1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 2 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 3 00:00:24,320 --> 00:00:26,760 It is essential to commence our journey 4 00:00:26,840 --> 00:00:31,720 into the world of William Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon. 5 00:00:36,600 --> 00:00:40,360 It was here that he was born, spent his childhood, 6 00:00:40,440 --> 00:00:43,480 fell in love, and raised his children. 7 00:00:43,560 --> 00:00:48,320 Stratford was the place to which he returned time and time again. 8 00:00:54,120 --> 00:00:58,880 During his career, he bought land here and the impressive house, New Place, 9 00:00:58,960 --> 00:01:02,960 after gaining literary and financial success in London. 10 00:01:09,040 --> 00:01:13,320 This building, Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, 11 00:01:13,400 --> 00:01:18,200 is the perfect place to start the delving into the life of William Shakespeare. 12 00:01:18,280 --> 00:01:23,680 He was baptized here on April the 26th, 1564, and he was buried here. 13 00:01:23,760 --> 00:01:26,400 We don't know for certain, but it is possible 14 00:01:26,480 --> 00:01:28,920 that Shakespeare's birthday was on the very same day 15 00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:34,120 as the day he died, April the 23rd, St George's Day. 16 00:01:38,840 --> 00:01:44,280 This Holy Trinity Church goes back to the early 13th century 17 00:01:44,360 --> 00:01:48,000 and is the oldest building in Stratford-upon-Avon. 18 00:01:48,080 --> 00:01:52,720 But great changes had happened within these walls in the few years 19 00:01:52,800 --> 00:01:57,560 before Shakespeare's name was entered into the baptismal register here. 20 00:01:57,640 --> 00:02:01,240 The Church had lost its connection with Rome. 21 00:02:01,320 --> 00:02:04,040 This was the England of Elizabeth, 22 00:02:04,120 --> 00:02:09,560 the England of the Reformation initiated by Henry VIII. 23 00:02:09,640 --> 00:02:11,080 Like many other families, 24 00:02:11,160 --> 00:02:14,560 the Shakespeares were deeply affected by this enforced change 25 00:02:14,640 --> 00:02:16,880 in their religious practice. 26 00:02:16,960 --> 00:02:18,720 Nothing was certain. 27 00:02:18,800 --> 00:02:22,960 There were many shifts and changes in the years after Henry VIII, 28 00:02:23,040 --> 00:02:26,000 first to Protestant Edward VI, 29 00:02:26,080 --> 00:02:31,120 then back to Catholicism with Mary and then Elizabeth, 30 00:02:31,200 --> 00:02:35,960 who was determined to rule in the Protestant way. 31 00:02:39,560 --> 00:02:41,320 Stratford, at the time of Shakespeare's birth, 32 00:02:41,400 --> 00:02:43,560 it was a town of about 2,000 people, 33 00:02:43,640 --> 00:02:47,120 it was a market town, it served the neighborhood. 34 00:02:47,200 --> 00:02:51,560 People would come from neighboring villages to bring their produce. 35 00:02:51,640 --> 00:02:56,000 Stratford is a town that was predominantly agricultural, 36 00:02:56,080 --> 00:02:59,760 and it's very ideally situated for the Cotswolds. 37 00:02:59,840 --> 00:03:05,320 So, the wool trade was very, very prominent in Stratford. 38 00:03:08,040 --> 00:03:11,000 Stratford-on-Avon in the mid-16th century 39 00:03:11,080 --> 00:03:13,240 was an unremarkable little town. 40 00:03:13,320 --> 00:03:15,760 It was small, a population of around 2,000, 41 00:03:15,840 --> 00:03:20,120 and it was a struggle for the town to maintain such a number. 42 00:03:20,200 --> 00:03:25,120 Outbreaks of the plague were common here as they were across the country. 43 00:03:25,200 --> 00:03:29,440 The black death had come to England 200 years before, 44 00:03:29,520 --> 00:03:34,920 and everyone lived in daily fear of a return of this deadly disease. 45 00:03:38,080 --> 00:03:42,480 The plague was always, always a concern in Stratford, 46 00:03:42,560 --> 00:03:45,000 as it was in other towns as well. 47 00:03:45,080 --> 00:03:48,720 Almost every year, the plague would've hit Stratford. 48 00:03:48,800 --> 00:03:50,800 The year Shakespeare was born 49 00:03:50,880 --> 00:03:54,920 happened to be a particularly bad year for the plague. 50 00:03:58,640 --> 00:04:01,840 There's one very good example in the parish register in front of me here 51 00:04:01,920 --> 00:04:04,840 that is from July of 1564, 52 00:04:04,920 --> 00:04:07,760 just three months or so after Shakespeare himself is born. 53 00:04:07,840 --> 00:04:11,000 The clerk who's recording the burials for Stratford 54 00:04:11,080 --> 00:04:15,360 has taken special care to note in Latin. 55 00:04:17,400 --> 00:04:19,080 "So here begins the plague." 56 00:04:19,160 --> 00:04:21,560 And you can see from the list of burials that follows, 57 00:04:21,640 --> 00:04:26,440 a huge number of people are dying in a very short period of time. 58 00:04:26,520 --> 00:04:29,600 Almost 200 people, or about a seventh of the population of Stratford, 59 00:04:29,680 --> 00:04:32,680 so if you think that Shakespeare would've been just a few months old, 60 00:04:32,760 --> 00:04:34,880 what infant mortality would've been like at the time. 61 00:04:34,960 --> 00:04:38,880 He's sort of very lucky to have survived that whole incident. 62 00:04:40,360 --> 00:04:44,120 We know that on houses on either side of the house 63 00:04:44,200 --> 00:04:47,320 where they were living, children born in the same year 64 00:04:47,400 --> 00:04:49,600 as Shakespeare had died from the plague. 65 00:04:49,680 --> 00:04:51,400 So, he survived. 66 00:04:53,240 --> 00:04:56,040 It was in this house in Henley Street 67 00:04:56,120 --> 00:04:59,760 that we believe William Shakespeare was born. 68 00:04:59,840 --> 00:05:03,600 He was the son of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden. 69 00:05:03,680 --> 00:05:07,720 Now, the Ardens were a very well established family here in Warwickshire, 70 00:05:07,800 --> 00:05:11,600 they trace their roots back to before William the Conqueror. 71 00:05:11,680 --> 00:05:13,640 And when William Shakespeare arrived, 72 00:05:13,720 --> 00:05:16,880 his parents must've seen that as a very great blessing indeed 73 00:05:16,960 --> 00:05:19,920 because they'd already lost two baby girls. 74 00:05:27,520 --> 00:05:30,880 John Shakespeare, William Shakespeare's father, 75 00:05:30,960 --> 00:05:36,280 started very humbly in Stratford, started as an apprentice glove-maker. 76 00:05:36,880 --> 00:05:39,440 He became an ale taster, 77 00:05:39,520 --> 00:05:44,600 he became somebody who checked that bread was made properly 78 00:05:44,680 --> 00:05:50,040 and then worked his way up to eventually becoming the Mayor of Stratford. 79 00:05:50,120 --> 00:05:54,920 When young William was 4, this is when his father's made the mayor, 80 00:05:55,000 --> 00:05:58,640 and he would've had on the day he went 81 00:05:58,720 --> 00:06:02,880 to any council meetings, he would've had almost like a procession 82 00:06:02,960 --> 00:06:04,640 from the front of the house, 83 00:06:04,720 --> 00:06:08,720 down Henley Street and along to the Town Hall. 84 00:06:08,800 --> 00:06:11,080 So, that must've made a huge impression 85 00:06:11,160 --> 00:06:13,600 on a very young William Shakespeare, 86 00:06:13,680 --> 00:06:17,800 seeing his father dressed in all his regalia, 87 00:06:17,880 --> 00:06:20,680 parading down Henley Street. 