Shakespeare Biography

Question 1

Shakespeare grew up in the market town of …, spent his professional life in …, and returned to Stratford a …

Answer 1

Stratford-upon-Avon; London; wealthy landowner

Question 2

Shakespeare born in …. and died in …., buried at …. in Stratford

Answer 2

April 1564; April 1616; Holy Trinity Church

Question 3

Shakespeare’s plays & poems are testaments to his reading of …, …, …, …, and the …. as well as his mastery of the …

Answer 3

Virgil; Ovid; Plutarch; Holinshed’s Chronicles; Bible; English language

Question 4

Shakespeare likely went to … for education

Answer 4

King’s New School in Stratford

Question 5

several latin texts that Shakespeare used repeatedly in writing his plays and poems were texts that schoolboys

Answer 5

memorized and recited in King’s New School

Question 6

Since the records of the Stratford “grammar school” do not survive, we cannot prove that Shakespeare

Answer 6

attended the school

Question 7

Every indication– his father’s position as an … and … of Stratford, Shakespeare’s knowledge of … classics, scenes in plays that recall … suggest that he did attend the school

Answer 7

alderman; bailiff; latin; grammar-school experiences

Question 8

we lack accepted documentation about shakespeare’s life after his … ended and his … life in london began

Answer 8

schooling; professional

Question 9

shakespeare married in … at age …. to …. and had his daughter … in …. and twins … and … in …

Answer 9

1582; 18; anne hathaway; susanna; 1583; judith; hamnet; 1585

Question 10

by …. shakespeare had achieved some prominence in london as both an … and a …

Answer 10

1592; actor; playwright

Question 11

in 1592, …. published a book attacking an actor who had the audacity to write …. and who was “in his own conceit the only …. in a country.”

Answer 11

Robert Greene; blank-verse drama; shake-scene

Question 12

greene’s attack targeted …, indicated by his use of a …. of a line from one of shakespeare’s early plays. he is infuriated that a shake-scene successfully competed with … like himself

Answer 12

shakespeare; parody; university-educated dramatists

Question 13

Shakespeare became a published poet in

Answer 13

1593

Question 14

in 1593, shakespeare published his long narrative poem… and in 1594, he followed it with …., both of which were dedicated to the .. of …

Answer 14

Venus and Adonis; The Rape of Lucrece; earl; South-ampton

Question 15

earl of south-ampton (….) may have become shakespeare’s …

Answer 15

henry wriothesley; patron

Question 16

records for december … show shakespeare to be a leading member of the …

Answer 16

1594; Lord Chamberlain’s Men

Question 17

For Lord Chamberlain’s Men, renamed …., Shakespeare served as …, …., and …

Answer 17

King’s Men; principal actor; dramatist; shareholder

Question 18

shakespeare remained as leading member of the lord cchamberlain’s men for maybe about … years

Answer 18

20

Question 19

in the 1590s, shakespeare wrote his plays on …. as well as several … and at least two …

Answer 19

english history; comedies; tragedies

Question 20

these histories, comedies, and tragedies are the plays credited to him in 1598 in a work, …, that n one chapter compares English writers with “…, …, and … poets”

Answer 20

Palladis Tamia; greek; latin; italian

Question 21

Francis Meres, author of Palladis Tamia, claims that Shakespeare is comparable to the Latin dramatists … for … and … for …, and calls him “the most excellent in both kinds for the stage”

Answer 21

Seneca; tragedy; Plautus; comedy

Question 22

since meres mentions sheakespeare’s “sugared sonnets” it is assumed that many of shakespeare’s sonnets were written in the …, although they were published in …

Answer 22

1590s; 1609

Question 23

around the time that meres wrote palladis tamia, hamnet

Answer 23

dies

Question 24

in 1599, shakespeare’s company built

Answer 24

the globe theater

Question 25

plays that are considered by many to be shakespeare’s major tragedies (…, …, …, and …) were written while the company was … in this …, as were such comedies as … and …

Answer 25

hamlet; othello; king lear; macbeth; resident; theory; twelfth night; measure for measure

Question 26

many of shakespeare’s plays were performed at … both for … and for … after her death in …; some were presented at the … (residences of london’s …); and some were performed in other …, at …., and at … when they went on tour

Answer 26

court; Queen Elizabeth I; King James I; 1603; inns of court; legal societies; towns; universities; great houses

Question 27

otherwise, his plays from … to … were, as far as is known, performed only at the …

Answer 27

1599; 1608; globe

Question 28

between 1608 and 1612, shakespeare wrote several plays, including … and …, presumably for the company’s new indoor …

Answer 28

the winter’s tale; the tempest; Blackfriars theater

Question 29

shakespeare wrote very little after …, the year in which he probably wrote …. (it was at a performance of this play in 1613 that the globe … and …)

Answer 29

1612; King Henry VIII; caught fire; burned to the ground

Question 30

hamnet died in

Answer 30

1596

Question 31

during his years in london, shakespeare presumably derived income from the acting company’s … as well as his own career as an …, sale of his …. to the company, and after 1599, from his shares as an … of the …

Answer 31

profits; actor; play manuscripts; owner; Globe

Question 32

shakespeare’s growing wealth and reputation likely played a part in inclining the Crown to give his father (john) the … that he had long sought. given in …

Answer 32

coat of arms; 1596

Question 33

shakespeare died in … on …

Answer 33

stratford; april 23, 1616

Question 34

seven years after his death, shakespeare’s collected plays were published as …, now known as …

Answer 34

Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies; the First Folio

Question 35

the discovery, translation, and printing of … and … were making available a set of works and worldviews that interacted complexly with … and …. this provided energy for the period’s amazing dramatic and literary output and fed directly into shakespeare’s …

Answer 35

greek; roman classics; christian texts; beliefs; plays

Question 36

ghost in hamlet is complicated because he is a figure from …- the spirit of the dead returning to …- who at the same time inhabits a … (or …)

Answer 36

roman tragedy; seek revenge; christian hell; purgatory

Question 37

hamlet’s description of humankind reflets at one moment the … at …., and at the next, the …. of human …

Answer 37

neoplatonic wonderment; mankind; christian disparagement; sinners

Question 38

copernicus earlier theorized that earth revolved as a planet …. this was confirmed through the creation of …

Answer 38

around the sun; galileo’s telescope

Question 39

troubled by …., by …, by recurring … of the …, london was a mecca for the … and the .., and for those who sought … at …, or power in … or … or …

Answer 39

overcrowding; poverty; epidemics of the plague; wealthy; aristocratic; advancement court; government; finance; trade

Question 40

shakespeare was a voracious

Answer 40

reader

Question 41

until the late … century, the shakespeare who lived in most biographies was the creation of … and …

Answer 41

18th; legend; tradition

Question 42

this legendary shakespeare apparently so pleased queen elizabeth with Falstaff in … and …, that she demanded a play about …, and demanded that it be written in …, which is why … exists

Answer 42

1 and 2 Henry IV; Falstaff in love; 14 days; The Merry Wives of Windsor

Question 43

some people since the mid-nineteenth century have argued that william shakespeare could not have

Answer 43

written plays credited to him

Question 44

they claim that his works could have been authored by people like .., …, … (earl of …), and …

Answer 44

queen elizabeth; sir francis bacon; edward de ere; oxford; christopher marlowe

Question 45

the documents that exist that provide evidence for … tie him inextricably to the body of plays and poems bearing his name

Answer 45

the facts of shakespeare’s life