29 research outputs found
William Shakeshafte, Player
No full textOn 3 August 1581, the Lancashire gentleman Alexander Hoghton made a will which mentions a servant named ‘William Shakeshafte’. Many biographies of Shakespeare, including Stephen Greenblatt’s Will in the World, believe that this record refers to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon Avon in Warwickshire, then aged 17, while other biographies flatly disagree. Defining questions of Shakespeare’s religious, geographical, and dramatic affiliations, it is perhaps the most important crux of Shakespeare’s early biography. This essay reconsiders a rival candidate to be Shakeshafte, the William Shakeshaft of Preston and Cadley (fl.1562–1609) who is recorded in Preston at the date of the will. First reviewing the current state of the debate around the Shakeshafte theory, it then offers biographical sketches of the ten annuitants other than Shakeshafte, putting them into the context of the list of servants given by the will. It describes the William Shakeshaft, or rather William Shakeshafts, recorded in Preston in 1582, and their multiple possible links to the will. Building on work by Glyn Parry, it argues that the Shakeshafts have multiple links to the Hoghtons; and to some of the other annuitants; and also have themselves a possible involvement in drama
Annual health checks for people with learning disabilities - step by step toolkit
No full textPurpose of the Step by Step toolkit for annual health checks for people with learning disabilities:
People with learning disabilities (LD) have poorer physical and mental health than other people and die younger. Many of these deaths are avoidable and not inevitable.
Annual Health Checks can identify undetected health conditions early, ensure the appropriateness of ongoing treatments and establish trust and continuity care.
GPs and practice nurses have the much needed generalist skills to help people with LD get timely access to increasing complex health systems.
Who is this toolkit for?
The toolkit collects guidance and resources to help GPs, practice nurses and the primary administration team organise and perform quality Annual Health Checks on people with a learning disability.
The toolkit has been developed in partnership with the Clinical Innovation And Research Centre
Physical Health in people with Intellectual disabilities
No full textPeople with intellectual disabilities have a shorter life expectancy and an increased mortality rate across all ages compared to the general population. The main contributors to the health inequalities experienced by people with intellectual disabilities include:
(1) Social determinants such as poverty and unemployment;
(2) Health problems related to intellectual disabilities (such as congenital abnormalities related to people with moderate to profound intellectual disabilities);
(3) Limited communication and health literacy skills, which may reduce their capacity to understand and convey health needs effectively to others;
(4) Personal health risks related to diet and sedentary lifestyle; and
(5) Organisational barriers to accessing mainstream health car
Shakespeare in purgatory : a study of the Catholicising movement in Shakespeare biography
No full textThe twentieth and the twenty-first centuries have Catholicised Shakespeare. At the
heart of this movement lie the so-called Lancastrian theories: that Shakespeare spent
some time during his `lost years' in Lancashire and that he is to be identified with
`Will[i]am Shakeshafte' in the will of the Catholic magnate, Alexander Hoghton of
Lea. Although the proponents of the theories - aptly called `Lancastrians' - agree in
terms of the identification of `Shakeshafte' with Shakespeare, their arguments vary
and sometimes even contradict each other. We have, therefore, Lancastrian theories
(plural). They are attempts to investigate the whereabouts of Shakespeare during the
`lost years' and to find out the means by which he entered the London theatre.
The Lancastrian theories can be seen in part as a counter-movement against
recent Shakespeare scholarship that has been preoccupied with theory. Paradoxically,
another stimulus for the revival of biographical studies is literary critics' interest in
early modem history, which materialist criticism, especially new historicism, has
brought in since the 1980s. Religion has become a major issue in Shakespeare studies.
The modem historiography of the English Reformation, especially `revisionism',
which emphasises the continuation of medieval Catholicism after the Reformation,
has provided significant energy for the development of the Lancastrian theories.
Furthermore, the Lancastrians have their own agenda - personal ambitions and
motivations, some of which are not altogether scholarly.
However, these theories are for the most part based on a chain of speculations,
and tend to state them as fact. The biographers, whether Lancastrians or not, who
believe Shakespeare and his family to have been Catholics are unfamiliar with the
religious condition in Elizabethan England, including anti-Catholic acts and the
penalties imposed on recusants. Their arguments also neglect other Elizabethan
customs. These biographers' lack of profound knowledge of socio-political and
religious history of Elizabethan England has produced inaccurate dramatisation of
Shakespeare's life. One other disabling tendency among these biographers is to
neglect negative evidence and disregard alternative interpretations. Their approaches
to Shakespeare biography simplify the complexity of documentary evidence and
produce narrowness of view.
In Elizabethan England a series of continuous religious negotiations and
renegotiations took place. Through this struggle, the clear-cut division between
Catholicism and Protestantism was deconstructed, and there emerged `religious
pluralism' -a compromise between Catholicism and Protestantism. It was in this
complex matrix that Shakespeare was born, grew up and wrote plays and poems. It is
against this cultural background that we should study Shakespeare's life (or lives)