88 00:06:25,680 --> 00:06:30,040 He was always known as a glove maker/whittawer. 89 00:06:30,120 --> 00:06:32,720 Now, a whittawer is a tanner. 90 00:06:32,800 --> 00:06:36,800 A tanner, but who's producing really fine white leather, 91 00:06:36,880 --> 00:06:39,480 and that ties in with the sort of gloves 92 00:06:39,560 --> 00:06:42,800 that John Shakespeare was making, these are fashionable, 93 00:06:42,880 --> 00:06:46,360 high-quality gloves made for the well-to-do. 94 00:06:48,800 --> 00:06:51,600 As a young boy, William would've been in contact 95 00:06:51,680 --> 00:06:55,960 with all kinds of people through the trade connections of his father. 96 00:06:56,040 --> 00:06:58,400 This could've given him inspiration and language 97 00:06:58,480 --> 00:07:01,600 for the colorful characters in his plays. 98 00:07:12,760 --> 00:07:16,080 John Shakespeare had a mysterious side, 99 00:07:16,160 --> 00:07:18,120 which we can only guess at. 100 00:07:18,200 --> 00:07:23,400 It is very possible that he was a secret Roman Catholic. 101 00:07:23,480 --> 00:07:27,040 Now, was this the reason that he didn't attend church 102 00:07:27,120 --> 00:07:29,360 and he received a fine from the queen... 103 00:07:30,160 --> 00:07:34,280 and that he had his name on a list nailed to the church door? 104 00:07:35,040 --> 00:07:39,960 Or was it because he'd been exposed dealing illegally in wool, 105 00:07:40,040 --> 00:07:43,560 so that he was nervous of stepping out and being arrested? 106 00:07:43,640 --> 00:07:46,640 See, this was the atmosphere of the time. 107 00:07:46,720 --> 00:07:51,440 If you stretched the law even a little bit, you were reported. 108 00:07:51,520 --> 00:07:53,080 I think it was this sense of turmoil 109 00:07:53,160 --> 00:07:56,120 of not being certain how long Elizabeth's reign was perhaps going to last. 110 00:07:56,200 --> 00:07:59,200 And with the changes that happened in previous reigns 111 00:07:59,280 --> 00:08:02,280 with Mary and Edward and Henry before them, 112 00:08:02,360 --> 00:08:03,960 there was that element of uncertainty 113 00:08:04,040 --> 00:08:07,520 and the state wanting to control things much more closely. 114 00:08:07,600 --> 00:08:09,920 So, John Shakespeare's name appears on a list of... 115 00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:11,480 On a recusancy list, 116 00:08:11,560 --> 00:08:14,560 which is people who've failed to take the Protestant communion. 117 00:08:15,200 --> 00:08:19,040 We now know, of course, Queen Elizabeth has a network 118 00:08:19,120 --> 00:08:22,680 of spies throughout England. 119 00:08:22,760 --> 00:08:27,600 If you're a wool merchant, you pay taxes to the crown 120 00:08:27,680 --> 00:08:29,800 on your transactions. 121 00:08:29,880 --> 00:08:33,120 So, of course, John Shakespeare isn't doing this, 122 00:08:33,200 --> 00:08:37,360 so did the Wool Merchants Guild get tipped off 123 00:08:37,440 --> 00:08:40,400 by one of Queen Elizabeth's spies? 124 00:08:40,480 --> 00:08:43,880 "Hey, there's this guy in Stratford, John Shakespeare, 125 00:08:43,960 --> 00:08:47,040 buying all this wool, he's not in the Guild, 126 00:08:47,120 --> 00:08:50,800 he's not paying taxes, what are you gonna do about it?" 127 00:08:50,880 --> 00:08:55,120 And, of course, what they did, John Shakespeare was fined, 128 00:08:55,200 --> 00:08:58,560 the wool he'd bought which he hadn't actually sold on, 129 00:08:58,640 --> 00:09:00,800 it was all confiscated, 130 00:09:00,880 --> 00:09:06,640 and from that moment on, John Shakespeare is heavily in debt. 131 00:09:11,160 --> 00:09:14,200 John Shakespeare lost much of his wealth and his property 132 00:09:14,280 --> 00:09:17,080 because of the fines imposed upon him. 133 00:09:17,160 --> 00:09:20,760 But he didn't lose this house in Henley Street. 134 00:09:20,840 --> 00:09:22,800 Later on, things got better. 135 00:09:22,880 --> 00:09:27,320 Because John was still held in good opinion by the aldermen of Stratford, 136 00:09:27,400 --> 00:09:31,200 he was granted his own coat of arms in 1592 137 00:09:31,280 --> 00:09:35,120 and was therefore back in business for the rest of his life. 138 00:09:41,120 --> 00:09:44,800 The town in Shakespeare's boyhood had an important school, 139 00:09:44,880 --> 00:09:47,800 King Edward School, a foundation of King Edward VI. 140 00:09:49,440 --> 00:09:51,040 It would've been a normal education, 141 00:09:51,120 --> 00:09:53,240 so perhaps it would be challenging by our standards, 142 00:09:53,320 --> 00:09:56,000 I mean, it was often said that the Latin and Greek 143 00:09:56,080 --> 00:09:59,160 that Shakespeare would've learnt or any grammar school pupil would've learnt 144 00:09:59,240 --> 00:10:02,920 would be the equivalent to a university classics course today. 145 00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:06,240 School starts at six o'clock in the morning and they go through the whole day. 146 00:10:06,320 --> 00:10:08,680 They would've started learning simple alphabet 147 00:10:08,760 --> 00:10:11,880 and the catechisms, sort of the Lord's Prayer, things like that. 148 00:10:11,960 --> 00:10:13,280 Moved on to more complex things, 149 00:10:13,360 --> 00:10:16,760 starting with perhaps Aesop's Fables, you'd learn your grammar as well, 150 00:10:16,840 --> 00:10:18,800 perhaps some Seneca, Virgil. 151 00:10:18,880 --> 00:10:20,440 So, all of the sort of classic authors 152 00:10:20,520 --> 00:10:24,360 that we think of would've been very much the foundation of that curriculum. 153 00:10:25,560 --> 00:10:28,000 He would've read Ovid's Metamorphoses, 154 00:10:28,080 --> 00:10:31,520 for example, the great Latin classic, he would've read Virgil's Aeneid. 155 00:10:31,600 --> 00:10:34,720 It was an education in oratory and rhetoric, 156 00:10:34,800 --> 00:10:36,840 and that is reflected in his plays, I think. 157 00:10:36,920 --> 00:10:38,800 He would've learnt there to argue, 158 00:10:38,880 --> 00:10:41,680 he would've learnt there to argue on both sides of the case 159 00:10:41,760 --> 00:10:44,480 and is brilliant at doing that in the plays. 160 00:10:44,560 --> 00:10:46,800 If you take a play like Measure for Measure, for example, 161 00:10:46,880 --> 00:10:50,560 where Claudio, the young Claudio, is condemned to death, 162 00:10:50,640 --> 00:10:55,880 there's a wonderful scene where the Duke is disguised as a Friar, 163 00:10:55,960 --> 00:11:00,440 is trying to persuade Claudio to be "absolute for death," as he says. 164 00:11:00,520 --> 00:11:04,120 And he's trying to persuade him of the consolations of religion, 165 00:11:04,200 --> 00:11:06,560 uh, that it's not all that bad to die, after all. 166 00:11:06,640 --> 00:11:10,440 But then a few hundred lines later, there is a wonderful speech from Claudio 167 00:11:10,520 --> 00:11:13,760 which puts exactly the opposite point of view: 168 00:11:13,840 --> 00:11:19,600 But to die and go we know not where, to lie in cold obstruction and to rot. 169 00:11:19,680 --> 00:11:22,960 Now, there's an example of Shakespeare's dialectic skill, 170 00:11:23,040 --> 00:11:27,120 the way that he can present two totally opposing cases 171 00:11:27,200 --> 00:11:29,440 within a single scene of a play. 172 00:11:34,000 --> 00:11:38,160 Now, of course, Stratford is synonymous with the name Shakespeare 173 00:11:38,240 --> 00:11:42,840 and you can see memorials to his legacy all over this town. 174 00:11:42,920 --> 00:11:46,320 But, of course, William had no chance of establishing himself 175 00:11:46,400 --> 00:11:48,800 as an actor or a playwright here. 176 00:11:48,880 --> 00:11:53,640 Although his father had a very prosperous career in William's early years, 177 00:11:53,720 --> 00:11:56,840 later he had huge financial problems, 178 00:11:56,920 --> 00:12:00,360 and it was only by a very risky move to London 179 00:12:00,440 --> 00:12:05,520 that William was able once again to restore the name of Shakespeare. 