biography of william shakespeare in 300 words

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Short Biography William Shakespeare

Short bio of William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon on 23rd April 1564.

His father William was a successful local businessman, and his mother Mary was the daughter of a landowner. Relatively prosperous, it is likely the family paid for Williams education, although there is no evidence he attended university.

In 1582 William, aged only 18, married an older woman named Anne Hathaway. They had three children, Susanna, Hamnet and Juliet. Their only son Hamnet died aged just 11.

Due to some well-timed investments, Shakespeare was able to secure a firm financial background, leaving time for writing and acting. The best of these investments was buying some real estate near Stratford in 1605, which soon doubled in value.

It seemed Shakespeare didn’t mind being absent from his family – he only returned home during Lent when all the theatres were closed. It is thought that during the 1590s he wrote the majority of his sonnets. This was a time of prolific writing and his plays developed a good deal of interest and controversy. His early plays were mainly comedies (e.g. Much Ado about Nothing , A Midsummer’s Night Dream ) and histories (e.g. Henry V )

By the early Seventeenth Century, Shakespeare had begun to write plays in the genre of tragedy. These plays, such as Hamlet , Othello and King Lear , often hinge on some fatal error or flaw in the lead character and provide fascinating insights into the darker aspects of human nature. These later plays are considered Shakespeare’s finest achievements.

When writing an introduction to Shakespeare’s First Folio of published plays in 1623, Johnson wrote of Shakespeare:

“not of an age, but for all time”

Shakespeare the Poet

William Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets mostly in the 1590s. These short poems, deal with issues such as lost love. His sonnets have an enduring appeal due to his formidable skill with language and words.

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove:”

– Sonnet CXVI

The Plays of Shakespeare

The plays of Shakespeare have been studied more than any other writing in the English language and have been translated into numerous languages. He was rare as a play-write for excelling in tragedies, comedies and histories. He deftly combined popular entertainment with an extraordinary poetic capacity for expression which is almost mantric in quality.

 “This above all: to thine ownself be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!”

– Lord Polonius, Hamlet Act I, Scene 3

During his lifetime, Shakespeare was not without controversy, but he also received lavish praise for his plays which were very popular and commercially successful.

His plays have retained an enduring appeal throughout history and the world. Some of his most popular plays include:

• Twelfth Night
• Romeo and Juliet

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts…”

Death of Shakespeare

Shakespeare died in 1616; it is not clear how he died, and numerous suggestions have been put forward. John Ward, the local vicar of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford (where Shakespeare is buried), writes in a diary account that:

“Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting and it seems drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted.”

In 1616, there was an outbreak of typhus (“The new fever”) which may have been the cause. The average life expectancy of someone born in London, England in the Sixteenth Century was about 35 years old, Shakespeare died age 52.

Was Shakespeare really Shakespeare?

Some academics, known as the “Oxfords,” claim that Shakespeare never actually wrote any plays. They contend Shakespeare was actually just a successful businessman, and for authorship suggest names such as Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford .  Arguments have also been made for Francis Bacon . The argument that Shakespeare was actually the Earl of Oxford relies on circumstantial evidence and similarities in his writing style and relationships between his life and the play of Shakespeare. 

However, there is no hard evidence tying the Earl of Oxford to the theatre or writing the scripts.  By contrast, there is evidence of William Shakespeare working in theatres and he received a variety of criticism from people such as Ben Johnson and Robert Greene. Also, the Earl of Oxford died in 1604, and it is generally agreed there were 12 plays published after this date. (Oxfords contend these plays were finished by other writers.)

It is also hard to believe the vain Earl of Oxford (who killed one of his own servants) would write such amazing scripts and then be happy with anonymity. Also, to maintain anonymity, it would also require the co-operation of numerous family members and other figures in the theatre world. The theory of other writers to Shakespeare only emerged centuries after the publishing of the First Folio.

Shakespeare’s Epitaph

Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare To digg the dust encloased heare Blessed by y man y spares hes stones And curst be he y moves my bones

– More interesting facts on Shakespeare

Quotes on Shakespeare

“Shakespeare, no mere child of nature; no automaton of genius; no passive vehicle of inspiration possessed by the spirit, not possessing it; first studied patiently, meditated deeply, understood minutely, till knowledge became habitual and intuitive, wedded itself to his habitual feelings, and at length gave birth to that stupendous power by which he stands alone, with no equal or second in his own class; to that power which seated him on one of the two glorysmitten summits of the poetic mountain, with Milton’s his compeer, not rival.”

– Samuel Taylor Coleridge , Biographia Literaria (1817)

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “Biography of William Shakespeare”, Oxford, www.biographyonline.net , 18th May 2006. Last updated 1 March 2019.

Popular quotes of Shakespeare

“This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

– Polonius, giving Laertes a pep talk. ( Hamlet )

“To be, or not to be: that is the question Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them. To die: to sleep;”

– Hamlet

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”

– Hamlet (to Horatio on seeing a ghost)

“We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.”

– The Tempest (Prospero)

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”

Julius Caesar (Cassius to Brutus)

“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.”

– Macbeth (on learning of the death of Queen)

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

— Hamlet in Hamlet

“Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, as self-neglecting.”

—Dauphin in Henry V

“Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win, By fearing to attempt.”

—Lucio in Measure for Measure

The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition

The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition at Amazon

Shakespeare: The Biography

Shakespeare: The Biography at Amazon

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Early life in Stratford

• Career in the theatre
• Private life
• The tributes of his colleagues
• Anecdotes and documents
• The intellectual background
• Changes in language
• Shakespeare’s literary debts
• Theatrical conditions
• The dating of Shakespeare’s plays
• Publication
• Titus Andronicus
• The early romantic comedies
• The early histories
• Romantic comedies
• Completion of the histories
• Romeo and Juliet
• The “problem” plays
• Julius Caesar
• The tragedies
• The romances
• Collaborations and spurious attributions
• Shakespeare’s sources
• Questions of authorship
• Linguistic, historical, textual, and editorial problems
• Seventeenth century
• Eighteenth century
• Romantic critics
• Increasing importance of scholarship
• Historical criticism
• New Criticism
• New interpretive approaches
• Feminist criticism and gender studies
• Deconstruction
• Chronology of Shakespeare’s plays

How did Shakespeare die?

Why is shakespeare still important today.

William Shakespeare

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• Table Of Contents

What was Shakespeare's family like?

Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway , eight years his senior, when he was 18. They had three children: Susanna and twins Judith and Hamnet. Hamnet died at the age of 11.

How many plays did Shakespeare write?

There is some dispute about how many plays Shakespeare wrote. The general consensus is 37. 

How many sonnets did Shakespeare write?

Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets . The most famous include Sonnet 18, with opening lines “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?”, and Sonnet 130, which begins “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun.”

The cause of Shakespeare's death is unknown. However, the vicar of the local church wrote in his journal some fifty years later that “Shakespeare, Drayton , and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting, and it seems drank too hard; for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted.” The account cannot be verified but has led some scholars to speculate that Shakespeare may have died of typhus.

Shakespeare remains vital because his plays present people and situations that we recognize today. His characters have an emotional reality that transcends time, and his plays depict familiar experiences, ranging from family squabbles to falling in love to war. The fact that his plays are performed and adapted around the world underscores the universal appeal of his storytelling.

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William Shakespeare (baptized April 26, 1564, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England—died April 23, 1616, Stratford-upon-Avon) was a poet, dramatist, and actor often called the English national poet. He is considered by many to be the greatest dramatist of all time.

Shakespeare occupies a position unique in world literature . Other poets, such as Homer and Dante , and novelists, such as Leo Tolstoy and Charles Dickens , have transcended national barriers, but no writer’s living reputation can compare to that of Shakespeare, whose plays, written in the late 16th and early 17th centuries for a small repertory theatre , are now performed and read more often and in more countries than ever before. The prophecy of his great contemporary, the poet and dramatist Ben Jonson , that Shakespeare “was not of an age, but for all time,” has been fulfilled.

It may be audacious even to attempt a definition of his greatness, but it is not so difficult to describe the gifts that enabled him to create imaginative visions of pathos and mirth that, whether read or witnessed in the theatre, fill the mind and linger there. He is a writer of great intellectual rapidity, perceptiveness, and poetic power. Other writers have had these qualities, but with Shakespeare the keenness of mind was applied not to abstruse or remote subjects but to human beings and their complete range of emotions and conflicts. Other writers have applied their keenness of mind in this way, but Shakespeare is astonishingly clever with words and images, so that his mental energy, when applied to intelligible human situations, finds full and memorable expression, convincing and imaginatively stimulating. As if this were not enough, the art form into which his creative energies went was not remote and bookish but involved the vivid stage impersonation of human beings, commanding sympathy and inviting vicarious participation. Thus, Shakespeare’s merits can survive translation into other languages and into cultures remote from that of Elizabethan England .

Shakespeare the man

Although the amount of factual knowledge available about Shakespeare is surprisingly large for one of his station in life, many find it a little disappointing, for it is mostly gleaned from documents of an official character. Dates of baptisms , marriages , deaths , and burials ; wills , conveyances , legal processes, and payments by the court—these are the dusty details. There are, however, many contemporary allusions to him as a writer, and these add a reasonable amount of flesh and blood to the biographical skeleton.

