanna, born. |
| 1585 | Shakespeare’s twins, Hamnet and Judith, born. | |
| 1586 | Sir Philip Sidney, the Elizabethan ideal ‘Christian knight’, poet, patron, soldier, killed at Zutphen in the Low Countries. | |
| 1587 | Mary, Queen of Scots, beheaded. Marlowe’s Tamburlaine (Part I) first staged. | |
| 1588 | Defeat of the Spanish Armada. Marlowe’s Tamburlaine (Part II) first staged. | |
| 1589 | Marlowe’s Jew of Malta and Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy (a ‘revenge tragedy’ and one of the most popular plays of Elizabethan times). | |
| 1590 | Spenser’s Faerie Queene (Books I–III) published. | |
| 1592 | Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and Edward II first staged. Witchcraft trials in Scotland. Robert Greene, a rival playwright, refers to Shakespeare as ‘an upstart crow’ and ‘the only Shake-scene in a country’. | Titus Andronicus Henry VI, Parts I, II and III Richard III |
| 1593 | London theatres closed by the plague. Christopher Marlowe killed in a Deptford tavern. | Two Gentlemen of Verona Comedy of Errors The Taming of the Shrew Love’s Labour’s Lost |
| 1594 | Shakespeare’s company becomes The Lord Chamberlain’s Men. | Romeo and Juliet |
| 1595 | Raleigh’s first expedition to Guiana. Last expedition of Drake and Hawkins (both died). | Richard II A Midsummer Night’s Dream |
| 1596 | Spenser’s Faerie Queene (Books IV–VI) published. James Burbage buys rooms at Blackfriars and begins to convert them into a theatre. | King John The Merchant of Venice Shakespeare’s son Hamnet dies. Shakespeare’s father is granted a coat of arms. |
| 1597 | James Burbage dies, his son Richard, a famous actor, turns the Blackfriars Theatre into a private playhouse. | Henry IV (Part I) Shakespeare buys and redecorates New Place at Stratford. |
| 1598 | Death of Philip II of Spain | Henry IV (Part II) Much Ado About Nothing |
| 1599 | Death of Edmund Spenser. The Globe Theatre completed at Bankside by Richard and Cuthbert Burbage. | Henry V Julius Caesar As You Like It |
| 1600 | Fortune Theatre built at Cripplegate. East India Company founded for the extension of English trade and influence in the East. The Children of the Chapel begin to use the hall at Blackfriars. | Merry Wives of Windsor Troilus and Cressida |
| 1601 | Hamlet | |
| 1602 | Sir Thomas Bodley’s library opened at Oxford. | Twelfth Night |
| 1603 | Death of Queen Elizabeth. James I comes to the throne. Shakespeare’s company becomes The King’s Men. Raleigh tried, condemned and sent to the Tower | |
| 1604 | Treaty of peace with Spain | Measure for Measure Othello All’s Well that Ends Well |
| 1605 | The Gunpowder Plot: an attempt by a group of Catholics to blow up the Houses of Parliament. | |
| 1606 | Guy Fawkes and other plotters executed. | Macbeth King Lear |
| 1607 | Virginia, in America, colonized. A great frost in England. | Antony and Cleopatra Timon of Athens Coriolanus Shakespeare’s daughter, Susanna, married to Dr. John Hall. |
| 1608 |
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