180 00:12:22,520 --> 00:12:26,560 This is the cottage of the Hathaway family. 181 00:12:26,640 --> 00:12:31,800 We know that William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway in 1582, 182 00:12:31,880 --> 00:12:37,760 when William was 18 and she was some eight or nine years older. 183 00:12:37,840 --> 00:12:41,120 But it is remarkable how little else we know about her, 184 00:12:41,200 --> 00:12:44,480 and we can only speculate about their marriage. 185 00:12:45,120 --> 00:12:47,960 We do know that they had three children, there was Susanna, 186 00:12:48,040 --> 00:12:52,760 the firstborn, and then the twins, Hamnet and Judith. 187 00:12:52,840 --> 00:12:56,120 Hamnet, who was to die when he was 11 years old 188 00:12:56,200 --> 00:12:58,640 from an outbreak of the plague. 189 00:12:59,120 --> 00:13:03,200 But for a man who wrote wonderful love sonnets 190 00:13:03,280 --> 00:13:07,160 and who penned the greatest love story ever, Romeo and Juliet, 191 00:13:07,240 --> 00:13:11,560 it is remarkable how little we know about his own love story. 192 00:13:12,280 --> 00:13:14,200 It is my lady. 193 00:13:15,600 --> 00:13:18,200 Oh, it is my love. 194 00:13:21,760 --> 00:13:24,080 Oh, that she knew she were. 195 00:13:25,200 --> 00:13:29,480 She speaks... yet she says nothing, what of that? 196 00:13:31,600 --> 00:13:34,840 Her eye discourses, I will answer it. 197 00:13:35,840 --> 00:13:38,040 I am too bold. 198 00:13:39,240 --> 00:13:41,200 'Tis not to me she speaks. 199 00:13:43,720 --> 00:13:47,080 We do know that in August 1582, 200 00:13:47,160 --> 00:13:50,640 Stratford enjoyed the benefits of a bounteous harvest, 201 00:13:50,720 --> 00:13:56,240 and it must've been at this time that William and Anne had their lovers' tryst. 202 00:13:56,320 --> 00:14:00,720 Perhaps on a summer's evening, sitting on a set hay bale, 203 00:14:00,800 --> 00:14:03,800 during the feasting to celebrate the end of harvest, 204 00:14:03,880 --> 00:14:10,880 William, still a teenager with his quick and easy wit, charms Anne. 205 00:14:10,960 --> 00:14:15,040 Maybe they had a hand fasting ceremony, 206 00:14:15,120 --> 00:14:18,360 it's an ancient tradition still existing in Warwickshire at the time, 207 00:14:18,440 --> 00:14:21,400 in which the couple shared vows 208 00:14:21,480 --> 00:14:26,920 and then shared a bed before the official church wedding. 209 00:14:28,720 --> 00:14:30,280 Oh, me. 210 00:14:31,000 --> 00:14:32,320 She speaks. 211 00:14:38,040 --> 00:14:40,680 O, speak again, bright angel. 212 00:14:41,560 --> 00:14:44,360 Oh, Romeo, Romeo, 213 00:14:46,120 --> 00:14:48,800 wherefore art thou, Romeo? 214 00:14:51,280 --> 00:14:54,560 The legal age to marry is 21. 215 00:14:55,280 --> 00:14:58,560 So, if you imagine you're a young man, you've served your apprenticeship, 216 00:14:58,640 --> 00:15:02,960 you're in your early 20's, you then have to get yourself a job. 217 00:15:03,040 --> 00:15:06,040 And so the logical thing is, you're not marrying 218 00:15:06,120 --> 00:15:10,480 and you're not marrying girls from the villages until your mid-20's. 219 00:15:10,560 --> 00:15:13,120 So, here we have young William Shakespeare, 220 00:15:13,200 --> 00:15:17,120 who's only 18 and he's underage. 221 00:15:17,200 --> 00:15:23,120 I'm sure she would've had young farmers queuing up to marry her. 222 00:15:23,560 --> 00:15:27,680 So, what's this young William Shakespeare got going for him at this point in time? 223 00:15:28,480 --> 00:15:31,000 Romeo, doff thy name. 224 00:15:31,080 --> 00:15:36,000 And for that name which is no part of thee, take all myself. 225 00:15:38,600 --> 00:15:42,720 I take thee at thy word. Call me but love and I'll be new baptized. 226 00:15:44,040 --> 00:15:46,360 Whatever the details were, we know for certain 227 00:15:46,440 --> 00:15:50,720 that Anne became pregnant and an official church ceremony 228 00:15:50,800 --> 00:15:55,160 had to be rushed through before a noticeable bump developed. 229 00:15:55,240 --> 00:15:57,640 There was a hurried dash to Bishop's Court in Worcester 230 00:15:57,720 --> 00:15:59,520 to enable the marriage to proceed, 231 00:15:59,600 --> 00:16:04,720 and the huge sum of 40 pounds was paid as surety for a marriage bond 232 00:16:04,800 --> 00:16:08,160 to be paid if the marriage were to prove invalid. 233 00:16:21,120 --> 00:16:25,280 We know that William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway in 1582 234 00:16:25,360 --> 00:16:28,760 when they had their first child, Susanna, in the year after. 235 00:16:28,840 --> 00:16:33,360 But the years 1585 to 1592 236 00:16:33,440 --> 00:16:37,800 are a time of intense frustration for Shakespeare historians. 237 00:16:37,880 --> 00:16:43,000 We know practically nothing at all about that elusive seven-year period. 238 00:16:43,080 --> 00:16:46,080 And consequently, we have no idea how and why 239 00:16:46,160 --> 00:16:49,320 he first began his career upon the stage. 240 00:16:49,400 --> 00:16:51,280 Many theories have been advanced. 241 00:16:51,360 --> 00:16:55,480 Some say that he headed off for Lancashire, the Catholic stronghold, 242 00:16:55,560 --> 00:17:00,080 an earlier biographer said that he became a school teacher in the country. 243 00:17:01,760 --> 00:17:04,920 I think it's perfectly possible that he was kept on at Stratford school 244 00:17:05,000 --> 00:17:08,480 as an usher, they were called, the assistant schoolmaster. 245 00:17:08,560 --> 00:17:11,200 He was obviously a very talented, clever boy. 246 00:17:11,280 --> 00:17:13,800 I think it's quite possible that he did some teaching here. 247 00:17:16,080 --> 00:17:18,880 Or perhaps he joined a traveling group of players, 248 00:17:18,960 --> 00:17:21,480 many of which came through Stratford to perform, 249 00:17:21,560 --> 00:17:24,680 and this is where he found his calling. 250 00:17:38,400 --> 00:17:44,800 We know that in 1587, the Queen's Men came to Stratford. 251 00:17:44,880 --> 00:17:48,040 These were a group of traveling players 252 00:17:48,120 --> 00:17:50,480 backed by Queen Elizabeth I's government 253 00:17:50,560 --> 00:17:51,920 who performed around the country 254 00:17:52,000 --> 00:17:55,280 what was essentially propaganda to support her reign. 