\n<\/p>\n
Any clue about William Shakespeare\u2019s life usually excites scholars, but one piece of evidence had been neglected for decades. Now, a new analysis of that overlooked document seems to shatter a longstanding narrative about the Bard\u2019s bad marriage.<\/p>\n
Shakespeare was 18 in 1582 when he married Anne Hathaway<\/a>, the daughter of a family friend in Stratford-upon-Avon who was in her mid-20s and pregnant. For centuries, it was thought that the writer left his wife and children behind for a literary life in London, seeking to avoid \u201cthe humiliation of domestic feuds,\u201d as one influential 19th-century essayist put it.<\/p>\n This view of Shakespeare\u2019s wife as a \u201cdistant encumbrance\u201d suited scholars who thought \u201cShakespeare was far too interesting to be a married guy,\u201d Matthew Steggle, a literature professor at the University of Bristol in England, said in an interview. The perception was bolstered by the fact that Shakespeare had left her his \u201csecond best bed\u201d in his will.<\/p>\n But Mr. Steggle\u2019s new research, expected to be published this week in the journal Shakespeare, suggests that the writer was not detached from his marriage after all.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The hint lies in a fragment of a 17th-century letter addressing a \u201cMrs Shakspaire,\u201d found in the binding of a book published in 1608. The letter\u2019s existence was noted in 1978 by an amateur historian, but it got minimal attention, even after the book was unbound in 2016, revealing what appeared to be part of a reply from Shakespeare\u2019s wife, Mr. Steggle said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He was working on a Shakespeare biography when he learned of the 1978 find, and was surprised it wasn\u2019t better known. Technological advances allowed him to track down people mentioned in the long-ago correspondence, along with other evidence indicating that it included the playwright\u2019s wife, he said.<\/p>\n If the letter really was addressed to the <\/em>Mrs. Shakespeare, rather than a lesser-known person with a similar name, \u201cit is self-evidently remarkable,\u201d Mr. Steggle said. It not only gives some previously unknown Shakespeare contacts, but also offers new clues about their relationship, and even suggests that Mrs. Shakespeare lived for a time in London with her husband.<\/p>\n If Hathaway did live in London, she was possibly back in Stratford by the time she received the letter, likely around 1607 \u2014 though not necessarily because her husband wanted independence, according to Mr. Steggle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He proposes in his paper that \u201cthere is an obvious reason to avoid London in 1603-4, namely the very bad wave of plague.\u201d In addition, the upcoming arrival of the Shakespeares\u2019 first grandchild after their daughter Susanna\u2019s 1607 marriage \u201cwould surely be a good time\u201d for Hathaway to be based back in Stratford.<\/p>\n Mr. Steggle suggests that Mrs. Shakespeare\u2019s movements should be reconsidered with an eye to her \u201cpossible absences from London rather than her perpetual absence.\u201d<\/p>\n The note to Mrs. Shakespeare concerned money for a fatherless child named John, who was an apprentice, though not under the famous playwright, with the last name \u201cButte\u201d or \u201cButts.\u201d It called upon her to pay money that was most likely held in trust for him, a pledge that her husband may have undertaken, and it referred to a time when she \u201cdwelt in trinitie lane,\u201d which Mr. Steggle now believes refers to a location in London.<\/p>\n The book that held the letter was a 1608 text printed by Richard Field, a native of Stratford who was Shakespeare\u2019s associate, neighbor and first printer, according to Mr. Steggle. Wastepaper was commonly used in bookbinding, and \u201cgiven Field\u2019s extensive known links to the Shakespeares,\u201d the discovery of their family documents in a work he published indicates it was likely addressed to the famous Mrs. Shakespeare, Mr. Steggle said. Notably, the response, which appears to come from her, sounds \u201corganized, businesslike and rather sarcastic,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n As for John Butts, the child in the letter, his name did appear in a 1607 record of an institution that disciplined disobedient apprentices, among other records, and Mr. Steggle said his surname did arise in \u201cShakespeare\u2019s extended personal network.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe stakes are high,\u201d Mr. Steggle writes in his paper. \u201cThis letter, if it belongs to them, offers a glimpse of the Shakespeares together in London, both involved in social networks and business matters, and, on the occasion of this request, presenting a united front against importunate requests to help poor orphans.\u201d<\/p>\n His findings lend some heft to feminist readings of Shakespeare\u2019s life and a pop culture trend, as seen in the popular stage musical \u201c& Juliet<\/a>,\u201d as well as the acclaimed novel \u201cHamnet,<\/a>\u201d of rethinking the marriage and Hathaway\u2019s role in it.<\/p>\n In the musical, Hathaway comes to London from Stratford to attend a performance of \u201cRomeo & Juliet\u201d and annoys her husband by suggesting an alternate ending in which Juliet does not die. The novel depicts the couple\u2019s complex relationship and their shared grief over the death of their son.<\/p>\n Like those reinterpretations, the four-century-old letter undermines long-held premises about the playwright\u2019s life. For Shakespeare biographers \u201cwho favor the narrative of the \u2018disastrous marriage\u2019\u201d \u2014 and even those who do not \u2014 the document \u201cshould be a horrible, difficult problem,\u201d Mr. Steggle\u2019s paper concludes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n