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What We Know About The Least Known Literary Figure
Do you know when Shakespeare was born? No? Neither does anybody else. William’s birthday is amongst many things that are unknown about him. Shakespeare is one of the least known literary figures in history. There are many chunks of his life that are not recorded and there are only ideas of what he did in that time. In Bill Bryson’s ‘Shakespeare: The World as Stage’, Bill works to reveal Shakespeare and inform his audience on what we currently know about the celebrated playwright.
People throughout the years have been trying to figure out another unknown mystery about William, how his name is spelled. One might think it is very obviously spelled ‘William Shakespeare’. But in fact, he signed his name many different ways. The spelling we are used to today just happens to be what stuck. It is very hard to find anything about Shakespeare in public records for this reason. Bill Bryson states, “...Shakespeare’s name, if it appeared at all, might be spelled in some eighty different ways, or be blotted or abbreviated beyond recognition..” Could Shakespeare have done this on purpose to create confusion? His last found signature was in abbreviated form: “Wllm Shaksp.” It was common for some names to be changed on documents, but it’s very peculiar that we aren’t shown a consistent spelling with William. You would think we would be shown some kind of base for his spelling.
Do you know when Shakespeare was born? No? Neither does anybody else. William’s birthday is amongst many things that are unknown about him. Shakespeare is one of the least known literary figures in history. There are many chunks of his life that are not recorded and there are only ideas of what he did in that time. In Bill Bryson’s ‘Shakespeare: The World as Stage’, Bill works to reveal Shakespeare and inform his audience on what we currently know about the celebrated playwright.
People throughout the years have been trying to figure out another unknown mystery about William, how his name is spelled. One might think it is very obviously spelled ‘William Shakespeare’. But in fact, he signed his name many different ways. The spelling we are used to today just happens to be what stuck. It is very hard to find anything about Shakespeare in public records for this reason. Bill Bryson states, “...Shakespeare’s name, if it appeared at all, might be spelled in some eighty different ways, or be blotted or abbreviated beyond recognition..” Could Shakespeare have done this on purpose to create confusion? His last found signature was in abbreviated form: “Wllm Shaksp.” It was common for some names to be changed on documents, but it’s very peculiar that we aren’t shown a consistent spelling with William. You would think we would be shown some kind of base for his spelling.