The parish register of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon , Warwickshire , shows that he was baptized there on April 26, 1564; his birthday is traditionally celebrated on April 23. His father, John Shakespeare, was a burgess of the borough , who in 1565 was chosen an alderman and in 1568 bailiff (the position corresponding to mayor , before the grant of a further charter to Stratford in 1664). He was engaged in various kinds of trade and appears to have suffered some fluctuations in prosperity . His wife, Mary Arden, of Wilmcote, Warwickshire, came from an ancient family and was the heiress to some land. (Given the somewhat rigid social distinctions of the 16th century, this marriage must have been a step up the social scale for John Shakespeare.)

Stratford enjoyed a grammar school of good quality, and the education there was free, the schoolmaster’s salary being paid by the borough. No lists of the pupils who were at the school in the 16th century have survived, but it would be absurd to suppose the bailiff of the town did not send his son there. The boy’s education would consist mostly of Latin studies—learning to read, write, and speak the language fairly well and studying some of the Classical historians, moralists, and poets. Shakespeare did not go on to the university, and indeed it is unlikely that the scholarly round of logic, rhetoric , and other studies then followed there would have interested him.

Instead, at age 18 he married. Where and exactly when are not known, but the episcopal registry at Worcester preserves a bond dated November 28, 1582, and executed by two yeomen of Stratford, named Sandells and Richardson, as a security to the bishop for the issue of a license for the marriage of William Shakespeare and “ Anne Hathaway of Stratford,” upon the consent of her friends and upon once asking of the banns. (Anne died in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare. There is good evidence to associate her with a family of Hathaways who inhabited a beautiful farmhouse, now much visited, 2 miles [3.2 km] from Stratford.) The next date of interest is found in the records of the Stratford church, where a daughter, named Susanna, born to William Shakespeare, was baptized on May 26, 1583. On February 2, 1585, twins were baptized, Hamnet and Judith. (Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son, died 11 years later.)

How Shakespeare spent the next eight years or so, until his name begins to appear in London theatre records, is not known. There are stories—given currency long after his death—of stealing deer and getting into trouble with a local magnate, Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, near Stratford; of earning his living as a schoolmaster in the country; of going to London and gaining entry to the world of theatre by minding the horses of theatregoers. It has also been conjectured that Shakespeare spent some time as a member of a great household and that he was a soldier, perhaps in the Low Countries . In lieu of external evidence, such extrapolations about Shakespeare’s life have often been made from the internal “evidence” of his writings. But this method is unsatisfactory: one cannot conclude, for example, from his allusions to the law that Shakespeare was a lawyer, for he was clearly a writer who without difficulty could get whatever knowledge he needed for the composition of his plays.

William Shakespeare’s Short Biography

Reading comprehension: william shakespeare’s short biography.

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William Shakespeare: A Literary Legacy

William Shakespeare, born on April 26, 1564, in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, remains an iconic figure in the realm of literature. His parents, John Shakespeare, a prosperous local businessman, and Mary Arden, the daughter of a landowner, provided the backdrop for his upbringing. Widely acclaimed as the greatest writer in the English language, Shakespeare’s contributions to literature and drama are unparalleled.

Around 1613, at the age of 49, Shakespeare retired to Stratford, where he spent his remaining years. He passed away on April 23, 1616, at the age of 52. Despite the scarcity of records concerning his private life, Shakespeare’s literary legacy endures.

Adapted from Wikipedia

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Twelfth Night

William shakespeare: biography.

The Chandos Portrait of William Shakespeare, long believed to be the only portrait painted from life, until one other recently appeared.

William Shakespeare (26 April 1564 (baptised) – 23 April 1616) was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England’s national poet and the “Bard of Avon”. His extant works, including some collaborations, consist of around38 plays,   154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, of which the authorship of some is uncertain. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, later known as the King’s Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at age 49, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare’s private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.

Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories and these works remain regarded as some of the best work produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet , Othello , King Lear , and  Macbeth , considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights.

Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. In 1623, John Heminges andHenry Condell, two friends and fellow actors of Shakespeare, published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare’s. It was prefaced with a poem by Ben Jonson, in which Shakespeare is hailed, presciently, as “not of an age, but for all time”. In the 20th and 21st centuries, his work has been repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed, and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.

Additional information on Shakespeare’s life, work, and influence can be found here. 

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William Shakespeare

Playwright and poet William Shakespeare is considered the greatest dramatist of all time. His works are loved throughout the world, but Shakespeare’s personal life is shrouded in mystery.

Quick Facts

Wife and children, shakespeare’s lost years, poems and sonnets, the king’s men: life as an actor and playwright, globe theater, william shakespeare’s plays, later years and death, legacy and controversies, who was william shakespeare.

William Shakespeare was an English poet , playwright , and actor of the Renaissance era. He was an important member of the King’s Men theatrical company from roughly 1594 onward. Known throughout the world, Shakespeare’s works—at least 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and 2 narrative poems—capture the range of human emotion and conflict and have been celebrated for more than 400 years. Details about his personal life are limited, though some believe he was born and died on the same day, April 23, 52 years apart.

FULL NAME: William Shakespeare BORN: c. April 23, 1564 DIED: c. April 23, 1616 BIRTHPLACE: Stratford-upon-Avon, England, United Kingdom SPOUSE: Anne Hathaway (1582-1616) CHILDREN: Susanna, Judith, and Hamnet ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Taurus

The personal life of William Shakespeare is somewhat of a mystery . There are two primary sources that provide historians with an outline of his life. One is his work, and the other is official documentation such as church and court records. However, these provide only brief sketches of specific events in his life and yield little insight into the man himself.

When Was Shakespeare Born?

No birth records exist, but an old church record indicates that William Shakespeare was baptized at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26, 1564. From this, it is believed he was born on or near April 23, 1564, and this is the date scholars acknowledge as Shakespeare’s birthday. Located about 100 miles northwest of London, Stratford-upon-Avon was a bustling market town along the River Avon and bisected by a country road during Shakespeare’s time.

Parents and Siblings

Shakespeare was the third child of John Shakespeare, a glove-maker and leather merchant, and Mary Arden, a local heiress to land. John held official positions as alderman and bailiff, an office resembling a mayor. However, records indicate John’s fortunes declined sometime in the late 1570s. Eventually, he recovered somewhat and was granted a coat of arms in 1596, which made him and his sons official gentleman.

John and Mary had eight children together, though three of them did not live past childhood. Their first two children—daughters Joan and Margaret—died in infancy, so William was the oldest surviving offspring. He had three younger brothers and two younger sisters: Gilbert, Joan, Anne, Richard, and Edmund. Anne died at age 7, and Joan was the only sibling to outlive William.

Childhood and Education

Scant records exist of Shakespeare’s childhood and virtually none regarding his education. Scholars have surmised that he most likely attended the King’s New School, in Stratford, which taught reading, writing, and the classics, including Latin. He attended until he was 14 or 15 and did not continue to university. The uncertainty regarding his education has led some people question the authorship of his work.

Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway on November 28, 1582, in Worcester, in Canterbury Province. Hathaway was from Shottery, a small village a mile west of Stratford. Shakespeare was 18, and Anne was 26 and, as it turns out, pregnant.

Their first child, a daughter they named Susanna, was born on May 26, 1583. Two years later, on February 2, 1585, twins Hamnet and Judith were born. Hamnet died of unknown causes at age 11.

There are seven years of Shakespeare’s life where no records exist: after the birth of his twins in 1585 until 1592. Scholars call this period Shakespeare’s lost years, and there is wide speculation about what he was doing during this period.

One theory is that he might have gone into hiding for poaching game from local landlord Sir Thomas Lucy. Another possibility is that he might have been working as an assistant schoolmaster in Lancashire. Some scholars believe he was in London, working as a horse attendant at some of London’s finer theaters before breaking on the scene.

By 1592, there is evidence Shakespeare earned a living as an actor and a playwright in London and possibly had several plays produced. The September 20, 1592, edition of the Stationers’ Register , a guild publication, includes an article by London playwright Robert Greene that takes a few jabs at Shakespeare:

“...There is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger’s heart wrapped in a Player’s hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.”

Scholars differ on the interpretation of this criticism, but most agree that it was Greene’s way of saying Shakespeare was reaching above his rank, trying to match better known and educated playwrights like Christopher Marlowe , Thomas Nashe, or Greene himself.

Early in his career, Shakespeare was able to attract the attention and patronage of Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, to whom he dedicated his first and second published poems: Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594). In fact, these long narrative poems—1,194 and 1,855 lines, respectively—were Shakespeare’s first published works. Wriothesley’s financial support was a helpful source of income at a time when the theaters were shuttered due to a plague outbreak.

Shakespeare’s most well-known poetry are his 154 sonnets, which were first published as a collection in 1609 and likely written as early as the 1590s. Scholars broadly categorize the sonnets in groups based on two unknown subjects that Shakespeare addresses: the Fair Youth sonnets (the first 126) and the Dark Lady sonnets (the last 28). The identities of the aristocratic young man and vexing woman continue to be a source of speculation.

In 1594, Shakespeare joined Lord Chamberlain’s Men, the London acting company that he worked with for the duration of his career. Later called the King’s Men, it was considered the most important troupe of its time and was very popular by all accounts. Some sources describe Shakespeare as a founding member of the company, but whatever the case, he became central to its success. Initially, he was an actor and eventually devoted more and more time to writing.

Records show that Shakespeare, who was also a company shareholder, had works published and sold as popular literature. Although The Taming of the Shrew is believed to be the first play that Shakespeare wrote, his first published plays were Titus Andronicus and Henry VI Part 2 . They were printed in 1594 in quarto, an eight-page pamphlet-like book. By the end of 1597, Shakespeare had likely written 16 of his 37 plays and amassed some wealth.

