William Shakespeare and his wife Anne Hathaway had three children – Susannah and the twins Judith and Hamnet. In 1596, when the twins were 11, Hamnet died. A week after his son was buried in their hometown of Stratford, Shakespeare was back in London, working on a new play.
It seems odd to us today that the man would have hurried back so quickly to London after the funeral of his child. I suspect it might have seemed odd even in 1596. Your wife is grieving, your daughters are grieving, your still-living parents are grieving, and you rush back to work. We don’t know what might have been going on in Shakespeare’s mind, as he left no written record of his thoughts about his son’s death.
Or did he?
To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.
Some Tuesday Readings
The Murder Case in Arden of Faversham, the Greatest Shakespearean-Era Play You’ve Never Heard Of – Amnon Kabatchnik at CrimeReads.
Wings – artwork by Sonja Benskin Mesher.
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