Hamnet Shakespeare was the only son of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, and the fraternal
twin of Judith Shakespeare. He died at age 11. Some Shakespearean scholars speculate
on the relationship between Hamnet and his father's later play Hamlet, as well as on
possible connections between Hamnet's death and the writing of King John, Romeo and Juliet,
Julius Caesar, and Twelfth Night.
Life
Little is known about Hamnet. Hamnet and his twin sister Judith were born in Stratford-upon-Avon
and baptised on 2 February 1585 in Holy Trinity Church by Richard Barton of Coventry. The
twins were likely named after friends of their parents, Hamnet Sadler, a baker, who witnessed
Shakespeare's will, and his wife, Judith. According to the record of his baptism on
23rd March 1560 in the Register of Solihull he was christened 'Hamlette Sadler', and Shakespeare
himself spelled Sadler's first name as "Hamlett" in his will.
He was likely raised principally by his mother Anne in the Henley Street house belonging
to his grandfather. By the time Hamnet was four, his father was
already a London playwright, and as his popularity grew, he was probably not regularly at home
in Stratford with his family. Honan believes that Hamnet may have completed Lower School,
which would have been normal, before his death at the age of eleven. He was buried in Stratford
on 11 August 1596. At that time in England about a third of all children died before
age 10. Connection to Hamlet and other plays
Scholars have long speculated how William Shakespeare's writing was influenced by his
son's death, or whether it was at all. Unlike his contemporary Ben Jonson, who wrote a lengthy
piece on the death of his own son, Shakespeare, if he wrote anything in response, did so more
subtly. At the time his son died, Shakespeare was writing primarily comedies, and that writing
continued until a few years after Hamnet's death, when his major tragedies were written.
It is possible that his tragedies gained depth from his experience.
Biographical readings, in which critics would try to connect passages in the plays and sonnets
to specific events in Shakespeare's life, are at least as old as the Romantic Period.
Many famous writers, scholars, and critics from the 18th to the early 20th century pondered
the connection between Hamnet's death and Shakespeare's plays. These scholars and critics
included Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Edward Dowden, and Dover Wilson, among others. In 1931, C.
J. Sisson stated that such interpretations had "gone too far". In 1934, Shakespeare scholar
R. W. Chambers agreed, saying that Shakespeare's most cheerful work was written after his son's
death, making a connection doubtful. In the mid-to-late 20th century, it became increasingly
unpopular for critics to connect events in author's lives with their work, not just for
Shakespeare, but for all writing. More recently, however, as the ideas of the New Criticism
have lost prominence, biographical interpretations of Hamnet's relationship to his father's work
have begun to re-emerge. Some theories about Hamnet's influence on
his father's plays are centered on the tragedy Hamlet. The traditional view is that speculation
that grief over his only son's death may have spurred Shakespeare to write the play, composed
in 1599 or 1601, is in all likelihood incorrect. Although the names Hamlet and Hamnet were
considered virtually interchangeable, and Shakespeare's own will spelled Hamnet Sadler's
first name as "Hamlett", the name of the character in the play has a different derivation. Prince
Hamlet's name is more often thought to be related to the Amleth character in Saxo Grammaticus'
Vita Amlethi, an old Scandinavian legend that is very similar to Shakespeare's story. More
recent scholarship has argued that, while Hamlet has a Scandinavian origin and may have
been selected as a play subject for commercial reasons, Shakespeare's grief over the loss
of his only son may lie at the heart of the tragedy. Of particular interest is the account
made by the Chamberlains of Stratford, John Taylor and John Shakespeare, on 24 January
1562/3, which includes a payment from Mr Sadler, and, amongst the usual expenses, they had
received 2s. 6d. from ‘amblet’ for his chamber. Hamlet Sadler was scarce two years
old, so it is unlikely to be him, and the other chambers were rented to Mother Margaret,
who kept the church, and the recorder of London, who was visiting at the time.
Speculation over Hamnet's influence on Shakespeare's works is not limited to Hamlet. Richard Wheeler
theorises that Hamnet's death influenced the writing of Twelfth Night, which centres on
a girl who believes that her twin brother has died. In the end, she finds that her brother
never died, but is alive and well. Wheeler also posits the idea that the women who disguise
themselves as men in The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night are a representation
of William Shakespeare's seeing his son's hope in his daughters after Hamnet's death.
Bill Bryson argues that Constance's speech from the third act of King John was inspired
by Hamnet's death. In the speech she laments the loss of her son, Arthur. It is possible,
though, that Hamnet was still alive when Constance's lament was written. Many other plays of Shakespeare's
have theories surrounding Hamnet. These include questions as to whether a scene in Julius
Caesar, in which Caesar adopts Mark Antony as a replacement for his dead son is related
to Hamnet's death, or whether Romeo and Juliet is a tragic reflection of the loss of a son,
or Alonso's guilt over his son's death in The Tempest is related. Sonnet 37 may have
also been written in response to Hamnet's death. Shakespeare says in it, "As a decrepit
father takes delight / To see his active child do deeds of youth / So I, made lame by fortune's
dearest spight / Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth." Still, if this is an allusion
to Hamnet, it is a vague one. The grief can echo also in one of the most painful passages
Shakespeare ever wrote, in the end of King Lear where the ruined monarch recognizes his
daughter is dead: No, no, no life! / Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, / And thou
no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more, / Never, never, never, never, never!
Michael Wood suggests in In Search of Shakespeare that sonnet 33 might have nothing to do with
the so-called Fair Youth sonnets, that it alludes to the death of the poet's son, Hamnet
in 1596 at age 11, and that there is an implied pun on "sun" and "son": "Even so my sun one
early morn did shine, with all triumphant splendour on my brow; but out, alack, he was
but one hour mine, the region cloud hath mask'd him from me now". If this is the case the
link of sonnet 33 with sonnet 34, sonnet 35 and sonnet 36 would be entirely coincidental
and spurious. Note that in sonnet 33 there is no overt "you" or "thou" and there is no
mention of the supposed "fault" committed by the addressee towards the poet nor of the
supposed "guilt" borne by the poet which may affect the addressee's reputation.
References
External links Shakespeare's children and grandchildren