At this time, civil records show Shakespeare purchased one of the largest houses in Stratford, called New Place, for his family. It was a four-day ride by horse from Stratford to London, so it’s believed that Shakespeare spent most of his time in the city writing and acting and came home once a year during the 40-day Lenten period, when the theaters were closed. However, Shakespeare expert and professor Sir Stanley Wells posits that the playwright might have spent more time at home in Stratford than previously believed, only commuting to London when he needed to for work.

Although the theater culture in 16 th century England was not greatly admired by people of high rank, some of the nobility were good patrons of the performing arts and friends of the actors. Two notable exceptions were Queen Elizabeth I , who was a fan of Lord Chamberlain’s Men by the late 1590s after first watching a performance in 1594, and her successor King James I. Following his crowning in 1603, the company changed its name to the King’s Men.

By 1599, Shakespeare and several fellow actors built their own theater on the south bank of the Thames River, which they called the Globe Theater. Julius Caesar is thought to be the first production at the new open-air theater. Owning the playhouse proved to be a financial boon for Shakespeare and the other investors.

In 1613, the Globe caught fire during a performance of Henry VII I and burned to the ground. The company quickly rebuilt it, and it reopened the next year. In 1642, Puritans outlawed all theaters, including the Globe, which was demolished two years later. Centuries passed until American actor Sam Wanamaker began working to resurrect the theater once more. The third Globe Theater opened in 1997, and today, more than 1.25 million people visit it every year.

It’s difficult to determine the exact chronology of Shakespeare’s plays, but over the course of two decades, from about 1590 to 1613, he wrote 37 plays revolving around three main themes: history, tragedy, and comedy. Some plays blur these lines, and over time, our interpretation of them has changed, too.

Shakespeare’s early plays were written in the conventional style of the day, with elaborate metaphors and rhetorical phrases that didn’t always align naturally with the story’s plot or characters. However, Shakespeare was very innovative, adapting the traditional style to his own purposes and creating a freer flow of words.

With only small degrees of variation, Shakespeare primarily used a metrical pattern consisting of lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter, or blank verse, to compose his plays. At the same time, there are passages in all the plays that deviate from this and use forms of poetry or simple prose.

Many of Shakespeare’s first plays were histories. All three Henry VI plays, Richard II , and Henry V dramatize the destructive results of weak or corrupt rulers and have been interpreted by drama historians as Shakespeare’s way of justifying the origins of the Tudor Dynasty. Other histories include Richard III , King John , the two Henry IV plays, and Henry VIII . With exception of Henry VIII , which was Shakespeare’s last play, these works were likely written by 1599.

Although Shakespeare wrote three tragedies, including Romeo and Juliet , before 1600, it wasn’t until after the turn of the century that he truly explored the genre. Character in Othello , King Lear , and Macbeth present vivid impressions of human temperament that are timeless and universal.

Possibly the best known of these plays is Hamlet , which explores betrayal, retribution, incest, and moral failure. These moral failures often drive the twists and turns of Shakespeare’s plots, destroying the hero and those he loves.

Julius Caesar , written in circa 1599, portrays upheaval in Roman politics that might have resonated with viewers at a time when England’s aging monarch, Queen Elizabeth I, had no legitimate heir, thus creating the potential for future power struggles.

Titus Andronicus , Anthony and Cleopatra , Timon of Athens , and Coriolanus are Shakespeare’s other tragic plays.

Shakespeare wrote comedies throughout his career, including his first play The Taming of the Shrew . Some of his other early comedies, written before 1600 or so, are: the whimsical A Midsummer Night’s Dream , the romantic Merchant of Venice , the wit and wordplay of Much Ado About Nothing , and the charming As You Like It .

Some of his comedies might be better described as tragicomedies. Among these are Pericles , Cymbeline , The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest . Although graver in tone than the comedies, they are not the dark tragedies of King Lear or Macbeth because they end with reconciliation and forgiveness.

Additional Shakespeare comedies include:

• The Two Gentlemen of Verona ,
• The Comedy of Errors ,
• Love’s Labour’s Lost ,
• The Merry Wives of Windsor ,
• Twelfth Night ,
• Measure for Measure , and
• All’s Well That Ends Well

Troilus and Cressida is emblematic of the Shakespearean “problem play,” which defies genres. Some of Shakespeare’s contemporaries classified it as a history or a comedy, though the original name of the play was The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida .

Collaborations and Lost Play

Shakespeare is known to have created plays with other writers, such as John Fletcher. They co-wrote The Two Noble Kinsmen around 1613–14, making it Shakespeare’s last known dramatic work. They also collaborated on Cardenio , a play which was not preserved. Shakespeare’s other jointly written plays are Sir Thomas More and The Raigne of King Edward the Third . When including these works, Shakespeare has 41 plays to his name.

Around the turn of the 17 th century, Shakespeare became a more extensive property owner in Stratford. When his father, John, died in 1601, he inherited the family home. Then, in 1602, he purchased about 107 acres for 320 pounds.

In 1605, Shakespeare purchased leases of real estate near Stratford for 440 pounds, which doubled in value and earned him 60 pounds a year. This made him an entrepreneur as well as an artist, and scholars believe these investments gave him uninterrupted time to write his plays.

A couple years prior, around 1603, Shakespeare is believed to have stopped acting in the King’s Men productions, instead focusing on his playwriting work. He likely spent the last three years of his life in Stratford.

When Did Shakespeare Die?

Tradition holds that Shakespeare died on his 52 nd birthday, April 23, 1616, but some scholars believe this is a myth. Church records show he was interred at Holy Trinity Church on April 25, 1616. The exact cause of Shakespeare’s death is unknown , though many people believe he died following a brief illness.

In his will, he left the bulk of his possessions to his eldest daughter, Susanna, who by then was married. Although entitled to a third of his estate, little seems to have gone to his wife, Anne, whom he bequeathed his “second-best bed.” This has drawn speculation that she had fallen out of favor or that the couple was not close.

However, there is very little evidence the two had a difficult marriage. Other scholars note that the term “second-best bed” often refers to the bed belonging to the household’s master and mistress, the marital bed, and the “first-best bed” was reserved for guests.

The Bard of Avon has gone down in history as the greatest dramatist of all time and is sometimes called England’s national poet. He is credited with inventing or introducing more than 1,700 words to the English language, often as a result of combining words, changing usages, or blending in foreign root words. If you’ve used the words “downstairs,” “egregious,” “kissing,” “zany,” or “skim milk,” you can thank Shakespeare. He is also responsible for many common phrases, such as “love is blind” and “wild goose chase.”

First Folio

Although some of Shakespeare’s works were printed in his lifetime, not all were. It is because of the First Folio that we know about 18 of Shakespeare’s plays, including Macbeth , Twelfth Night , and Julius Caesar . John Heminge and Henry Condell, two of Shakespeare’s friends and fellow actors in the King’s Men, created the 36-play collection, which celebrates its 400 th anniversary this year. It was published with the title Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories and Tragedies in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare died.

In addition to its literary importance, the First Folio contains an original portrait of Shakespeare on the title page. Engraved by Martin Droeshout, it’s considered one of the two authentic portraits of the writer. The other is a memorial bust at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford.

Today, there are 235 surviving copies of the First Folio that date back to 1623, but experts estimate roughly 750 First Folios were printed. Three subsequent editions of Shakespeare’s Folio, with text updates and additional plays, were published between 1632 and 1685.

Did Shakespeare Write His Own Plays?

About 150 years after his death, questions arose about the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays. Scholars and literary critics began to float names like Christopher Marlowe, Edward de Vere, and Francis Bacon —men of more known backgrounds, literary accreditation, or inspiration—as the true authors of the plays.

Much of this stemmed from the sketchy details of Shakespeare’s life and the dearth of contemporary primary sources. Official records from the Holy Trinity Church and the Stratford government record the existence of Shakespeare, but none of these attest to him being an actor or playwright.

Skeptics also questioned how anyone of such modest education could write with the intellectual perceptiveness and poetic power that is displayed in Shakespeare’s works. Over the centuries, several groups have emerged that question the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays.

The most serious and intense skepticism began in the 19 th century when adoration for Shakespeare was at its highest. The detractors believed that the only hard evidence surrounding Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon described a man from modest beginnings who married young and became successful in real estate.

Members of the Shakespeare Oxford Society, founded in 1957, put forth arguments that English aristocrat and poet Edward de Vere, the 17 th Earl of Oxford, was the true author of the poems and plays of “William Shakespeare.” The Oxfordians cite de Vere’s extensive knowledge of aristocratic society, his education, and the structural similarities between his poetry and that found in the works attributed to Shakespeare. They contend that Shakespeare had neither the education nor the literary training to write such eloquent prose and create such rich characters.

However, the vast majority of Shakespearean scholars contend that Shakespeare wrote all his own plays. They point out that other playwrights of the time also had sketchy histories and came from modest backgrounds.

They contend that King’s New School in Stratford had a curriculum of Latin and the classics could have provided a good foundation for literary writers. Supporters of Shakespeare’s authorship argue that the lack of evidence about Shakespeare’s life doesn’t mean his life didn’t exist. They point to evidence that displays his name on the title pages of published poems and plays.

Examples exist of authors and critics of the time acknowledging Shakespeare as the author of plays such as The Two Gentlemen of Verona , The Comedy of Errors , and King John .

Royal records from 1601 show that Shakespeare was recognized as a member of the King’s Men theater company and a Groom of the Chamber by the court of King James I, where the company performed seven of Shakespeare’s plays.

