Jul 26, 2008

Shakespeare's Work | The Life: A Survey

In November 1582 the eighteen-year-old Shakespeare was given a special dispensation to marry a local girl from Shottery, a hamlet about one mile west of Stratford. The facts about the marriage are well known, although their significance has been much debated. Less familiar are the verses addressed by Anne Hathaway to her spouse, which Richard Fenton—attorney, poet, topographer, and historian of the Welsh counties—reported in 1811 having found in a manuscript quarto volume that he had acquired at auction in Wales. One goes like this:

From my throne in Willie's love,
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