Youth and Marriage

Abstract

We can build up a picture of the kind of youth Shakespeare was from the information he drops as to his choices and preferences in his writings, though we must watch for corroboration from external evidence. After all a writer writes about his own experience — he cannot exclude himself from his work, even if he would. Even with a dramatist, instinctive affinities, unconscious preferences are revealed by tone and frequency of reference. And there are overtones, recognisable enough, when the writer is speaking for himself through one of his creations.