Hamnet Shakespeare

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Hamnet's death record
Hamnet's death record

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] He died at age eleven of unknown causes. Some traditions maintain that Hamnet's death motivated his father to write the play Hamlet. However, the majority of scholars disagree with this tradition.

Contents

[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 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 was likely raised principally by his mother Anne in the Henley Street house belonging to his grandfather.

[edit] Connection to Hamlet

Hamnet died at the age of eleven and was buried in Stratford on August 11, 1596.[3][4] The traditional view is that speculation that grief over his only son's death may have spurred Shakespeare to write the tragedy Hamlet (composed 1599/1601) is in all likelihood incorrect; the name of the character in the play has a different derivation.[5] More recent scholarship, however, has emphasized that, while Hamlet has a separate 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.[6][7] The names Hamlet and Hamnet were considered virtually interchangeable, and Shakespeare even spelled Hamnet Sadler's first name as "Hamlett" in his will.[8]

[edit] References

  1. ^ 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.” 
  2. ^ 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[.]” 
  3. ^ a b Chambers, I. p.21. “[…] Hamnet was buried at Stratford on 11 August 1596.”
  4. ^ 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 Shakespeare's to extinction.”
  5. ^ 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.”
  6. ^ Greenblatt, Stephen (2004). Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN 0-393-05057-2.
  7. ^ Greenblatt, Stephen. "The Death of Hamnet and the Making of Hamlet". N.Y. Review of Books 51.16 (Oct. 21, 2004).
  8. ^ Shakespeare's Last Will and Testament.

[edit] External links


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Relatives of William Shakespeare