255 00:17:56,280 --> 00:18:00,600 The Queen's Men weren't a touring company in the modern sense of the word, 256 00:18:00,680 --> 00:18:03,680 no, they were more of a variety act. 257 00:18:03,760 --> 00:18:08,720 Acrobatic performances and comic routines alongside the plays, 258 00:18:08,800 --> 00:18:15,720 but it is the list of those plays and the fact that they were here in Stratford 259 00:18:15,800 --> 00:18:17,480 which is the interesting point. 260 00:18:17,560 --> 00:18:23,120 We know from old records that they put on the story of Richard III, 261 00:18:23,200 --> 00:18:27,680 the story of King Lear, the famous victories of Henry V, 262 00:18:27,760 --> 00:18:30,240 and don't they sound familiar? 263 00:18:30,640 --> 00:18:35,720 Is it possible that Shakespeare did join that company 264 00:18:35,800 --> 00:18:39,840 and was inspired to write his own version of the stories of the plays 265 00:18:39,920 --> 00:18:41,200 that they were producing? 266 00:18:42,600 --> 00:18:46,280 Omit no happy hour that may give furtherance to our expedition. 267 00:18:46,360 --> 00:18:50,280 For we have now no thought in us but France, 268 00:18:50,360 --> 00:18:53,440 save those to God that run before our business. 269 00:18:53,520 --> 00:18:56,640 Therefore, let every man now task his thought 270 00:18:56,720 --> 00:19:01,320 that this fair action may on foot be brought. 271 00:19:01,400 --> 00:19:06,680 We know that two of the Queen's Men went and performed in Elsinore, 272 00:19:07,600 --> 00:19:10,000 famously the setting for Hamlet. 273 00:19:10,080 --> 00:19:13,960 I have heard that guilty creatures sitting at a play have, 274 00:19:14,040 --> 00:19:15,680 by the very cunning of the scene, 275 00:19:15,760 --> 00:19:21,040 been struck so to the soul that presently they have proclaimed their malefactions. 276 00:19:22,360 --> 00:19:29,280 For murder, though it have no tongue, shall speak with most miraculous organ. 277 00:19:29,360 --> 00:19:34,160 Another of the Queen's Men, William Knell, 278 00:19:34,240 --> 00:19:39,000 was killed in a brawl outside a tavern in Oxford 279 00:19:39,080 --> 00:19:41,000 just before the company came to Stratford. 280 00:19:42,800 --> 00:19:44,560 I seize you! 281 00:19:46,560 --> 00:19:51,840 There was a fight and one of the actors was actually stabbed to death. 282 00:19:52,600 --> 00:19:57,360 And there is a belief that possibly William Shakespeare stepped in 283 00:19:57,440 --> 00:20:02,480 to that role and then carried on and eventually got to London that way. 284 00:20:05,160 --> 00:20:07,280 It is possible, 285 00:20:07,880 --> 00:20:13,960 but unless some late 16th-century document turns up in some old drawer, 286 00:20:14,040 --> 00:20:19,160 we sadly will have no hard evidence to support this or any other theory. 287 00:20:22,200 --> 00:20:27,560 At some point he makes that decision to move to London. 288 00:20:27,640 --> 00:20:32,400 We know in Henley Street there was a stable owned by the Greenaways, 289 00:20:32,480 --> 00:20:36,880 and he would've hired his horse or had his horse stabled there, 290 00:20:36,960 --> 00:20:39,720 and then made that journey to London. 291 00:20:42,840 --> 00:20:46,480 Whether Shakespeare arrived in London as part of a troupe 292 00:20:46,560 --> 00:20:48,560 or followed them on his own, 293 00:20:48,640 --> 00:20:51,640 this was a momentous undertaking for him. 294 00:20:51,720 --> 00:20:55,760 It would mark the dawn of an unparalleled talent 295 00:20:55,840 --> 00:20:59,520 as the author of a body of work that would be unsurpassed 296 00:20:59,600 --> 00:21:03,120 and would influence generations to come. 297 00:21:12,680 --> 00:21:14,680 The London that Shakespeare found 298 00:21:14,760 --> 00:21:18,320 was a dynamic mix of people involved in various trades: 299 00:21:18,400 --> 00:21:22,880 Shipping, makers and bakers, lawyers and priests, 300 00:21:22,960 --> 00:21:27,120 and a court at Whitehall with Queen Elizabeth at its head. 301 00:21:30,120 --> 00:21:33,160 London was about 100 times bigger than Stratford. 302 00:21:33,240 --> 00:21:37,040 It was a town of about 200,000 people, a city, of course. 303 00:21:37,120 --> 00:21:41,520 It was a walled city with numerous churches, over 300 churches, 304 00:21:41,600 --> 00:21:45,400 a cosmopolitan place, of course, being on the Thames, 305 00:21:45,480 --> 00:21:47,880 it was a place where travelers would come and go, 306 00:21:47,960 --> 00:21:49,720 bringing their goods from abroad. 307 00:21:49,800 --> 00:21:54,640 It was a bustling, thriving, busy, in some ways rather sordid place. 308 00:21:54,720 --> 00:21:58,000 It was just beginning to have a theatrical community 309 00:21:58,080 --> 00:22:00,760 that begins during Shakespeare's lifetime. 310 00:22:04,920 --> 00:22:09,280 Shakespeare had arrived in London at an ideal time. 311 00:22:09,360 --> 00:22:12,440 Playhouses dedicated to theatrical performances 312 00:22:12,520 --> 00:22:14,440 were a very recent development. 313 00:22:14,520 --> 00:22:16,960 Normally, actors and playwrights 314 00:22:17,040 --> 00:22:19,920 had to make do with performing in the yards of taverns 315 00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:21,760 or in the homes of aristocrats. 316 00:22:21,840 --> 00:22:25,880 But now the opportunities were endless. 317 00:22:25,960 --> 00:22:29,400 Just as with the invention of cinema and the birth of television, 318 00:22:29,480 --> 00:22:33,400 a whole new medium was opening up to the masses, 319 00:22:33,480 --> 00:22:36,440 and Shakespeare capitalized on it. 320 00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:40,600 It wouldn't all be plain sailing though. 321 00:22:40,680 --> 00:22:44,360 An outbreak of plague struck the city in 1592, 322 00:22:44,440 --> 00:22:48,680 and the theaters were shut just as Shakespeare had hit his stride. 323 00:22:48,760 --> 00:22:52,440 But, as always, it seems he adapted quickly 324 00:22:52,520 --> 00:22:57,960 and soon had great success publishing the narrative poem Venus and Adonis. 325 00:22:58,040 --> 00:23:00,160 It was based on Metamorphoses, 326 00:23:00,240 --> 00:23:04,240 another narrative poem by Shakespeare's favorite writer, Ovid, 327 00:23:04,320 --> 00:23:07,800 whom he adored from the time he first would've encountered his work 328 00:23:07,880 --> 00:23:09,880 back at school in Stratford. 329 00:23:09,960 --> 00:23:14,560 Shakespeare simply couldn't resist a return to the theater, 330 00:23:14,640 --> 00:23:18,480 and he threw himself almost exclusively into the life of a playwright 331 00:23:18,560 --> 00:23:20,600 once the theaters reopened. 332 00:23:20,680 --> 00:23:24,040 Perhaps he knew that it was his true calling 333 00:23:24,120 --> 00:23:28,080 or perhaps he simply missed the thrill of acting. 