Hamnet Shakespeare

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Hamnet's death record

Hamnet Shakespeare (baptised 2 February 1585 – buried 11 August 1596) was the only son of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, and the fraternal twin of Judith Shakespeare.^[1][2][3][4] He died at age eleven of unknown causes. There are several theories on the relationship, if any, between Hamnet and his father's later play Hamlet.^[5] Other theories postulate connections between Hamnet's death and the writing of King John, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, and Twelfth Night, among others. Such biographical theories connecting Hamnet to his father's work began to be popular as early as the 18th century and continued into the 1930s before being dismissed on the arrival of prominent, anti-biographical literary movements such as modernism and New Criticism. More recently, as New Criticism has lost favour among academics, theories surrounding Hamnet and his father's work have resurfaced.

[edit] Life

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 baptised on 2 February 1585 in Holy Trinity Church by Richard Barton of Coventry.^[2] The twins were likely named after friends of their parents, Hamlet Sadler, a baker, and his wife, Judith.^[1]

There is very little information about Hamnet's upbringing. He was likely raised principally by his mother Anne in the Henley Street house belonging to his grandfather. Germaine Greer, however, thinks it unlikely that the Shakespeare children were raised principally at Henley Street, proposing instead the possibility that the newly-wed Shakespeares set up house in a small cottage, or even took up residence at New Place as tenants early in their marriage, before purchasing it later on.^[7]

By the time Hamnet was four, his father was already becoming a popular playwright in London. He may not have been at home in Stratford with his son very often, as his popularity continued to grow.^[8] Honan believes that Hamnet may have completed Lower School before his death at the age of eleven, when he was buried in Stratford on 11 August 1596.^[3][4] At that time in England, about a third of all children died before age 10, so his young death was not an anomaly for the time.^[9]

[edit] Connection to Hamlet and other plays

Scholars have long speculated how William Shakespeare's writing was influenced by his son's death, or whether it was at all. Unlike his contemporary Ben Jonson, who wrote a lengthy piece on the death of his own son, Shakespeare, if he wrote anything in response, did so more subtly. At the time his son died, Shakespeare was writing primarily comedies, and that writing continued until a few years after Hamnet's death, when his major tragedies were written. It is possible that his tragedies gained depth from his experience, but it is impossible to prove that they could not have been written had his son not died.^[9]

Biographical readings, in which critics would try to connect passages in the plays and sonnets to specific events in Shakespeare's life, are at least as old as the Romantic Period. Many famous writers, scholars, and critics from the 18th to the early 20th century pondered the connection between Hamnet's death and Shakespeare's plays. These scholars and critics included Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Edward Dowden, and Dover Wilson, among others. In 1931, C. J. Sisson stated that such interpretations had "gone too far". In 1934, Shakespeare scholar R. W. Chambers agreed, saying that Shakespeare's most cheerful work was written after his son's death, making a connection doubtful. In the mid-to-late 20th century, it became increasingly unpopular for critics to connect events in author's lives with their work, not just for Shakespeare, but for all writing. More recently, however, as the ideas of the New Criticism have lost prominence, biographical interpretations of Hamnet's relationship to his father's work have begun to re-emerge.^[8]

Some theories about Hamnet's influence on his father's plays are centered on the tragedy Hamlet. The traditional view is that speculation that grief over his only son's death may have spurred Shakespeare to write Hamlet (composed 1599/1601) is in all likelihood incorrect. Although the names Hamlet and Hamnet were considered virtually interchangeable, and Shakespeare's own will spelled Hamnet Sadler's first name as "Hamlett",^{[10] [11]} the name of the character in the play has a different derivation.^[12] Prince Hamlet's name is more often thought to be related to the Amleth character in Saxo Grammaticus' Vita Amlethi, an old Scandinavian legend that is very similar to Shakespeare's story.^[13] More recent scholarship has argued that, while Hamlet has a Scandinavian origin and may have been selected as a play subject for commercial reasons, Shakespeare's grief over the loss of his only son may lie at the heart of the tragedy.^[10][14]

Speculation over Hamnet's influence on Shakespeare's works is not limited to Hamlet. Richard Wheeler theorises that Hamnet's death influenced the writing of Twelfth Night, which centres on a girl who believes that her twin brother has died. In the end, she finds that her brother never died, but is alive and well. Wheeler also posits the idea that the women who disguise themselves as men in Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night are a representation of William Shakespeare's seeing his son's hope in his daughters after Hamnet's death.^[8] Bill Bryson argues that Constance's speech from the third act of King John (written mid-1590s) was inspired by Hamnet's death. In the speech she laments the loss of her son, Arthur.^[15] It is possible, though, that Hamnet was still alive when Constance's lament was written.^[8] Many other plays of Shakespeare's have theories surrounding Hamnet. These include questions as to whether a scene in Julius Caesar, in which Caesar adopts Mark Antony as a replacement for his dead son is related to Hamnet's death, or whether Romeo and Juliet is a tragic reflection of the loss of a son, or Alonso's guilt over his son's death in The Tempest is related.^[8] Sonnet 37 may have also been written in response to Hamnet's death. Shakespeare says in it, "As a decrepit father takes delight / To see his active child do deeds of youth / So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spight / Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth." Still, if this is an allusion to Hamnet, it is a vague one.^[9]

[edit] Hamnet in works by other writers and artists

James Joyce's epic Ulysses contains references to Hamnet. In the Scylla & Charybdis chapter, Stephen Dedalus propounds a theory in the National Library, concerning the relation of Hamlet the play to Hamnet Shakespeare.^[16]

Hamnet also appears as a character in the issue #19 of the Sandman comic book series.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Shakespeare's children and grandchildren