{"id":218215,"date":"2025-12-06T08:08:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T08:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/218215\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T08:08:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T08:08:14","slug":"the-son-he-lost-and-the-marriage-history-forgot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/218215\/","title":{"rendered":"the son he lost and the marriage history forgot"},"content":{"rendered":"

The film and television<\/a> world\u2019s appetite for stories based on real events has revealed a familiar paradox in recent decades: creators who cling too closely to what actually happened, replicating every detail in an effort to reproduce real-life drama, often end up with a dry, sanitized and lifeless version of the original story. By contrast, works that leave room for interpretation or imagination allow their creators to take bold leaps, giving the final product new and intriguing meaning.<\/p>\n

Hamnet, Maggie O\u2019Farrell\u2019s novel, is a prime example. O\u2019Farrell built a human, emotionally rich drama out of one sparsely documented historical fact: the death of Hamnet Shakespeare, an 11-year-old boy in the 16th century. The only contemporary record is a single line that does not even mention a cause of death.<\/p>\n

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A 19th-century German engraving showing Shakespeare as a family man, surrounded by his wife Anne and children listening to his stories <\/p>\n

(Photo: By Perine, George Edward, 1837-1885, printmaker. – engraved for the Eclectic by Perine & Giles., Public Domain)<\/p>\n

Most likely, William Shakespeare<\/a>, the famed English playwright, was not present at his son\u2019s funeral in the summer of 1596. Records from the time indicate he was touring in Kent. His mother, Shakespeare\u2019s wife Anne (Agnes) Hathaway \u2014 who happens to share a name with the modern actress<\/a> \u2014 his twin sister Judith, his older sister Susanna and a few close relatives were presumably there. Shakespeare\u2019s family remained in their hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon while he lived in London or traveled on tour with his acting company.<\/p>\n

Hamnet was not the couple\u2019s first child. Shakespeare was 18 and Hathaway 26 when they married, with her already three months pregnant. The rushed ceremony, held away from town and under a special license, has led many scholars to believe the marriage arose from necessity rather than romance. Their first child, Susanna, was followed by the twins. When Hamnet was born, Shakespeare still lived in Stratford, but by the time his son was a young boy, he had begun building his theatrical career in London. Scholars estimate that by the time Hamnet turned four, his father was away from home for long stretches \u2014 a common situation in Elizabethan England \u2014 leaving his mother and grandparents as the central figures in the boy\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

Researchers believe Hamnet died of the plague, the same disease that wiped out a fifth of Stratford\u2019s population the year Shakespeare was born, or of another infectious illness. The town was a breeding ground for disease in that era, and epidemics swept through regularly throughout the 16th century. Hamnet was buried at Holy Trinity Church, which still attracts tourists today because Shakespeare himself was baptized there.<\/p>\n

His death was not unusual for the period \u2014 nearly a third of children died before age 15 \u2014 but such frequency did not lessen the depth of parental grief. Shakespeare returned to London, while Agnes stayed in Stratford with their daughters. With some imagination, one can trace the emotional impact of Hamnet\u2019s death in the plays Shakespeare later produced.<\/p>\n

The playwright never confirmed that Hamlet was directly shaped by his son\u2019s death. Up to that year, he had focused mainly on comedies, and he continued writing them afterward, producing works like The Merry Wives of Windsor, As You Like It and Much Ado About Nothing. The exception was King John, a tragedy many scholars date to the year Hamnet died, which includes a shattering monologue by Constance, a grieving mother mourning her son Arthur: \u201cGrief fills the room up of my absent child\u2026 puts on his pretty looks\u2026 stuffs out his vacant garments with his form; then, have I reason to be fond of grief?\u201d.<\/p>\n

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William Shakespeare, 1610 <\/p>\n