There is also strong circumstantial evidence of personal relationships by contemporaries who interacted with Shakespeare as an actor and a playwright.

Literary Legacy

What seems to be true is that Shakespeare was a respected man of the dramatic arts who wrote plays and acted in the late 16 th and early 17 th centuries. But his reputation as a dramatic genius wasn’t recognized until the 19 th century.

Beginning with the Romantic period of the early 1800s and continuing through the Victorian period, acclaim and reverence for Shakespeare and his work reached its height. In the 20 th century, new movements in scholarship and performance rediscovered and adopted his works.

Today, his plays remain highly popular and are constantly studied and reinterpreted in performances with diverse cultural and political contexts. The genius of Shakespeare’s characters and plots are that they present real human beings in a wide range of emotions and conflicts that transcend their origins in Elizabethan England.

• The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
• This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.
• There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
• Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.
• Lord, what fools these mortals be!
• To weep is to make less the depth of grief.
• In time we hate that which we often fear.
• Men at some time are masters of their fates: the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.
• What’s done cannot be undone.
• We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.
• Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.
• The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.
• All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.
• Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
• I say there is no darkness but ignorance.
• I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
• Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

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William Shakespeare

The most famous of all English playwrights was born in 1564 and died on St Georges Day, in 1616. His birthday is celebrated on 23rd April in Stratford-upon-Avon…

Ben Johnson

The most famous of all English playwrights was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564. William’s father John was a wealthy merchant and a respectable member of the community within the small Warwickshire town.

It appears the John’s business interests may have taken a turn for the worse when William was in his early teens, as William failed to follow his father into the family business.

Little is known of William’s early life, but it is thought that he may have attended the town’s free grammar school, learning Latin and Greek amongst many other subjects.

What he did immediately after leaving school is also a little vague; local Warwickshire legends recall tales of him poaching deer at the nearby Charlecote Estate, and nights of heavy drinking sessions in several of the local village pubs. Perhaps the former would have closely followed the latter!

What is known is that an 18 year-old William married Anne Hathaway, a farmer’s daughter from the nearby village of Shottery in 1582. Anne was 26 at the time, and very, very shortly after the wedding, their daughter Susanna was born. Two years later Anne gave birth to twins, Hammet and Judith. Many believe that in these early years of marriage, William may well have supported his new family by becoming a schoolteacher.

Why William came to leave Stratford and his young family is again unclear; perhaps to seek his fortune in London. He appears to have arrived in the capital sometime around 1590. Initially he earned a living as an actor, before his first poem ‘Venus and Adonis’ was published in 1592. He certainly started to earn his fortune in the years that followed; between 1594 and 1598 William’s considerable output, which included six comedies, five histories as well as the tragedy Romeo and Juliet, took the London theatre world by storm.

Although generally considered to be happy and prosperous years for William, his personal life was dealt a severe blow by the sudden death of his son Hammet aged 11 in 1596. Perhaps in part due to this blow, William re-established his ties with the town of his birth by buying and renovating a large and imposing mansion in Stratford called New Place. His father’s fortunes also appear to have a turn for the better as he was awarded his own coat-of-arms the following year.

These were the last years of Elizabeth I ’s reign, and following her death in 1603 she was succeeded by King James I and VI of Scotland. James was the son of Mary Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley, the first king to rule over both Scotland and England.

Perhaps by coincidence, it is generally accepted that Shakespeare wrote one his greatest tragedies, his famous ‘Scottish Play’ Macbeth sometime between 1604 and 1606. This story of two ancient Scottish kings is mixed with strange tales of witches and the supernatural; ‘coincidently’, King James had written a book on the subject of spirits and witchcraft called Daemononlogie just a few years earlier.

The play also depicts Macbeth’s friend Banquo as a noble and loyal man. Chroniclers suggest however, that Banquo was in fact an accomplice in Macbeth’s murder of Duncan. As the new king claimed ancestry from Banquo, to have shown him as a murderer of kings would perhaps not have endeared the playwright to James.

King James appears to have been so greatly impressed by Shakespeare that he conferred his own royal patronage on him and his partners; they became the ‘King’s Men’, receiving twice the pay they had received previously from Queen Elizabeth.

In the years that followed William gradually relinquished his commitments to the King’s Men which allowed him to resume his position as head of the Shakespeare family back in Stratford. Although his parents had died some years earlier, his daughter Susanna had married and William’s first grandchild, Elizabeth was born in 1608.

Whilst most of his remaining days were to be spent in Stratford, William continued to visit London in order to look after his many business interests,

Through his will William had sought to keep the estate he had created intact for the benefit of his descendants; unfortunately his direct line ended when his granddaughter died childless in 1670.

However the works that Shakespeare created continue live on through the countless school, amateur and professional productions performed across the world each year. Just a few of these are mentioned below along with the approximate dates that they were first performed;

Early Plays:

The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1590-91) Henry VI, Part I (1592) Henry VI, Part II (1592) Henry VI, Part III (1592) Titus Andronicus (1592) The Taming of the Shrew (1593) The Comedy of Errors (1594) Love’s Labour’s Lost (1594-95) Romeo and Juliet (1595)

Richard III (1592) Richard II (1595) King John (1595-96) Henry IV, Part I (1596-97) Henry IV, Part II (1596-97) Henry V (1598-99)

Later Comedies:

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595-96) The Merchant of Venice (1596-97) The Merry Wives of Windsor (1597-98) Much Ado about Nothing (1598) As You Like It (1599-1600) Twelfth Night, or What You Will (1601) Troilus and Cressida (1602) Measure for Measure (1601) All’s well that Ends Well (1604-05)

Roman Plays:

Julius Caesar (1599) Antony and Cleopatra (1606) Coriolanus (1608)

Later Tragedies:

Hamlet (1600-01) Othello (1603-04) Timon of Athens (1605) King Lear (1605-06) Macbeth (1606)

Late Plays:

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William Shakespeare

By: History.com Editors

Updated: June 7, 2019 | Original: October 3, 2011

Considered the greatest English-speaking writer in history and known as England’s national poet, William Shakespeare (1564-1616) has had more theatrical works performed than any other playwright. To this day, countless theater festivals around the world honor his work, students memorize his eloquent poems and scholars reinterpret the million words of text he composed. They also hunt for clues about the life of the man who inspires such “bardolatry” (as George Bernard Shaw derisively called it), much of which remains shrouded in mystery. Born into a family of modest means in Elizabethan England, the “Bard of Avon” wrote at least 37 plays and a collection of sonnets, established the legendary Globe theater and helped transform the English language.

Shakespeare’s Childhood and Family Life

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, a bustling market town 100 miles northwest of London, and baptized there on April 26, 1564. His birthday is traditionally celebrated on April 23, which was the date of his death in 1616 and is the feast day of St. George, the patron saint of England. Shakespeare’s father, John, dabbled in farming, wood trading, tanning, leatherwork, money lending and other occupations; he also held a series of municipal positions before falling into debt in the late 1580s. The ambitious son of a tenant farmer, John boosted his social status by marrying Mary Arden, the daughter of an aristocratic landowner. Like John, she may have been a practicing Catholic at a time when those who rejected the newly established Church of England faced persecution.

Did you know? Sources from William Shakespeare's lifetime spell his last name in more than 80 different ways, ranging from “Shappere” to “Shaxberd.” In the handful of signatures that have survived, he himself never spelled his name “William Shakespeare,” using variations such as “Willm Shakspere” and “William Shakspeare” instead.

William was the third of eight Shakespeare children, of whom three died in childhood. Though no records of his education survive, it is likely that he attended the well-regarded local grammar school, where he would have studied Latin grammar and classics. It is unknown whether he completed his studies or abandoned them as an adolescent to apprentice with his father.

At 18 Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway (1556-1616), a woman eight years his senior, in a ceremony thought to have been hastily arranged due to her pregnancy. A daughter, Susanna, was born less than seven months later in May 1583. Twins Hamnet and Judith followed in February 1585. Susanna and Judith would live to old age, while Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son, died at 11. As for William and Anne, it is believed that the couple lived apart for most of the year while the bard pursued his writing and theater career in London. It was not until the end of his life that Shakespeare moved back in with Anne in their Stratford home.

Shakespeare’s Lost Years and Early Career

To the dismay of his biographers, Shakespeare disappears from the historical record between 1585, when his twins’ baptism was recorded, and 1592, when the playwright Robert Greene denounced him in a pamphlet as an “upstart crow” (evidence that he had already made a name for himself on the London stage). What did the newly married father and future literary icon do during those seven “lost” years? Historians have speculated that he worked as a schoolteacher, studied law, traveled across continental Europe or joined an acting troupe that was passing through Stratford. According to one 17th-century account, he fled his hometown after poaching deer from a local politician’s estate.

Whatever the answer, by 1592 Shakespeare had begun working as an actor, penned several plays and spent enough time in London to write about its geography, culture and diverse personalities with great authority. Even his earliest works evince knowledge of European affairs and foreign countries, familiarity with the royal court and general erudition that might seem unattainable to a young man raised in the provinces by parents who were probably illiterate. For this reason, some theorists have suggested that one or several authors wishing to conceal their true identity used the person of William Shakespeare as a front. (Most scholars and literary historians dismiss this hypothesis, although many suspect Shakespeare sometimes collaborated with other playwrights.)

