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Hamnet Shakespeare (baptised 2 February 1585 – buried 11 August 1596) was the only son of William...

Hamnet Shakespeare (baptised 2 February 1585 – buried 11 August 1596) was the only son of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, and the fraternal twin of Judith Shakespeare. He died at age eleven of unknown causes. There are several theories on the relationship, if any, between Hamnet and his father's later play Hamlet. Other theories postulate connections between Hamnet's death and the writing of King John, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, and Twelfth Night, among others. Such biographical theories connecting Hamnet to his father's work began to be popular as early as the 18th century and continued into the 1930s before being dismissed on the arrival of prominent, anti-biographical literary movements such as modernism and New Criticism. More recently, as New Criticism has lost favour among academics, theories surrounding Hamnet and his father's work have resurfaced. Relatively little is known about the short life of this child, who might have carried on the Shakespeare family name had he survived to adulthood. Hamnet and his twin sister Judith were born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised on 2 February 1585 in Holy Trinity Church by Richard Barton of Coventry. The twins were