(Illustration: John Taylor)<\/p>\n

Later came King Lear \u2014 with its devastated father mourning his beloved daughter \u2014 as well as Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Othello and other tragedies. But scholars have invested most energy in exploring the link between Shakespeare\u2019s grief and Hamlet, for obvious reasons: the near-identical names (in that era, \u201cHamlet\u201d and \u201cHamnet\u201d were considered variants of the same name) and the themes woven through the play. The plot, in case you avoided the high-school summary, follows Prince Hamlet of Denmark, who is commanded by the ghost of his murdered father to avenge his death after Hamlet\u2019s uncle Claudius kills the king and marries his mother, Gertrude. The prince\u2019s tortured hesitation drives the play toward its tragic end.<\/p>\n

Although Shakespeare\u2019s own circumstances were inverted \u2014 a father grieving for a son rather than a son mourning a father \u2014 Hamlet stages an encounter between a father\u2019s spirit and his son. This gives Shakespeare a way to process his own grief by reversing roles, placing himself emotionally in the position of the bereaved son. Through this device, he explores unresolved mourning, guilt, helplessness \u2014 feelings that may have haunted him because he was absent when his son died \u2014 as well as the fraught bond between father and child. And he leaves behind the haunting plea at the heart of the play: \u201cRemember me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Irish author Maggie O\u2019Farrell fell in love with Hamlet as a teenager, a fascination that eventually grew into a desire to write a historical novel about the man who created it. While reviewing Shakespeare biographies, some of them hefty volumes, she was stunned to discover that across hundreds of pages, Shakespeare\u2019s son Hamnet appeared only twice at best: at his birth and at his death. She noticed the timing of Hamlet\u2019s release, about four or five years after the family tragedy, and became drawn to the question that would become her main creative engine: how did Shakespeare\u2019s wife feel knowing her husband wrote a play and named it after her dead son?<\/p>\n

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Writer Maggie O’Farrell <\/p>\n

(Photo: AP Photo\/Alastair Grant, File)<\/p>\n

O\u2019Farrell had a complicated relationship with that question. More than once during her research, she decided to abandon it and move on to other projects. Having experienced several life-threatening medical crises herself (including an infectious inflammation of the brain tissue), she could understand the emotions that must have overwhelmed Mrs. Shakespeare, but she also knew that to write the book, she would have to \u201cplace herself in the mind of a woman forced to sit beside her child\u2019s bed and watch him die.\u201d O\u2019Farrell raised a son and two daughters, just like Shakespeare\u2019s family, and knew she would inevitably think of her own son while shaping Hamnet\u2019s character. She decided not to begin the novel until he passed the age of 11. It took three more books before she returned to Agnes Shakespeare and her profound grief.<\/p>\n

To keep the focus from drifting to William Shakespeare \u2014 the celebrity in the story \u2014 she avoided using his name, calling him \u201cthe husband,\u201d \u201cthe father,\u201d or \u201cJohn and Mary\u2019s son.\u201d For Anne Hathaway, she restored her original name, Agnes, as recorded in her father Richard\u2019s will.<\/p>\n

But she was not starting from scratch. History had already formed a certain view of Agnes, and O\u2019Farrell had to dismantle it before rebuilding her according to her own vision. The hasty marriage, the fact that Shakespeare spent most of his life away from his wife and the complete absence of written documentation \u2014 no letters, diaries or even hints in his plays \u2014 about their emotional relationship pushed scholars to assume that even if the marriage was stable, it lacked passion or affection. Some even claimed Anne trapped Shakespeare in a marriage he did not want, or as O\u2019Farrell put it, \u201cthey tried to give Shakespeare a retroactive divorce.\u201d<\/p>\n

The frustration and anger these claims stirred in O\u2019Farrell were enough to convince her to restore Agnes\u2019s dignity on the page. She knew there was no evidence that Shakespeare despised his wife, and that after retiring from theater in 1613, even though he had amassed enough wealth to live anywhere he wished, he chose to return to his home in Stratford. She also relied on Shakespeare\u2019s will, in which he left Anne \u201cthe second-best bed,\u201d meaning their shared marital bed (the best bed in the house was reserved for guests).<\/p>\n

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From ‘Shakespeare in Love’ <\/p>\n