334 00:23:28,640 --> 00:23:31,760 It's thought that he took on roles himself throughout his career, 335 00:23:31,840 --> 00:23:35,080 whatever the reason, we can all be very grateful 336 00:23:35,160 --> 00:23:37,200 that he turned his back on what seemed to be 337 00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:40,440 a more relaxed and lucrative career as a poet. 338 00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:43,920 My liege, the noble Mortimer, leading the Mayor of Herefordshire 339 00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:47,520 to fight against the irregular and wild Glendower, 340 00:23:47,600 --> 00:23:50,240 was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken. 341 00:23:51,280 --> 00:23:54,600 A thousand of his people butchered upon whose dead corpses 342 00:23:54,680 --> 00:23:57,400 there was such misuse, such beastly shameless transformation 343 00:23:57,480 --> 00:23:58,720 by those Welshwomen done 344 00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:01,240 as may not be without much shame retold or spoken of. 345 00:24:01,320 --> 00:24:04,760 It seems then that the tidings of this broil 346 00:24:04,840 --> 00:24:07,560 brake off our business for the Holy Land. 347 00:24:07,640 --> 00:24:11,280 This matched with others does, my gracious lord. 348 00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:17,120 Given that Shakespeare had thrown himself back into the world of a playwright, 349 00:24:17,200 --> 00:24:22,640 he was going to need to create new material at an alarming rate. 350 00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:25,920 Writer's block didn't seem to exist in Elizabethan England, 351 00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:29,920 as theaters had such a very quick turnover of the plays that they staged. 352 00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:34,720 Just as he took inspiration from Ovid for his poems, 353 00:24:34,800 --> 00:24:37,560 Shakespeare dug deep into a very handy book 354 00:24:37,640 --> 00:24:42,520 called The Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland. 355 00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:48,440 Holinshed's Chronicles is a hugely significant source book for Shakespeare. 356 00:24:48,520 --> 00:24:50,360 It's essentially, as the name suggests, 357 00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:53,440 a chronicled history of England, Ireland and Scotland. 358 00:24:54,040 --> 00:24:57,600 There are two editions of Holinshed, one published in 1577, 359 00:24:57,680 --> 00:24:59,720 and this one, published in 1587, 360 00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:02,320 which is the one that we believe Shakespeare used as a source 361 00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:04,200 for much of the history plays. 362 00:25:10,040 --> 00:25:13,360 With Henry V, for example, Holinshed describes the Battle of Agincourt 363 00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:15,040 and the campaigns overseas, 364 00:25:15,120 --> 00:25:17,640 so you can see where Shakespeare's getting the story ideas from 365 00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:20,840 that he then turns into the plays on-stage themselves. 366 00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:26,360 For many of our princes, woe the while, lie drowned and soaked in mercenary blood. 367 00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:30,640 O, give us leave, great king, to view the field in safety 368 00:25:30,720 --> 00:25:33,480 and dispose of their dead bodies. 369 00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:39,360 I tell thee truly, herald, I know not if the day be ours or no. 370 00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:45,360 The day... is yours. 371 00:25:47,920 --> 00:25:51,880 As the 16th century came to a close, 372 00:25:51,960 --> 00:25:54,960 Shakespeare had managed to bring together everything 373 00:25:55,040 --> 00:25:58,520 that he needed to dominate the London theatrical scene. 374 00:25:58,600 --> 00:26:01,920 He knew how to leave audiences in stitches with his early hits, 375 00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:04,440 The Comedy of Errors and The Taming of the Shrew, 376 00:26:04,520 --> 00:26:07,600 and his trusted copy of Holinshed's Chronicles 377 00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:10,680 had provided the material for his plays on the English kings, 378 00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:14,160 including Henry VI and Richard III. 379 00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:17,040 But he needed a star creation of his own, 380 00:26:17,120 --> 00:26:20,200 a character that would bring him bigger crowds than ever 381 00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:22,880 on the rapidly expanding London stage scene, 382 00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:28,040 and he found it in John Falstaff, a buffoonish knight. 383 00:26:28,120 --> 00:26:30,240 Give me a cup of sack, rogue. 384 00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:34,000 Is there no virtue extant? 385 00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:38,760 Go thy ways, old Jack, die when thou wilt. 386 00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:42,480 If manhood, good manhood, been not forgot upon the face of the earth, 387 00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:44,520 then I'm a shotten herring. 388 00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:51,160 There live not three good men unhanged in England and one of them is fat. 389 00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:56,800 Falstaff delighted audiences more than any other character of the era, 390 00:26:56,880 --> 00:27:00,040 he stole the show in Henry IV Part 1 and 2, 391 00:27:00,120 --> 00:27:04,240 and was so popular that Shakespeare had to knock out a comedy with Falstaff 392 00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:09,240 as the main character, the rather hastily written The Merry Wives of Windsor. 393 00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:12,360 They say that jealous wittolly knave hath masses of money 394 00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:14,840 for the which his wife seems to me well-favored. 395 00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:18,040 Now, I will use her as the key to the cuckoldy rogue's coffer, 396 00:27:18,120 --> 00:27:19,800 and there's my harvest home. 397 00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:23,640 I would you knew Ford, sir, that you might avoid him if you saw him. 398 00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:26,720 Oh, hang him. 399 00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:29,520 Having created such a smash hit, 400 00:27:29,600 --> 00:27:33,520 you could say that the world was now Shakespeare's oyster, 401 00:27:33,600 --> 00:27:36,720 which would be fitting, as he invented that phrase 402 00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:39,040 when writing the character of Falstaff. 403 00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:43,760 London had given William Shakespeare a stage, 404 00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:47,040 but too often it had been a precarious one. 405 00:27:47,120 --> 00:27:50,160 His friends, the Burbage family, had to move their playhouse, 406 00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:53,480 the theater, as they did not own the land. 407 00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:57,600 William and his colleagues became the shareholders of the Globe, 408 00:27:57,680 --> 00:28:01,240 which they erected from the timbers of the previous theater. 