In this seminar, Fathom draws on essays from The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare, published by Cambridge University Press, together with other references, to offer an introduction to Shakespeare's life. Key events in his biography are sketched sketched of the political and religious world of the final years of the Tudor dynasty and London, where he spent much of his adult life, is explored, both as a dynamic commercial city and as a glamorous court where he is known to have performed.