Shakespeare’s Plays and Poems

Shakespeare’s first plays, believed to have been written before or around 1592, encompass all three of the main dramatic genres in the bard’s oeuvre: tragedy (“Titus Andronicus”); comedy (“The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” “The Comedy of Errors” and “The Taming of the Shrew”); and history (the “Henry VI” trilogy and “Richard III”). Shakespeare was likely affiliated with several different theater companies when these early works debuted on the London stage. In 1594 he began writing and acting for a troupe known as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (renamed the King’s Men when James I appointed himself its patron), ultimately becoming its house playwright and partnering with other members to establish the legendary Globe theater in 1599.

Between the mid-1590s and his retirement around 1612, Shakespeare penned the most famous of his 37-plus plays, including “Romeo and Juliet,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Hamlet,” “King Lear,” “Macbeth” and “The Tempest.” As a dramatist, he is known for his frequent use of iambic pentameter, meditative soliloquies (such as Hamlet’s ubiquitous “To be, or not to be” speech) and ingenious wordplay. His works weave together and reinvent theatrical conventions dating back to ancient Greece, featuring assorted casts of characters with complex psyches and profoundly human interpersonal conflicts. Some of his plays—notably “All’s Well That Ends Well,” “Measure for Measure” and “Troilus and Cressida”—are characterized by moral ambiguity and jarring shifts in tone, defying, much like life itself, classification as purely tragic or comic.

Also remembered for his non-dramatic contributions, Shakespeare published his first narrative poem—the erotic “Venus and Adonis,” intriguingly dedicated to his close friend Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton—while London theaters were closed due to a plague outbreak in 1593. The many reprints of this piece and a second poem, “The Rape of Lucrece,” hint that during his lifetime the bard was chiefly renowned for his poetry. Shakespeare’s famed collection of sonnets, which address themes ranging from love and sensuality to truth and beauty, was printed in 1609, possibly without its writer’s consent. (It has been suggested that he intended them for his intimate circle only, not the general public.) Perhaps because of their explicit sexual references or dark emotional character, the sonnets did not enjoy the same success as Shakespeare’s earlier lyrical works.

Shakespeare’s Death and Legacy

Shakespeare died at age 52 of unknown causes on April 23, 1616, leaving the bulk of his estate to his daughter Susanna. (Anne Hathaway, who outlived her husband by seven years, famously received his “second-best bed.”) The slabstone over Shakespeare’s tomb, located inside a Stratford church, bears an epitaph—written, some say, by the bard himself—warding off grave robbers with a curse: “Blessed be the man that spares these stones, / And cursed be he that moves my bones.” His remains have yet to be disturbed, despite requests by archaeologists keen to reveal what killed him.

In 1623, two of Shakespeare’s former colleagues published a collection of his plays, commonly known as the First Folio. In its preface, the dramatist Ben Jonson wrote of his late contemporary, “He was not of an age, but for all time.” Indeed, Shakespeare’s plays continue to grace stages and resonate with audiences around the world, and have yielded a vast array of film, television and theatrical adaptations. Furthermore, Shakespeare is believed to have influenced the English language more than any other writer in history, coining—or, at the very least, popularizing—terms and phrases that still regularly crop up in everyday conversation. Examples include the words “fashionable” (“Troilus and Cressida”), “sanctimonious” (“Measure for Measure”), “eyeball” (“A Midsummer Night’s Dream”) and “lackluster” (“As You Like It”); and the expressions “foregone conclusion” (“Othello”), “in a pickle” (“The Tempest”), “wild goose chase” (“Romeo and Juliet”) and “one fell swoop” (“Macbeth”).

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Biography of William Shakespeare, History's Most Famous Playwright

His plays and sonnets are still studied and performed to this day

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• M.A., Theater Studies, Warwick University
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William Shakespeare (April 23, 1564–April 23, 1616) wrote at least 37 plays and 154 sonnets , which are considered among the most important and enduring ever written. Although the plays have captured the imagination of theatergoers for centuries, some historians claim that Shakespeare didn’t actually write them .

Amazingly, little is known about Shakespeare’s life. Even though he is the world’s most famous and popular playwright , historians have had to fill in the gaps between the handful of surviving records from Elizabethan times .

Fast Facts: William Shakespeare

• Known For : One of history's most famous playwrights, who wrote at least 37 plays, which are still studied and performed to this day, as well as 154 sonnets, which are also highly regarded
• Also Known As : The Bard
• Born : April 23, 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England
• Parents : John Shakespeare, Mary Arden
• Died : April 23, 1616 in Stratford-upon-Avon
• Published Works : " Romeo and Juliet" (1594–1595), "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" (1595–1596), " Much Ado About Nothing " (1598–1599), "Henry V" (1598–1599), " Hamlet " 1600–1601, "King Lear" (1605–1606), "Macbeth" ( 1605–1606), "The Tempest" (1611–1612)
• Awards and Honors : After Shakespeare's death, a funerary monument was erected to honor him at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he is buried. It depicts a half-effigy of The Bard in the act of writing. Numerous statues and monuments have been erected around the world to honor the playwright.
• Spouse : Anne Hathaway (m. Nov. 28, 1582–April 23, 1616)
• Children : Susanna, Judith and Hamnet (twins)
• Notable Quote : "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages."

Early Years

Shakespeare was probably born on April 23, 1564 , but this date is an educated guess because we only have a record of his baptism three days later. His parents, John Shakespeare and Mary Arden, were successful townsfolk who moved to a large house in Henley Street, Stratford-upon-Avon, from the surrounding villages. His father became a wealthy town official and his mother was from an important, respected family.

It is widely assumed that Shakespeare attended the local grammar school where he would have studied Latin, Greek, and classical literature . His early education must have made a huge impact on him because many of his plots draw on the classics.

Shakespeare’s Family

At age 18, on November 28, 1582, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway from Shottery, who was already pregnant with their first daughter. The wedding would have been arranged quickly to avoid the shame of having a child born out of wedlock. Shakespeare fathered three children, Susanna, born in May 1583 but conceived out of wedlock, and Judith and Hamnet, twins who were born in February 1585.

Hamnet died in 1596 at age 11. Shakespeare was devastated by the death of his only son, and it is argued that "Hamlet," written four years later, is evidence of this.

Theater Career

At some point in the late 1580s, Shakespeare made the four-day ride to London, and by 1592 had established himself as a writer. In 1594, an event occurred that changed the course of literary history: Shakespeare joined Richard Burbage’s acting company and became its chief playwright for the next two decades. Here, Shakespeare was able to hone his craft, writing for a regular group of performers.

Shakespeare also worked as an actor in the theater company , although the lead roles were always reserved for Burbage himself. The company became very successful and often performed in front of the Queen of England, Elizabeth I. In 1603, James I ascended the throne and granted his royal patronage to Shakespeare’s company, which became known as The King’s Men.

Shakespeare the Gentleman

Like his father, Shakespeare had excellent business sense. He bought the largest house in Stratford-upon-Avon by 1597, owned shares in the Globe Theater, and profited from some real estate deals near Stratford-upon-Avon in 1605. Before long, Shakespeare officially became a gentleman, partly due to his own wealth and partly due to inheriting a coat of arms from his father who died in 1601.

Later Years and Death

Shakespeare retired to Stratford in 1611 and lived comfortably off his wealth for the rest of his life. In his will, he bequeathed most of his properties to Susanna, his eldest daughter, and some actors from The King’s Men. Famously, he left his wife his “second-best bed” before he died on April 23, 1616 . (This date is an educated guess because we only have a record of his burial two days later).

If you visit Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, you can still view his grave and read his epitaph engraved into the stone:

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.

More than 400 years after his death, Shakespeare's plays and sonnets still hold a special place in theaters, libraries, and schools around the world. "His plays and sonnets have been performed in nearly every major language on every continent," notes Greg Timmons writing on Biography.com.

In addition to the legacy of his plays and sonnets, many of the words and phrases Shakespeare created infuse dictionaries today and are embedded in modern English, including these sayings from some of his plays:

• All that glitters isn't gold (" The Merchant of Venice ")
• All's well that ends well (" All's Well that Ends Well ")
• To be-all and the end-all (" Macbeth ")
• Break the ice (" The Taming of the Shrew )
• We have seen better days (" As You Like It ")
• Brave new world (" The Tempest ")
• Brevity is the soul of wit (" Hamlet ")
• Cruel to be kind ("Hamlet")
• It's Greek to me (" Julius Caesar ")
• Something wicked this way comes ("Macbeth")
• Star-crossed lovers (" Romeo and Juliet ")
• Wild-goose chase ("Romeo and Juliet")
• The world is my oyster (" The Merry Wives of Windsor ")

Few writers, poets, and playwrights—and Shakespeare was all three—have had the influence on culture and learning that Shakespeare has. With luck, his plays and sonnets may still be revered and studied four centuries from now.

• “ IWonder - William Shakespeare: The Life and Legacy of England's Bard. ”  BBC.
• “ Shakespeare's Words & Phrases. ”  Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
• Timmons, Greg. “ William Shakespeare's 400th Anniversary: The Life & Legacy of The Bard. ”  Biography.com , A&E Networks Television, 2 Nov. 2018.
• “ Who Was William Shakespeare? Everything You Need to Know. ”  Childhood, Life Achievements & Timeline , thefamouspeople.com.
• “ William Shakespeare Quotes. ”  BrainyQuote , Xplore.
• Discover the Mysterious Shakespeare Lost Years
• A Timeline of William Shakespeare's Life
• Biography of Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare's Wife
• Shakespeare Authorship Debate
• What We Know About Shakespeare's Death
• The Shakespeare Authorship Controversy Continues
• Shakespeare's Brothers and Sisters
• Comparing the Work of Edward de Vere and William Shakespeare
• Was Shakespeare Gay?
• Was Shakespeare a Businessman?
• Facts About Shakespeare
• Where Was Writer William Shakespeare Born?
• How Did William Shakespeare Die?
• Shakespearean Insults From A to Z
• What Happened to Shakespeare's Skull
• William Shakespeare's Family

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Shakespeare's life.