(Photo: Courtesy of yes)<\/p>\n

O\u2019Farrell set out to strip from readers everything they thought they knew about the woman left behind and give her literary justice. In her view, Agnes\u2019s motives \u2014 marrying a very young, impoverished teacher \u2014 were nothing less than noble: she saw the spark of Shakespeare\u2019s talent and predicted his success. The novel grants Agnes unusual abilities as an herbal healer and seer, as well as an act of profound generosity: O\u2019Farrell\u2019s Agnes initiates the painful separation between father and family, allowing him to pursue his creative potential as an actor, playwright and director.<\/p>\n

Beyond the unimaginable loss of a child, Hamnet\u2019s death likely produced enormous guilt for his mother, a woman believed to have healing powers who could not save him. She does everything she can \u2014 including using herbs and extreme folk remedies, such as tying a toad to his stomach \u2014 but nothing works. Agnes has no one with whom to share her grief. Shakespeare is portrayed as a restless soul driven by a need to escape the shadow of his abusive father, John Shakespeare. His absence intensifies the emotional and practical burden on Agnes, who remains in Stratford to shoulder the mourning alone.<\/p>\n

The novel\u2019s dramatic climax, published in 2020, comes when Agnes travels to London and watches her husband play the ghost of Hamlet\u2019s father. At first, she is horrified by his choice of name, but as she watches, she realizes Shakespeare channeled his grief and guilt into the play, transforming it into an act of atonement and remembrance. He takes on the role of the dead and gives life to his son. The absent father in life becomes the present father in death, onstage.<\/p>\n

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From ‘Hamlet’ <\/p>\n

(Photo: PR)<\/p>\n

Hamnet moves between two timelines: the courtship of William and Agnes and their family life in Stratford; and the summer of 1596, when Judith, the twin sister, falls ill with the plague and Hamnet tries to save her, leading to his death and the family\u2019s collapse. Unlike traditional period dramas, O\u2019Farrell does not focus on political history. There is no queen, no court, no banquets \u2014 only home, fields, labor and illness, or as one wise man put it, \u201cpeople, work, poop and pee.\u201d Agnes\u2019s world and her deep connection to nature and healing offer a feminine counterpoint to her husband\u2019s art. Hamnet is ultimately about what the death of a child does to parents, to a marriage and to the experience of time itself, and whether any glimmer of hope can help them grow from shared trauma \u2014 to be or not to be.<\/p>\n

Hamnet quickly became a commercial and critical success, winning awards and solidifying its appeal as a candidate for adaptation. The adaptation soon followed, with O\u2019Farrell co-writing the screenplay and Steven Spielberg among the producers. In the film, Jessie Buckley plays Agnes, and Paul Mescal (Normal People, another bestselling adaptation) portrays William Shakespeare. Hamnet is played by Jacobi Jupe (Peter Pan & Wendy). The film is directed and edited by Oscar-winning Chlo\u00e9 Zhao (Nomadland). For the Hamlet performance scenes, a scaled-down replica of the Globe Theatre was built, complete with hundreds of extras as the audience. The timeline jumps of the novel were streamlined into a more linear structure, thankfully, allowing viewers to immerse themselves in the relationships and the grief.<\/p>\n

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Chlo\u00e9 Zhao and Steven Spielberg <\/p>\n

(Photo: Chris Pizzello\/Invision\/AP)<\/p>\n

From a historical footnote to a bestselling novel (and a stage adaptation) and now a Hollywood film, Hamnet is part of a broader trend that seeks narratives that humanize historical icons, focusing on the human cost of artistic genius and the relationships that shaped their work. These stories aim to illuminate the nature of humanity rather than celebrate professional achievement in isolation. They also spotlight overlooked figures whose influence on history\u2019s central characters was anything but marginal. \u201cI\u2019ve always thought that the biggest tragedy, the biggest drama of his life \u2014 of Shakespeare\u2019s life \u2014 happened off stage in Stratford, at home,\u201d O\u2019Farrell said in an interview with the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. \u201cThat was with the death of his son.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The film and television world\u2019s appetite for stories based on real events has revealed a familiar paradox in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[18,117,19,17,327],"class_list":{"0":"post-218215","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-movies"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}