Hamnet Shakespeare
9 August 1596) was the only son of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway.  He was the twin brother of Judith Shakespeare. He died at age 11.  How he died is not known. There are several ideas about a possible relationship between Hamnet and his father's play Hamlet. Other ideas state there is a relationship between Hamnet's death and the writing of King John, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, and Twelfth Night. These ideas of a relationship became popular as early as the 18th century.  They continued into the 1930s.  In the 1930s, thinkers who believed in modernism and New Criticism said the relationship did not matter.  Modernism and New Criticism thinkers believe that a writer's life does not change his writing.   More recently, as New Criticism has become less popular, the ideas about Hamnet and his father's work have been talked about again.