19th-century portrait of Shakespeare with his family at home in Stratford

William Shakespeare: A biography

Since William Shakespeare lived more than 400 years ago, and many records from that time are lost or never existed in the first place, we don’t know everything about Shakespeare’s life. For example, we know that he was baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, 100 miles northwest of London, on April 26, 1564. But we don’t know his exact birthdate, which must have been a few days earlier.

We do know that Shakespeare’s life revolved around two locations: Stratford and London. He grew up, had a family, and bought property in Stratford, but he worked in London, the center of English theater. As an actor, a playwright, and a partner in a leading acting company, he became both prosperous and well-known. Even without knowing everything about his life, fans of Shakespeare have imagined and reimagined him according to their own tastes.

Looking for more in-depth information? Need something you can cite? Read an essay about Shakespeare’s life from the Folger Shakespeare Editions. Read essay

Primary sources

Visit Shakespeare Documented to see primary-source materials documenting Shakespeare’s life. This online resource of items from the Folger and other institutions brings together all known manuscript and print references to Shakespeare and his works, as well as additional references to his family, in his lifetime and shortly thereafter.

Early life: Birth and childhood

William Shakespeare was probably born on about April 23, 1564, the date that is traditionally given for his birth. He was John and Mary Shakespeare’s oldest surviving child; their first two children, both girls, did not live beyond infancy. Growing up as the big brother of the family, William had three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard, and Edmund, and two younger sisters: Anne, who died at seven, and Joan.

Their father, John Shakespeare, was a leatherworker who specialized in the soft white leather used for gloves and similar items. A prosperous businessman, he married Mary Arden, of the prominent Arden family. John rose through local offices in Stratford, becoming an alderman and eventually, when William was five, the town bailiff—much like a mayor. Not long after that, however, John Shakespeare stepped back from public life; we don’t know why.

Shakespeare, as the son of a leading Stratford citizen, almost certainly attended Stratford’s grammar school. Like all such schools, its curriculum consisted of an intense emphasis on the Latin classics, including memorization, writing, and acting classic Latin plays. Shakespeare most likely attended until about age 15.

A horn book in the Folger collection, similar to one that Shakespeare might have learned to read from

Marriage (to Anne Hathaway) and children

A few years after he left school, in late 1582, William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway. She was already expecting their first-born child, Susanna, which was a fairly common situation at the time. When they married, Anne was 26 and William was 18. Anne grew up just outside Stratford in the village of Shottery. After marrying, she spent the rest of her life in Stratford.

In early 1585, the couple had twins, Judith and Hamnet, completing the family. In the years ahead, Anne and the children lived in Stratford while Shakespeare worked in London, although we don’t know when he moved there. Some later observers have suggested that this separation, and the couple’s relatively few children, were signs of a strained marriage, but we do not know that, either. Someone pursuing a theater career had no choice but to work in London, and many branches of the Shakespeares had small families.

Shakespeare’s only son, Hamnet, died in 1596 at the age of 11. His older daughter Susanna later married a well-to-do Stratford doctor, John Hall. Their daughter Elizabeth, Shakespeare’s first grandchild, was born in 1608. In 1616, just months before his death, Shakespeare’s daughter Judith married Thomas Quiney, a Stratford vintner. The family subsequently died out, leaving no direct descendants of Shakespeare.

London theater

For several years after the birth of Judith and Hamnet in 1585, nothing is known for certain of Shakespeare’s activities: how he earned a living, when he moved from Stratford, or how he got his start in the theater.

Following this gap in the record, the first definite mention of Shakespeare is in 1592 as an established London actor and playwright, mocked by a contemporary as a “Shake-scene.” The same writer alludes to one of Shakespeare’s earliest history plays, Henry VI, Part 3 , which must already have been performed. The next year, in 1593, Shakespeare published a long poem, Venus and Adonis . The first quarto editions of his early plays appeared in 1594.

For more than two decades, Shakespeare had multiple roles in the London theater as an actor, playwright, and, in time, a business partner in a major acting company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (renamed the King’s Men in 1603). Over the years, he became steadily more famous in the London theater world; his name, which was not even listed on the first quartos of his plays, became a regular feature—clearly a selling point—on later title pages.

Final years and death

Shakespeare prospered financially from his partnership in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (later the King’s Men), as well as from his writing and acting. He invested much of his wealth in real-estate purchases in Stratford and bought the second-largest house in town, New Place, in 1597.

Among the last plays that Shakespeare worked on was The Two Noble Kinsmen , which he wrote with a frequent collaborator, John Fletcher, most likely in 1613. He died on April 23, 1616—the traditional date of his birthday, though his precise birthdate is unknown. We also do not know the cause of his death. His brother-in-law had died a week earlier, which could imply infectious disease, but Shakespeare’s health may have had a longer decline.

The memorial bust of Shakespeare at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford is considered one of two authentic likenesses, because it was approved by people who knew him. The other such likeness is the engraving by Martin Droeshout in the 1623 First Folio edition of Shakespeare’s plays, produced seven years after his death by his friends and colleagues from the King’s Men.

View a timeline of Shakespeare’s life with links to key supporting documents on Shakespeare Documented .

View timeline

The bust of Shakespeare in the Folger Reading Room is a copy of the statue at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford.

Frequently asked questions

Why did shakespeare leave his wife his “second best bed”.

William Shakespeare wrote in his last will and testament, dated March 25, 1616, “Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed with the furniture” (furniture is used to refer to the curtains and bedcover which formed part of the complete bed).

This was not an unusual bequest, nor was it likely to have been intended as a snub. The best bed was usually regarded as an heirloom piece, to be passed to the heir rather than the spouse. It is also probable that the best bed would have been reserved for guests, meaning the “second best” was the bed that William and Anne shared.

What did Shakespeare’s son die of?

We don’t really know how Shakespeare’s young son Hamnet died. He had a twin sister named Judith, who lived to adulthood and married, but Hamnet died at the age of 11 and a half. Child mortality was high in the 16th century; there were no antibiotics and many childhood diseases might therefore prove fatal, such as scarlet fever, whooping cough, diphtheria, and even measles. He was buried on August 11, 1596.

What is the inscription on Shakespeare’s grave?

GOOD FREND FOR JESUS SAKE FORBEARE, TO DIGG THE DUST ENCLOASED HEARE: BLESTE BE Ye [the] MAN Yt [that] SPARES THES STONES, AND CURST BE HE Yt [that] MOVES MY BONES.

Did Shakespeare have a coat of arms?

Yes, William’s father, John Shakespeare, was granted a coat of arms in 1596. It was disputed in 1602 by York Herald, Ralph Brooke, saying that the arms were too similar to existing coats of arms, and that the family was unworthy. However, the challenge was unsuccessful, as the Shakespeare coat of arms appears in later heraldic collections and on William Shakespeare’s funeral monument in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Does Shakespeare have descendants?

William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway had three children. The eldest, Susanna, was baptized on May 26, 1583, and married John Hall in 1607. They had one child, Elizabeth, in 1608. Elizabeth was married twice, to Thomas Nash in 1626, and to John Bernard in 1649. However, she had no children by either husband.

William and Anne also had twins, Judith and Hamnet, who were baptized on February 2, 1585. Hamnet died at age 11 and a half. Judith married Thomas Quiney in 1616, and the couple had three sons: Shakespeare Quiney, who died in infancy, and Richard and Thomas, who both died in 1639 within a month of each other. Since neither of the boys married, there is no possibility of any legitimate descendants from Shakespeare’s line.

It is possible, however, to claim a relationship to Shakespeare through his sister, Joan. She married William Hart some time before 1600, and there are many descendants of this marriage alive today, in both the male and female lines.

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Shakespeare's Biography

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William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, allegedly on April 23, 1564. Church records from Holy Trinity Church indicate that he was baptized there on April 26, 1564. Young William was born of John Shakespeare, a glover and leather merchant, and Mary Arden, a landed local heiress. William, according to the church register, was the third of eight children in the Shakespeare household—three of whom died in childhood. John Shakespeare had a remarkable run of success as a merchant, alderman, and high bailiff of Stratford, during William's early childhood. His fortunes declined, however, in the late 1570s.

There is great conjecture about Shakespeare's childhood years, especially regarding his education. Scholars surmise that Shakespeare attended the grammar school in Stratford. While there are no records extant to prove this claim, Shakespeare's knowledge of Latin and Classical Greek would tend to support this theory. In addition, Shakespeare's first biographer, Nicholas Rowe, wrote that John Shakespeare had placed William "for some time in a free school." John Shakespeare, as a Stratford official, would have been granted a waiver of tuition for his son. As the records do not exist, we do not know how long William may have attended the school, but the literary quality of his works suggests a solid educational foundation. What is certain is that William Shakespeare never proceeded to university schooling, which has contributed to the debate about the authorship of his works.

The next documented event in Shakespeare's life is his marriage to Anne Hathaway on November 28, 1582. William was 18 at the time, and Anne was 26—and pregnant. Their first daughter, Susanna, was born on May 26, 1583. The couple later had twins, Hamnet and Judith, born February 2, 1585 and christened at Holy Trinity. Hamnet died in childhood at the age of 11, on August 11, 1596.

