Hamnet Shakespeare
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Hamnet Shakespeare (baptized February 2 1585 – buried August 11 1596) was the only son of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, and the fraternal twin of Judith Shakespeare.[1][2][3][4] Relatively little is known about the short life of this child, who might have carried on the Shakespeare family name had he survived to adulthood.[4]
Hamnet and his twin sister Judith were born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptized on February 2 1585 in Holy Trinity Church by Richard Barton of Coventry.[2] The twins were likely named after friends of their parents, Hamnet Sadler, a baker, and his wife, Judith.[1]
There is very little information about Hamnet's upbringing. He may have been raised principally by his mother Anne in the Henley Street house belonging to his grandfather, or he may have joined his father in London; the evidence does not tell us either way.
Hamnet died at the age of eleven and was buried in Stratford on August 11 1596.[3][4] Speculation that grief over his only son's death may have spurred Shakespeare to write the tragedy Hamlet is in all likelihood incorrect; the name of the character in the play has a different derivation.[5]
[edit] References
- ^ a b Chambers, Edmund Kerchever (1930). William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems. Oxford: Clarendon Press, I. p.18. “A daughter Susanna was baptized on 26 May 1583, and followed by twins, Hamnet and Judith, on 2 February 1585. Guesses at godparents are idle where common names, such as Shakespeare's own, are concerned. But those of the twins, which are unusual, point to Hamnet or Hamlet Sadler, a baker of Stratford, and his wife Judith.”
- ^ a b Schoenbaum, Samuel (1977). William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life. Oxford: Clarendon Press, p.94. “[…] the twins were christened […] on 2 February 1585. Richard Barton of Coventry […] officiated[.]”
- ^ a b Chambers, I. p.21. “[…] Hamnet was buried at Stratford on 11 August 1596.”
- ^ a b c Schoenbaum, p.224. “[…] the parish register records the burial of […] Hamnet, aged eleven and a half. His death doomed the male line of the Shakespeares to extinction.”
- ^ Chambers, ii. p.3-4 “The resemblance of the name to that of the hero of Shakespeare's tragedy, which has a different Scandinavian origin, can hardly be more than a coincidence.”
[edit] External links
Relatives of William Shakespeare |
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| Richard Shakespeare • John Shakespeare • Mary Arden • Anne Hathaway • Hamnet Shakespeare • Susanna Hall • John Hall • Judith Quiney • Thomas Quiney |