409 00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:08,600 Shakespeare's success in London as a playwright 410 00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:10,840 had brought him much fame, 411 00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:15,400 sometimes perhaps unnerving when it came to royal attention. 412 00:28:15,480 --> 00:28:19,400 Life in Shakespeare's England could be a dangerous endeavor. 413 00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:23,560 London was a city full of intrigue and espionage. 414 00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:26,880 Elizabeth was never easy in her role as queen 415 00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:30,200 and was always on the lookout for possible usurpers 416 00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:33,800 and employed a contingent of spies. 417 00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:39,760 Elizabethan England, with all its excitement, 418 00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:42,880 would've been an amazingly vibrant place to live. 419 00:28:43,680 --> 00:28:47,880 We know at one point he's living literally a few hundred yards 420 00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:49,560 from the Globe Theatre. 421 00:28:49,640 --> 00:28:52,840 It was the red-light district of London. 422 00:28:52,920 --> 00:28:56,120 So, I mean, it's outside the city walls 423 00:28:56,200 --> 00:28:58,560 so people would've been ferried across the Thames 424 00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:01,720 and that's the Soho of the day, really. 425 00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:03,920 It's an amazingly lively place. 426 00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:08,440 The building of the Globe Theatre would at last 427 00:29:08,520 --> 00:29:11,520 give Shakespeare a proper home for his plays, 428 00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:15,800 which inspired him to become more and more creative. 429 00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:23,120 This is Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in Bankside. 430 00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:27,320 It welcomed its first audiences in 1997, 431 00:29:27,400 --> 00:29:31,280 almost four centuries after the original Globe Theatre, 432 00:29:31,360 --> 00:29:35,600 which this building is intended to replicate, first opened its doors. 433 00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:42,000 It was 1599, and Shakespeare was a shareholder in the playing company, 434 00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:43,840 The Lord Chamberlain's Men. 435 00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:47,280 It was a formidable troupe. 436 00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:49,760 Shakespeare was the resident genius playwright, 437 00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:51,680 but also still an actor, of course. 438 00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:55,760 They had a superstar leading man in Richard Burbage, 439 00:29:55,840 --> 00:30:00,000 who had the enormous honor of taking on William's greatest roles 440 00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:05,560 for the first time, including Hamlet, King Lear and Macbeth. 441 00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:10,760 They also had a supreme comedian, the other Will in the group, 442 00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:14,600 Will Kempe, who would send audiences into raptures 443 00:30:14,680 --> 00:30:18,240 with his performances of Sir John Falstaff. 444 00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:24,720 Shakespeare would often be at court entertaining the queen with his plays. 445 00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:28,200 When Elizabeth died and James became king, 446 00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:30,960 the royal patronage stayed with him. 447 00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:35,600 Shakespeare was now a significant member of the King's Men. 448 00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:41,920 It was at the Globe that Shakespeare truly cemented his legacy 449 00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:44,560 as the greatest writer in the English language. 450 00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:48,880 Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, 451 00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:55,520 King Lear, Othello, they all had their first-ever performances at the Globe. 452 00:31:04,240 --> 00:31:08,400 Such a tragedy that it burnt down in 1613. 453 00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:13,640 They were having a performance of the play about Henry VIII, 454 00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:16,280 All is True, as it was called at the time. 455 00:31:16,360 --> 00:31:20,560 That play has a procession, and they were using cannon 456 00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:22,520 to have special effects. 457 00:31:22,600 --> 00:31:25,560 And, sadly, one of the cannon was aimed in the wrong direction, 458 00:31:25,640 --> 00:31:27,680 somebody must've got in trouble for that. 459 00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:31,840 And it set the thatch on fire, and the theater was burned down. 460 00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:35,400 It must've been a terribly traumatic event for Shakespeare, 461 00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:38,120 and it's towards the end of his playwriting career. 462 00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:41,960 And I sometimes think that perhaps it was so devastating 463 00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:45,120 that that's why he ceased writing plays 464 00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:47,480 towards the end of the last couple of years of his life. 465 00:31:52,520 --> 00:31:58,680 Once the Globe went down, so did Shakespeare's desire to write. 466 00:31:58,760 --> 00:32:01,840 He appears to have produced nothing after this date. 467 00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:05,560 Most scholars agree that The Tempest is the last play 468 00:32:05,640 --> 00:32:07,160 that he wrote on his own, 469 00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:10,680 and it appears to be a deliberate swan song. 470 00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:15,000 The character of Prospero relinquishes his magical powers 471 00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:19,160 at the end of the play and delivers a poignant speech 472 00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:24,520 where he asks the audience to "let your indulgence set me free"... 473 00:32:25,760 --> 00:32:31,400 in a way that many people have interpreted as Shakespeare's own retirement speech. 