For the seven years following the birth of his twins, William Shakespeare disappears from all records, finally turning up again in London some time in 1592. This period, known as the " Lost Years ," has sparked as much controversy about Shakespeare's life as any period. Rowe notes that young Shakespeare was quite fond of poaching, and may have had to flee Stratford after an incident with Sir Thomas Lucy, whose deer and rabbits he allegedly poached. There is also rumor of Shakespeare working as an assistant schoolmaster in Lancashire for a time, though this is circumstantial at best.

It is estimated that Shakespeare arrived in London around 1588 and began to establish himself as an actor and playwright. Evidently Shakespeare garnered some envy early on, as related by the critical attack of Robert Greene, a London playwright, in 1592: "...an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes fac totum , is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country."

Greene's bombast notwithstanding, Shakespeare must have shown considerable promise. By 1594, he was not only acting and writing for the Lord Chamberlain's Men (called the King's Men after the ascension of James I in 1603), but was a managing partner in the operation as well. With Will Kempe, a master comedian, and Richard Burbage, a leading tragic actor of the day, the Lord Chamberlain's Men became a favorite London troupe, patronized by royalty and made popular by the theatre-going public.

Shakespeare's accomplishments are apparent when studied against other playwrights of this age. His company was the most successful in London in his day. He had plays published and sold in octavo editions, or "penny-copies" to the more literate of his audiences. Never before had a playwright enjoyed sufficient acclaim to see his works published and sold as popular literature in the midst of his career. In addition, Shakespeare's ownership share in both the theatrical company and the Globe itself made him as much an entrepeneur as artist. While Shakespeare might not be accounted wealthy by London standards, his success allowed him to purchase New House and retire in comfort to Stratford in 1611.

William Shakespeare wrote his will in 1611 , bequeathing his properties to his daughter Susanna (married in 1607 to Dr. John Hall). To his surviving daughter Judith, he left £300, and to his wife Anne left "my second best bed." William Shakespeare allegedly died on his birthday, April 23, 1616. This is probably more of a romantic myth than reality, but Shakespeare was interred at Holy Trinity in Stratford on April 25. In 1623, two working companions of Shakespeare from the Lord Chamberlain's Men, John Heminges and Henry Condell, printed the First Folio edition of his collected plays, of which half were previously unpublished.

William Shakespeare's legacy is a body of work that will never again be equaled in Western civilization. His words have endured for 400 years, and still reach across the centuries as powerfully as ever. Even in death, he leaves a final piece of verse as his epitaph:

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

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William Shakespeare Biography

William Shakespeare was indisputably among the top English-language poets and playwrights of all time. He was born in the village of Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564 and died there in April 1616. His surviving body of work includes 38 plays, 154 sonnets and two narrative poems, the majority of which he penned between 1589 and 1613. While much of Shakespeare's biography is unknown, murky or subject to dispute, historians have managed to verify factual data through his own writings, the works of his contemporaries and historical documents.

Early Years: 1564 to 1585

The Bard of Avon, as William Shakespeare is also known, was the child of a leather merchant and glover, John Shakespeare. His mother was from a family of landed gentry. In the absence of records detailing Shakespeare's early education, historians guess he attended a nearby school where he learned to read and write English as well as Latin.

In 1582, when he was just 18, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, a woman eight years his senior. They would have three children, a daughter in 1583 and a set of twins in 1585. They lost their only son, Hamnet, when the boy was 11 years old. Daughters Susanna and Judith would live to be 66 and 77, respectively.

Middle Years: 1586 to 1599

From 1586 until 1592, very little information is available regarding the Shakespeare household or the bard himself. During this period that historians refer to as the writer's lost years, only a scant legal document or two gives evidence of Shakespeare's existence. Over the years, various biographers have speculated that he may have been a poacher on the run from a disgruntled landowner, a horse-minder at a London theater, or more probably, a local schoolmaster.

Also during his lost years, the bard was devoting a good portion of his time to playwriting. By 1592, solid evidence shows that one if not more of his plays was underway on London stages. The first of his plays in production was probably "Henry IV, Part One," an historical work which not only chronicles the active years of the monarch's reign but also introduces his son Hal and Henry Percy, or Hotspur, a rival.

The bard had established himself in London prior to 1592, as evidenced by a mention in the London Times by a fellow playwright. He completed "Henry IV, Part Two" and "Henry V" early in the 1590s. By 1594, he and a group of colleagues had formed an acting troupe they called The Lord Chamberlain's Men, in honor of their patron, which would soon grow to prominence in the London theater scene.

The 1590s were quite a prolific time for Shakespeare. He wrote additional historic plays, including "Richard II," "Richard III," and "Titus Andronicus." He also penned the comedies "Two Gentlemen of Verona," "The Taming of the Shrew" and "A Comedy of Errors," probably early in the decade.

From around 1595 to the end of the century, Shakespeare turned his sights toward more romantic comedies, including "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "The Merchant of Venice," Twelfth Night" and "Much Ado About Nothing." The bard wrote the tragedies "Romeo and Juliet," and "Julius Caesar" during this period of his life as well,

By 1597, Shakespeare had written approximately 15 of his 38 surviving plays. He had achieved enough financial success to purchase one of Stratford's nicest homes for his family. He continued to live principally in London where he wrote and acted in his plays. During periods such as Lent when theaters were closed and when outbreaks of the plague shut down the city, he likely spent time with his family in Stratford..

Shakespeare was not only writing scripts for his company, often based on stories from mythology, literature and historic accounts, but he was also acting in his own plays. The Lord Chamberlain's Men put on performances at such London venues as The Theatre and The Curtain. In 1599, the acting troupe built The Globe from the ruins of The Theater, establishing their own playhouse, which opened in 1599.

Later Years: 1600-1613

Early in the new century, the bard continued to produce great literature, penning such masterworks as "Troilus and Cressida," "Measure for Measure," "All's Well That Ends Well," and some of his most renowned tragedies, including "Hamlet," "Othello" and "King Lear." In 1603, The Lord Chamberlain's Men delivered a command performance of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at Queen Elizabeth's Hampton court. When the Queen died later that year, the acting troupe changed its name to The King's Men in honor of the newly crowned King James I. Their first performance for the monarch was "As You Like It."

The bard was growing artistically during this era, customizing his mastery of blank verse with wit and intention to enrich his characters' dialogue and enliven the action. He employed such techniques as run-on lines and inflected phrasing to breathe life into a poetic form that tended to the monotone if used within strict parameters of ten syllables per line and alternating stressed and unstressed syllables. The dialogue of his play "Hamlet," for example, seems animated in comparison to the more strictly patterned lines of earlier works such as "Henry V." Shakespeare also provided moments of variation in his plays by inserting bits of rhymed verse in the dialogue, for example in Puck's epilogue in "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

During the first decade of the 17th century, Shakespeare published his "Sonnets," a collection of 154 14-line works that employed the same blank verse format as his plays but with the specific rhyme scheme of three quatrains and a concluding couplet. Released as a printed collection in 1609, Shakespeare's sonnets had likely been written individually over time, and those within his circle of friends were probably already familiar with some of them. The form the bard employed for his verses became known as the Shakespearean sonnet, as opposed to the traditional Petrarchan sonnet, which consists of an octet and a sestet.

In his last plays, "Cymbeline," "A Winter's Tale," and "The Tempest," the bard test-drove a hybrid genre, the tragicomedy, also known as the romance. While they take a more somber, serious tone than such comedies as "Twelfth Night," these tragicomedies end on a positive note, unlike such tragedies as "King Lear." The bard also completed two last works for theater, "Henry VIII" and "The Two Noble Kinsmen," with a collaborator, likely John Fletcher, a contemporary playwright.

Just after the completion of "Henry VIII" in 1613, The King's Men lost the Globe playhouse to a fire. By the time they reopened in 1614, Shakespeare had already retired to his family home in Stratford where he died in 1616 at the age of 52. While no verified version of the manner of his death exists today, one account, written by the vicar of Stratford 50 years later, attributes his untimely demise to drinking too hard with his friends John Drayton and Ben Johnson, and catching a fatal fever as a result.

The Controversy

Due in part to the great gaps in knowledge regarding Shakespeare's early education and the lost years, the bard has always been shrouded in mystery. In addition, not a single manuscript he wrote in his own hand survived the centuries. One scholarly explanation for this lack of historical verification is that "William Shakespeare" was the pen name of some more illustrious, well-educated figure of the Elizabethan era.

The controversy did not see the light of day until more than two centuries after the bard's death. Among the first to question the authorship of such all-time great works as "Macbeth" was a Pennsylvanian Lutheran named Samuel Schmucker, and he was merely drawing an analogy. He likened the scholarly trend of his time in using historic data to raise doubts about the existence of Christ was akin to speculating that Shakespeare never existed. An offhand remark, but that is all it took to sow the seed of controversy.

Some of the fuel for the fire included: 1. The lack of documentation for Shakespeare's existence. 2. The disputed authorship of particular works. 3. The unlikelihood that someone with the bard's background would rise to greatness.

Among the most famous doubters were Mark Twain, Henry James, Sigmund Freud and Orson Wells. Among the candidates people have mentioned as the "real" William Shakespeare are Sir Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, and Earl of Oxford Edward DeVere. The controversy has even found its way into the U.S. Supreme Court as the subject of a moot debate.

