William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564 – died 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.

William Shakespeare was born in April 1564 (traditionally celebrated on 23 April) in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, the eldest of four boys and two girls born to John Shakespeare, a trader and prominent local politician, and Mary Arden, the daughter of a landowner. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "The Bard"). His surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language, and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

In 1592, at the age of eighteen Shakespeare married Ann Hathaway, who was eight years his senior. Their daughters, Susanna, was born in 1583, followed by twins, Hamnet and Judith, in 1585.

Little is known about the next few years other than that he spent some time establishing himself as an actor and that by 1592 he had succeeded to prominence in London as both an actor and a writer. In 1594, Shakespeare became a charter member of the Chamberlain's Men, the theater company which later changed its name to the King's Men and included the famous clown, Will Kempe, and actor Richard Burbage. Shakespeare remained with this stable company until his retirement around 1611. After 1599, the King's Men acted primarily in The Globe, a theatre in which Shakespeare held a one-tenth interest.

The plague closed London theatres often in the years 1592-1594. During this time Shakespeare published the narrative poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece and he also began composing his sonnets. These sonnets eventually came to number 154 and were published in 1609. Like the plays, they retain a remarkable universality of themes expressed in metaphorically rich language.

The sonnets were Shakespeare's contribution to a popular poetic form of the times. Aside from them, however, after 1594, Shakespeare turned all his literary efforts to the stage. He completed an average of two plays a year, including The Two Gentlemen of Verona by 1595; Romeo and Juliet by 1596, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night by 1600; and Measure For Measure by 1605.

On 25 April 1616, Shakespeare was buried within the chancel of the same church in Stratford where he was christened. Above the grave are the lines, perhaps by the man himself:

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blessed be the man that spares these stones
And cursed be he that moves my bones.


William Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, in Stratford-upon-Avon, England.

Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the nineteenth century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians hero-worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry". In the twentieth century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are consistently performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.


William was the first writer to be honored, a hero in people's hearts.

England's celebration of their patron Saint George is on 23 April, which is also the day claimed to be the birth date of Shakespeare. Although birth and death dates were not recorded in Shakespeare's time, churches did record baptisms and burials, usually a few days after the actual event. The infant William was baptised on 26 April 1564 in the parish church Holy Trinity of Stratford upon Avon. He lived with his fairly well-to-do parents on Henley Street, the first of the four sons born to John Shakespeare (c1530-1601) and Mary Arden (c1540-1608), who also had four daughters. John Shakespeare was a local businessman and also involved in municipal affairs as Alderman and Bailiff, but a decline in his fortunes in his later years surely had an effect on William.