Facts & Theories on Shakespeare's Education People who think it is impossible to simply accept that somebody they decide to try be a simple country boy may be the greatest literary genius with the English language often talk of him as being uneducated. Although very few
facts about Shakespeare are recognized for sure, nothing might be more wrong. It is a fact which he didn't go to university. He might have inked - probably Oxford - while he originated from a prominent Stratford family, descended, on his mother's side, from aristocracy - the Ardens of Park Hall.
However, equally as he was reaching school-leaving age - fourteen, age where other boys went along to university - his father's business was failing. That has been possibly associated with John Shakespeare's unwavering Catholicism, that was an unsafe position to take in those days and subject to discrimination and even persecution. We do not know much about the detail however the fact is that young William needed to be withdrawn at school.
So, like other Stratford boys, he attended the King Edward IV Grammar School where he'd the conventional national curriculum of times. Taught by Ushers (junior masters) or older pupils, the boys learnt the rudiments of Latin first, with all the Tudor text-book called Lily's Latin Grammar.
This short introduction to grammar, published by William Lily, had been authorized by Henry VIII since the sole Latin grammar textbook to use in schools. The first year of Elizabethan education might have contained learning parts of speech as well as verbs and nouns; the second year the guidelines of construction and forming sentences and also the third year could have concentrated on English-Latin and Latin-English translations Shakespeare might have had to be properly versed in Latin!
At the age of 10 the boys would leave the Ushers being taught from the Masters. They began studying the works with the great classical authors and dramatists, including Ovid, Plautus, Horace, Virgil, Cicero and Seneca. They studied the histories of Caesar, Sallust and Livy too, for moral example was believed highly relevant to life in Elizabethan England and thus a part of their education.
People who complain about Shakespeare's insufficient education are ignorant or ill-informed. If there's a very important factor we could say with factual accuracy about William Shakespeare is always that she must certainly have been a smart pupil. It's also evident that the King Edward 1V Grammar School in Stratford was obviously a great school. The salaries were £10 per year to get a Master and £40 annually for the Headmaster and these were comparable to one of the most prominent schools in England. The college therefore attracted excellent teachers and 2 of which rose to great heights by founding colleges. Richard Fox, who was appointed master at King Edward IV Grammar school in 1497, later became principal minister under Edward VII as Bishop of Winchester and founded Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Another master, William Smyth, founded Brasenose College. Two Oxford graduates, Ben Hunt and Thomas Jenkins, were employed as Masters of Elizabethan Education at that time William Shakespeare attended the King Edward IV Grammar school and could have taught the young William Shakespeare. It's clear that the education he received on the the King Edward IV Grammar school was of the good quality.