The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare | ‘lost years’ of William Shakespeare
‘lost years’ of William Shakespeare. The period between 1585, when Shakespeare's twins were baptized in Stratford, and 1592, when Robert Greene obliquely alluded to him in his Groatsworth of Wit, are often known as the ‘lost years’, since there is no documentary evidence about him except in a reference in a court case involving Edmund Lambert. A starting date of 1585 for this period presupposes that he remained in Stratford until his family was established, but some conjectures about his employment, whether in or out of Stratford, before he became an actor concern the period between leaving school—whenever that was—and marrying. Dowdall reported that he had been apprenticed to a butcher. Malone, who had been a barrister, deduced that he must have been employed ‘in the office of some country attorney’, and many others, including E. I. Fripp (who thought that legal imagery often obtruded inartistically into the works), agreed. Duff Cooper...
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