The name ARDEN is often associated with Shakespeare's life and writing. This is usually in connection with the Forest of Arden or with WS's family, especially on his mother, Mary Arden's side.
The Forest of Arden is an area in Warwickshire, 'Shakespeare's County', as the local road signs proudly proclaim, in the centre of England. According to Norrie Epstein in The Friendly Shakespeare, this forest is:
a sylvan sanatorium for the politically exiled, the lovelorn, and assorted undesirables. It's not like any geographical place, its topography being a fantastical mixture of flora and fauna, including snakes, lions and palm trees. Anything can appen in what the actress Janet Suzman calls "this improbable forest where a lot of crazy people are having an engagement party.
In the Forest of Arden
'Billets-doux grow' on trees, one woman falls in love with another, an evil duke undergoes a miraculous conversion, and feuding brothers are suddenly reconciled...[In "As You Like It"] Celia finds a husband,Touchstone finds a wife, and Rosalind is reunited with the banished father and the lover she thought she'd never see again.
Arden was also the surname of WS's mother, Mary, who married John Shakespeare, a probably illiterate glover, who traded in among other commodities, barley, timber and wool. He made himself a good catch as Mary Arden came from a rich Catholic family, but this religious aspect of their life was to prove potentially dangerous in the future. Mary gave birth to eight children: Joan, Margaret, William, Gilbert, Joan, Anne, Richard and Edmund. Unfortunately, the first Joan died very young and her sister, Anne, also died young at the age of eight.
Like WS, his youngest brother, Edmund, also became an actor and was buried (aged 27) at Southwark, near the Globe theatre.
Shakespeare musing in the Forest of Arden
Other members of the Arden family include Thomas Arden of Wilmcote, a village near Stratford-upon-Avon. He bought an estate in nearby Snitterfield which he bequeathed to his son, Robert, (Mary's father) in 1547. When Robert died nine years later in 1556, he left his chief property at Wilmcote and over six and-a half pounds (probably worth somewhere between 500-1,000 pounds in today's money) to Shakespeare's mother.
The Tudor house in Wilmcote nr. Stratford allegedly owned by
Mary Shakespeare.
The house at Wilmcote, billed as 'Mary Arden's cottage' is a major tourist attraction. However, in the spring of 2002, Dr. Nat Alcock wrote in the Shakespeare Quarterly that he'd discovered in the house's deeds and the local church records that the house was in fact owned by an Adam Palmer.
Next time I will write about the play, "As You Like it."
The Forest of Arden is an area in Warwickshire, 'Shakespeare's County', as the local road signs proudly proclaim, in the centre of England. According to Norrie Epstein in The Friendly Shakespeare, this forest is:
a sylvan sanatorium for the politically exiled, the lovelorn, and assorted undesirables. It's not like any geographical place, its topography being a fantastical mixture of flora and fauna, including snakes, lions and palm trees. Anything can appen in what the actress Janet Suzman calls "this improbable forest where a lot of crazy people are having an engagement party.
'Billets-doux grow' on trees, one woman falls in love with another, an evil duke undergoes a miraculous conversion, and feuding brothers are suddenly reconciled...[In "As You Like It"] Celia finds a husband,Touchstone finds a wife, and Rosalind is reunited with the banished father and the lover she thought she'd never see again.
Arden was also the surname of WS's mother, Mary, who married John Shakespeare, a probably illiterate glover, who traded in among other commodities, barley, timber and wool. He made himself a good catch as Mary Arden came from a rich Catholic family, but this religious aspect of their life was to prove potentially dangerous in the future. Mary gave birth to eight children: Joan, Margaret, William, Gilbert, Joan, Anne, Richard and Edmund. Unfortunately, the first Joan died very young and her sister, Anne, also died young at the age of eight.
Like WS, his youngest brother, Edmund, also became an actor and was buried (aged 27) at Southwark, near the Globe theatre.
Other members of the Arden family include Thomas Arden of Wilmcote, a village near Stratford-upon-Avon. He bought an estate in nearby Snitterfield which he bequeathed to his son, Robert, (Mary's father) in 1547. When Robert died nine years later in 1556, he left his chief property at Wilmcote and over six and-a half pounds (probably worth somewhere between 500-1,000 pounds in today's money) to Shakespeare's mother.
Mary Shakespeare.
The house at Wilmcote, billed as 'Mary Arden's cottage' is a major tourist attraction. However, in the spring of 2002, Dr. Nat Alcock wrote in the Shakespeare Quarterly that he'd discovered in the house's deeds and the local church records that the house was in fact owned by an Adam Palmer.
Next time I will write about the play, "As You Like it."
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