474 00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:35,160 He did collaborate with other authors on a few works after The Tempest, 475 00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:39,760 but he appears to have been happy to bring his solo literary career 476 00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:42,000 to a deliberate end. 477 00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:55,800 When the opportunity arises, he comes back to Stratford. 478 00:32:55,880 --> 00:33:00,000 This is where his family, this is where his wife, his children, 479 00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:04,520 his siblings are all living, his friends. 480 00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:11,640 I think he was a Stratford man all his life, 481 00:33:11,720 --> 00:33:13,560 his family remained in Stratford, 482 00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:16,840 he bought a big house for them quite early in his career. 483 00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:21,320 He owned New Place, the large house in the middle of Stratford 484 00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:24,440 from the time that he was 33 years old. 485 00:33:24,920 --> 00:33:29,080 We believe for probably 15 to 20 years, 486 00:33:29,160 --> 00:33:34,000 Shakespeare was earning between 2 to 300 pounds a year. 487 00:33:34,080 --> 00:33:40,640 He is a playwright who actually hangs on to his wealth and invests it, 488 00:33:40,720 --> 00:33:45,520 and where is he investing it? It's always in Stratford-upon-Avon. 489 00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:48,600 He bought 102 acres of land, 490 00:33:48,680 --> 00:33:51,560 which is about the same size as Stratford itself, 491 00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:53,480 the land to the north of the town. 492 00:33:53,560 --> 00:33:58,040 He purchased an interest in the tithes which he spent a lot of money on. 493 00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:04,720 When he was up in court as a witness in a court case in 1614, 494 00:34:04,800 --> 00:34:07,480 he was referred to clearly as William Shakespeare 495 00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:11,760 of Stratford-upon-Avon, he was thought of as a Stratford man. 496 00:34:24,120 --> 00:34:29,680 William Shakespeare died on April 23rd, 1616, 497 00:34:29,760 --> 00:34:34,240 and it may be that his death was sudden and unexpected 498 00:34:34,320 --> 00:34:37,960 because just a month earlier he had signed his will, 499 00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:41,120 in which he said he was in perfect health. 500 00:34:41,760 --> 00:34:45,280 In that last will and testament, Shakespeare left money behind 501 00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:48,200 to his wife and sister, his niece and nephews, 502 00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:51,920 his children and his grandchildren, to his friends, 503 00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:56,560 and to the poor in this, his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon. 504 00:34:57,040 --> 00:35:01,160 But to the world of literature, and to the English language, 505 00:35:01,240 --> 00:35:04,960 he left behind an unparalleled legacy. 506 00:35:09,600 --> 00:35:13,160 As feted as Shakespeare was in his own lifetime, 507 00:35:13,240 --> 00:35:16,640 his legacy, along with all of his remarkable plays, 508 00:35:16,720 --> 00:35:18,880 could've easily been lost. 509 00:35:18,960 --> 00:35:24,040 What became known as the First Folio was published in 1623, 510 00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:26,680 that's seven years after Shakespeare's death. 511 00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:30,760 Thirty-six of Shakespeare's plays were collected together 512 00:35:30,840 --> 00:35:33,320 by Shakespeare's colleagues and fellow actors, 513 00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:36,360 John Hemmings and Henry Condell. 514 00:35:36,440 --> 00:35:41,000 It was a project of great determination and devotion to Shakespeare. 515 00:35:42,600 --> 00:35:44,320 The First Folio is particularly special 516 00:35:44,400 --> 00:35:48,360 because it records for the first time the collected plays of William Shakespeare. 517 00:35:48,440 --> 00:35:51,840 And without this book, 18 of the plays would be lost to us forever 518 00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:54,520 'cause they don't survive in any other printed form. 519 00:35:54,600 --> 00:35:57,520 And it's clear that they've been putting together a lot of work 520 00:35:57,600 --> 00:35:59,520 to gather up the plays, to edit them, 521 00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:03,440 to bring them into what they consider their preferred format 522 00:36:03,520 --> 00:36:07,160 to be presented for the first time in their authentic state. 523 00:36:07,240 --> 00:36:10,520 It brings together the plays in their division into tragedies, 524 00:36:10,600 --> 00:36:15,360 histories and comedies for the first time, and it presents them in a standard format. 525 00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:18,600 Shakespeare's plays have gone on to have a huge impact 526 00:36:18,680 --> 00:36:22,600 on our collective thoughts of so many historical figures. 527 00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:27,400 The way that the world views Richard III, Cleopatra, Henry V, 528 00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:30,080 Mark Antony, and so many, many more 529 00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:32,920 has been forever altered by Shakespeare's works. 530 00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:35,120 Speak, hands, for me! 531 00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:40,600 How perfectly did he capture the sense of betrayal felt by Julius Caesar 532 00:36:40,680 --> 00:36:43,800 as he was assassinated by Brutus, Cassius and many others 533 00:36:43,880 --> 00:36:48,560 with the simple but devastating line, Et tu, Brute? 534 00:36:48,640 --> 00:36:51,160 Et tu, Brute? 535 00:36:51,240 --> 00:36:54,200 Then fall Caesar. 536 00:37:14,800 --> 00:37:18,600 The funerary monument in the Holy Trinity Church 537 00:37:18,680 --> 00:37:21,000 may look a little kitsch, 538 00:37:21,080 --> 00:37:24,320 it has gone through centuries of retouching, after all. 539 00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:28,280 But it remains one of the only two images 540 00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:33,000 that we are certain was intended to depict William Shakespeare. 541 00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:36,120 The other is the Droeshout portrait, 542 00:37:36,200 --> 00:37:39,720 which was an engraving placed on the front cover of the First Folio 543 00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:44,480 and which Ben Jonson declared was a very good likeness. 544 00:37:47,160 --> 00:37:51,160 In 2009, a new portrait of Shakespeare came to light, 545 00:37:51,240 --> 00:37:53,280 it was held by the Cobbe family 546 00:37:53,360 --> 00:37:56,120 who had had it in their family for many, many years 547 00:37:56,200 --> 00:37:59,480 and saw a relationship between it and another portrait. 