William Shakespeare in London

WHO DID SHAKESPEARE KNOW IN LONDON?

• The above picture is a section of Faed's painting called 'Shakespeare and his Contemporaries'
• This painting is also known as Shakespeare and His Friends at the Mermaid Tavern
• The full picture below features the contemporaries, friends and rivals of William Shakespeare!

- Shakespeare is seated in the centre
- The standing figure on Shakespeare's left is that of Sir Walter Raleigh
- He leans on the shoulder of the Earl of Southampton
- Seated in the right foreground with his back to the spectator is Sir Robert Cotton, with Thomas Dekker on his right
- The figures seated immediately behind Shakespeare are Ben Jonson, Donne, and Daniel
- The figure seated at the rear of the table is Bacon, and with him are seated Fletcher, Dorset and Camden
- In the rear of the seated group stands Beaumont with hand extended and next to him stands Selden with Sylvester on the spectator's extreme left.

• Elizabethan taverns, which also served as restaurants and inns for travellers, also offered private rooms that patrons could rent for eating and drinking, gambling, and as general meeting places
• One of these tavern rooms was rented by a literary group, known as the Friday Street Club, that met on the first Friday of every month at the Mermaid tavern
• It became the gathering place for actors, playwrights, authors and poets
• This a literary club first begun in 1603 and is said to have been started by Sir Walter Raleigh
• The Mermaid Tavern was located in Cheapside, to the east of St. Paul's Cathedral
• It had entrances from both Friday Street and Bread Street hence the name the "Friday Street Club" which was also known as the "Mermaid Club"
• Members of the Friday Street Club included Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher. John Donne, Robert Herrick, John Selden and Sir Walter Raleigh
• They met on the first Friday of every month!

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