A Simple Bookshelf

Did William Shakespeare own a bookshelf?

It's known he read books and was a prolific playwright. He depended upon history books for his History plays. He adapted stories both from histoy and from fiction for his comedies and tragedies. The notion that he owned a bookshelf that contained these works of history and fiction is perhaps fanciful and too much a flight of the imagination. The truth is he could have used the books of friends and collegues. He may have owned numerous bookshelves in his home and owned hundreds of books.

Shakespeare was a gifted poet and dramatist. He had the entirety of English and European literature at his disposal. He also knew and worked with the most gifted writers and playwrights of his generation.

Through the study of Shakespeare's plays, his sources, his life, his education at English Grammar Schools, and the reading habits of Elizabethan society, this amazing fact emerges: A single bookshelf can accomodate both the classics of Greece and Rome along with the most popular books of Elizabethan England. The sources for Shakespeare's plays can all fit upon a couple shelves of a single bookshelf. There would be plenty of shelfspace left for other popular texts at the time, such as English novels, collections of poetry, translations of Greek and Roman classics, and translations of works of European literature, philosophy, and drama.

Elizabethan society in the 1500s loved books. Elizabethans were voracious readers. They read European authors translated into English, the classics of Greece and Rome, as well as English authors, novelwriters, playwrights, and poets.

Education during the English Renaissance also experienced a renaissance. The Public Grammar Schools that were the equivilent of today's public schools taught students in the reading and writing of Latin. Grammar school students studyied classics of Roman and Greek literature, philosophy, and The Arts. Universities such as Oxford and Cambridge had extensive libraries that included the classics of the Greeks and Romans.

Shakespeare was inspired by classical and contemporary sources. These sources were widely read by both the academics and the reading public of Elizabethan London. Books were not only popular during the English Renaissance, but also the Italain Renaissance. Books were in high demand, and there were printers and booksellers who made books available to the reading public.

Libraries at the time, both at universities and in private houses, were filled with books. Shakespeare himself was a prolific playwright, but by historical measures there were more prolific playwrights in Ancient Greece. Today, there are many authors who have written more books than Shakespeare had written plays.

So while the idea of a single bookshelf is a simplification of the full complexity of Elizabethan society, and of Shakespeare's life, it is a starting point for a discussion on Shakespeare's art, and the knowledge and wisdom of his times.