548 00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:01,560 Lots of research went into these portraits 549 00:38:01,640 --> 00:38:06,520 and identified them as being one of William Shakespeare, 550 00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:09,400 probably painted during his own lifetime. 551 00:38:09,480 --> 00:38:13,480 The Birthplace Trust owns a copy of the Cobbe portrait, 552 00:38:13,560 --> 00:38:15,760 known as the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust portrait, 553 00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:18,400 and it shows him as perhaps as a wealthy, more youthful man 554 00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:21,640 than has traditionally been the case for Shakespeare portraits. 555 00:38:21,720 --> 00:38:25,600 And it's an interesting addition to the canon of portraiture of Shakespeare, 556 00:38:25,680 --> 00:38:29,080 starting with the First Folio and the bust that's in Holy Trinity Church, 557 00:38:29,160 --> 00:38:33,480 perhaps being the more traditional views of what Shakespeare would've looked like. 558 00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:43,600 Shakespeare's greatest legacy of all 559 00:38:43,680 --> 00:38:46,720 remains in the language we all use every day. 560 00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:50,040 There's the incredible number of words that he coined 561 00:38:50,120 --> 00:38:55,840 that are as varied as bedroom, zany, gossip, invulnerable, 562 00:38:55,920 --> 00:39:01,560 lustrous, fashionable, monumental, eyeball, savagery, and lonely. 563 00:39:01,640 --> 00:39:03,960 They all trace back to the Bard. 564 00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:07,320 He was very fond of expanding the horizons of the English language 565 00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:09,560 with his own inventiveness. 566 00:39:10,840 --> 00:39:12,800 Shakespeare's had colossal influence, 567 00:39:12,880 --> 00:39:16,080 a lot of his plays and poems have produced phrases 568 00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:19,680 which are in anybody's mouths, even if they don't know Shakespeare, 569 00:39:19,760 --> 00:39:23,720 a lot of people know what a Romeo is, for example. 570 00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:29,040 Uh, and phrases like a man more sinned against than sinning, 571 00:39:29,120 --> 00:39:31,440 for example, which is a line from King Lear, 572 00:39:31,520 --> 00:39:35,920 will be used by people who've never heard of King Lear even, possibly. 573 00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:47,080 It was Shakespeare's ability to create a turn of phrase 574 00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:52,280 that really resonates today, to wait on bated breath, 575 00:39:52,360 --> 00:39:55,880 to vanish into thin air, to fight fire with fire, 576 00:39:55,960 --> 00:39:58,680 to be made of sterner stuff, 577 00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:04,360 to be cruel to be kind, all phrases conjured in Shakespeare's plays. 578 00:40:04,440 --> 00:40:07,400 Any adman today would kill to have Shakespeare's ability 579 00:40:07,480 --> 00:40:09,840 to create such memorable sound bites. 580 00:40:09,920 --> 00:40:14,800 In fact, as many as one in ten of the common phrases 581 00:40:14,880 --> 00:40:18,640 that we use every day are most likely the work of the Bard, 582 00:40:18,720 --> 00:40:22,360 which is a truly astonishing number. 583 00:40:22,720 --> 00:40:24,600 Quite a few of Shakespeare's many phrases 584 00:40:24,680 --> 00:40:27,720 have also become the titles of works by later authors. 585 00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:33,000 Brave New World, Aldous Huxley's most famous novel, is taken from The Tempest. 586 00:40:33,480 --> 00:40:37,600 John Steinbeck wrote The Winter of Our Discontent, 587 00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:40,680 title coming from the opening speech of Richard III. 588 00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:45,800 Even the very recent hit novel The Fault in our Stars by John Green 589 00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:48,000 is taken from Julius Caesar. 590 00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:53,680 Shakespeare forever remains... the ultimate inspiration. 591 00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:02,520 The colossal influence that Shakespeare 592 00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:05,760 is having increasingly still on the world of the arts, 593 00:41:05,840 --> 00:41:07,920 the music that's been inspired by Shakespeare, 594 00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:11,040 the films, the theatrical productions which go on, 595 00:41:11,120 --> 00:41:13,920 the fact that actors love playing Shakespeare's roles 596 00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:17,000 'cause they give actors such incredible opportunities. 597 00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:23,720 He's always a very chameleon-type person, 598 00:41:23,800 --> 00:41:26,000 I can never quite pin him down, 599 00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:29,400 but I'm very fortunate there are moments quite often in the morning 600 00:41:29,480 --> 00:41:32,080 when I open the house up on my own. 601 00:41:32,160 --> 00:41:33,680 And just when you walk through, 602 00:41:34,280 --> 00:41:36,840 it's a very humbling experience to be there, 603 00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:39,840 having spoken to so many people 604 00:41:39,920 --> 00:41:45,640 who it's been a lifetime's ambition to come to the birthplace. 605 00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:55,200 The works go on being replicated, inspiring other composers, 606 00:41:55,280 --> 00:41:59,120 inspiring operas, inspiring ballets, novels, poems, 607 00:41:59,200 --> 00:42:01,160 so that Shakespeare is now in the water supply, 608 00:42:01,240 --> 00:42:05,160 you can't get away from him. Television programs, pop songs, 609 00:42:05,240 --> 00:42:08,560 all of them are frequently referring to Shakespeare, 610 00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:11,760 even subconsciously, very often. 611 00:42:11,840 --> 00:42:14,000 Yeah, Shakespeare is here to stay. 612 00:42:21,040 --> 00:42:25,120 To the reader, this figure that thou here seest put, 613 00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:28,200 it was for gentle Shakespeare cut. 614 00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:33,120 Wherein the graver had a strife with nature to out-do the life. 615 00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:36,560 O, could he but have drawn his wit as well in brass, 616 00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:40,560 as he have hit his face, the print would then surpass 617 00:42:40,640 --> 00:42:43,440 all that was ever writ in brass. 618 00:42:43,520 --> 00:42:50,480 But since he cannot, reader, look not on his picture, but his book.