Life
Little is known about the short life of this child, who might have carried on the Shakespeare family name had he survived to adulthood. Hamnet and his twin sister Judith were born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised on 2 February 1585 in Holy Trinity Church by Richard Barton of Coventry. Some sources state that they were born that very day. The twins were likely named after friends of their parents, Hamnet Sadler, a baker, who witnessed Shakespeare's will, and his wife, Judith.
He was likely raised principally by his mother Anne in the Henley Street house belonging to his grandfather. Germaine Greer, however, thinks it unlikely that the Shakespeare children were raised principally at Henley Street, proposing instead the possibility that the newly-wed Shakespeares set up house in a small cottage, or even took up residence at New Place as tenants early in their marriage, before purchasing it later on.
By the time Hamnet was four, his father was already a London playwright, and he might not have been home at Stratford with his son very often as his popularity grew. Honan believes that Hamnet may have completed Lower School, which would have been normal, before his death at the age of eleven (possibly from the Bubonic Plague). He was buried in Stratford on 11 August 1596 and some sources state that he had died two days earlier, on 9 August. At that time in England about a third of all children died before age 10, so his young death was not unusual for the time.
Read more about this topic: Hamnet Shakespeare
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“In short, no association or alliance can be happy or stable without me. People can’t long tolerate a ruler, nor can a master his servant, a maid her mistress, a teacher his pupil, a friend his friend nor a wife her husband, a landlord his tenant, a soldier his comrade nor a party-goer his companion, unless they sometimes have illusions about each other, make use of flattery, and have the sense to turn a blind eye and sweeten life for themselves with the honey of folly.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“It would be some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward civilization, if only to learn what are the gross necessaries of life and what methods have been taken to obtain them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“O that those lips had language! Life has passed
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.”
—William Cowper (1731–1800)