Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
The average life expectancy in Elizabethan England was about 40 years. Dang. No wonder the speaker of this sonnet is obsessed with death. (Source.)
Shakespeare's son Hamnet died of an unknown illness when he was just 11 years old. Yet another reason to add death to Big Willy's list of obsessions. (Source.)
And speaking of death, try this little factoid on for size: Shakespeare died on his 52nd birthday, April 23, 1616. Hey, he was an old man for his day and age. (Source.)
Some scholars think Shakespeare probably wrote the sonnets in the 1590's when the plague closed down the theaters between 1592 and 1594. The outbreak killed about 11,000 people. Yikes. (Source.)