Shakespeare's Life and Times

The "Soest" portrait. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

Shakespeare's Life and Times introduces you to the world Shakespeare lived and worked in. This section of the Internet Shakespeare Editions is like a shelf of books, each of which is listed in the navigational bar beneath the page header. Each book, in turn, is divided into chapters dealing with related topics.

• There is a detailed biography of his life (and we actually know quite a lot about him).
• There is a book about the stage Shakespeare wrote for.
• And one that explores the society of the time, showing how it differs from our own.
• Further books discuss the history and politics of Elizabethan England,
• And look at the way people of the time thought and argued about religion and the physical makeup of the universe.
• You can learn about the kinds of plays and literature Shakespeare read,
• See samples of paintings of the time, and listen to Renaissance music.
• There is a book that shows how different parts of this rich library of resources help you understand the plays,
• And there is an extensive reference volume that gives chronologies, maps, and bibliographies for further reading.

A word about links.

Links followed by an asterisk (*) open up a "pop-up" note on the same page; links without the asterisk go to a different page; links external to the site open a new window in your browser.

This site was originally published in February 1999. Most recent update November 2010. Written by Michael Best.

• Acknowledgements
• Copyright notice

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