The Influence of William Shakespeare Through the Centuries

One of the bard's most enduring influences is on the English language. Not only are many quotes from his plays, such as Polonius' advice to Hamlet, "Neither a borrower nor a lender be," a part of the English lexicon, but the way in which Shakespeare shaped the language to suit his own artistic purposes would influence future writers and poets throughout subsequent history, from Charles Dickens to Maya Angelou. Charles Dickens drew upon the bard's writings for many of his titles as well as numerous quotations he used within his novels.

Shakespeare also enriched the language with the addition of approximately 2,000 new words and numerous new usages of existing vocabulary. Some of the words attributed to the bard include "auspicious," "dwindle" and "sanctimonious." Phrases he originated that are still in the popular lexicon include, "break the ice" from "The Taming of the Shrew" and "in a pickle" from "The Tempest."

The bard's masterful characterizations have become archetypes for social standards. Such larger-than-life characters as Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Ophelia and a host of others inform contemporary social standards in ways that are inextricably woven into the fabric of modern society. They not only appear as standard icons in the theater, movies, literature and visual arts, but also have established themselves as cultural norms, particularly in English-speaking societies. It is not even necessary to have read the works of Shakespeare to be familiar with his well-known quotations and characters.

Even the controversy surrounding the authorship of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets serves to keep the bard very much a vital figure in contemporary lore. The probability that the mystery will probably never be resolved, given the lack of hard evidence, means that Shakespearean scholars, school teachers and their students will be reading and discussing the 16th-century master far into the future.

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25 Biography: William Shakespeare

Portrait of William Shakespeare

Artist | John Taylor   Source | Wikimedia Commons   License | Public Domain

(1564-1616)

Shakespeare was born on April 23, and he died on April 23. He was born in Stratford- upon-Avon, and he died in Stratford-upon- Avon. These facts frame many additional facts and many conjectures. He probably received an education in Latin studies at the town’s grammar school, as his father was a municipal officer (mayor and justice ofthe peace) so could send his son to the school for free. At the age of eighteen, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway (1556-1623), a woman who was eight  years  his senior and who lived in nearby Shottery. Their child Susanna (1583-1649) was born five months later. Two years after that, their twins Hamnet and Judith were born, with Hamnet dying at the age of eleven and Judith surviving to the age of seventy-seven. Anne outlived Shakespeare by seven years, receiving in his will his second-best bed and being buried next to him in the Church of the Holy Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Seven years after the birth of the twins, Robert Greene (1558-1592) writes of Shakespeare as an actor and playwright in London, describing him in Greenes Groatsworth of Wit (1592) as “an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger’s heart wrapt in a player’s hide, supposes he is as well able  to bombast out ablank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.” Green was  a member of the “University Wits,” a group of Cambridge and Oxford young men—including Christopher Marlowe—that sought to bring their classical learning to the stage. Although Shakespeare attended neither Cambridge nor Oxford, his early plays echo Marlowe’s blank verse; indeed, Shakespeare’s Henry VI Parts I , II , and III , according to the Oxford University Press, may have been co-written by Marlowe, so Marlowe’s influence may have been direct. Shakespeare also demonstrated classical learning on the stage with his Plautean Comedy of Errors (performed in 1594) and his Senecan tragedy Titus Andronicus (performed in 1594).

He dedicated two classically-themed poems to his patron Henry Wriothesley, third earl of Southampton. Both Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594) were published as quarto pamphlets, with Venus and Adonis running through eighteen editions and The Rape of Lucrece , eight editions by 1655. In 1594, Shakespeare was a partner in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, a theater company from which he derived profits for such plays as Romeo and Juliet (performed around 1595-1596), The Merchant of Venice (performed around 15996-97), Henry IV Parts I and II (performed around 1597-1598), and Twelfth Night: Or, What You Will (performed around 1600-1602).

From 1595, he also probably worked on his sonnet sequence that was not published until 1609. These sonnets employ numerous conventions, such as the idealized and aloof woman. He also used the already-extant rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Yet he used it so  deftly and naturally that the form  is now known as the Shakespearean sonnet. His sonnets reflect on  the power  of poetry and the matters of  poetic art, such as  romantic love, in  language  that compels belief in their truth and authenticity—even though their possibly autobiographical elements have not been proven. For example, they trace a friendship with a beautiful young man and a romance with a dark lady. The identity of either of these figures is unknown, though early conjectures identify the young man as Shakespeare’s patron Wriothesley and the dark lady as a sonnet convention along the lines of Petrarch’s Laura. When published, the sequence was dedicated to an unknown Mr. W. H., described as the sonnets’ only begetter.

In 1599, Shakespeare’s company built the Globe Theater, with Shakespeare being one of six shareholders; the othersincluded the great actor Richard Burbage (1567-1619) and John Heminges (1566-1630) who, with Henry Condell(1576-1627), edited the First Folio (1623) collection of Shakespeare’s plays. In 1613, during a performance ofShakespeare’s Henry VIII, the Globe was destroyed by fire but was rebuilt the next year. Upon the accession of James I (1603), the Lord Chamberlain’s Men was renamed the King’s Men, and Shakespeare began writing his greatest tragedies, including Othello (performed around 1604), King Lear (performed around 1605-1606), and Macbeth (performed around 1606).  With his profits, Shakespeare buil New Place, the second largest house in Stratfod-upon-Avon.

            In 1606, the King’s Men acquired a private theater, Blackfriars, along with its playwrights Francis Beaumont (1584-1616) and John Fletcher (1579-1625), whose style may have influenced Shakespeare’s final romances, including Cymbeline (performed around 1609-1610), The Winter’s Tale (performed around 1610-1611), and The Tempest (performed in 1611). Shakespeare collaborated with Fletcher on Henry VIII (performed around 1612-1613), TheTwo Noble Kinsmen (performed around 1612- 1613), and Cardenio (performed around 1612-1613). In 1613, Shakespeare retired to Stratford-upon-Avon. He died in 1616, a little over two months after his daughter Judith married Thomas Quiney (1589-1663).

Although these facts seem sparse, they are more in number than facts known about other playwrights of Shakespeare’s time. Yet, they still offer too little knowledge to those around the world who have loved Shakespeare’s works over the course of four hundred years—a man whose invented words enrich the English language; whose characters fill imaginations; and whose range of style, sheer beauty of expression, and depth and breadth of insight authenticate the most profound of human emotions.

The interpretation of Shakespeare over time provides a mirror to the history of interpretation itself. In 1693, Thomas Rymer attacked Othello as not a tragedy but a farce due to its offering, in his opinion, neither meaning nor moral. In  1699, James Drake similarly demonstrated the expectation for moral lessons in art when he admired the poetic justice of Hamlet (first performed around 1609). The eighteenth century evinced interest in the particularities of Shakespeare’s characters; for example, in 1777, Maurice Morgann wrote an essay on the character of Falstaff describing him as not a coward but a sensible man.

Shakespeare’s King Lear suggests a way to interpret or gain meaning from this play (and perhaps his others). This extraordinarily dynamic work, with wheels within wheels of meaning, depicts extreme betrayal, cruelty, and suffering of such intensity that an audience may wish to turn away from it. The character Edgar serves as a type of audience, as almost a pure observer of a painful scene between the mad King Lear and the blinded Duke of Gloucester, Edgar’s own father. But Edgar will not turn away, saying in an aside—presumably to the actual audience— that he would not take this scene from report. And he offers a possible explanation for the purpose and effect of art when he describes himself as one who has gained compassion through suffering, as one who “by the art of know and feeling sorrows,/ Am pregnant to good pity” (220-21).

British Literature Copyright © by Elizabeth Harlan. All Rights Reserved.

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William Shakespeare

Married life, some important facts of his life, writing career.

Though Shakespeare left school at the age of fourteen forced by the financial crisis, he was sufficiently educated. Hence, he earned a good name in acting and writing. He moved to London where he established his career as an actor and writer. He wrote his first play ,  Henry-VI Part-I, in 1590 and Henry-VI Part-III and IV in 1591. He won unprecedented popularity due to his outstanding literary out. Despite this, in 1592, Robert Greene’s Groatworth of Wit  famously calls Shakespeare an ”upstart crow,” a negatively discouraging term. According to Robert Greene, Shakespeare was not capable enough to produce the finest pieces. He believed that Shakespeare borrowed ideas from others. His accusation, however, did not impact his writings. He continued producing masterpieces after masterpieces until his death. In 1593, he started working on his 124 sonnet collection. Despite facing criticism patiently, he never let himself derailed from the literary path. He established himself as an excellent poet and a great playwright with masterpieces such as The Merchant of Venice, Macbeth , Othello , Venus and Adonis’, The Rape of Lucrece and Hamlet to his credit.  

William Shakespeare’s Works

William shakespeare’s impacts on future literature.

His pen brought revolutionary changes to the world of literature. Even today, researchers tend to investigate how his works evolved social, political and theatrical settings. He not only wrote plays and poetry but also managed to leave a permanent mark on how we live and speak in contemporary culture. His writings are still subject to interpretation and translation in various languages. His writing style influenced a large number of renowned writers such as Charles Dickens , Maya Angelou, John Keats , and Herman Melville . Various writers and poets use his style as a guiding model for writing plays and poetry. Also, genres of tragedy , comedy , and tragi-comedy owe a great deal to Shakespeare for popularity and universal recognition.

William Shakespeare’s Famous Quotes

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Beyond GCSE Revision

Gcse-grade revision from beyond, powered by twinkl, shakespeare biography: who was william shakespeare.

Welcome to our new “Who Were They” series here at Beyond, where we look at influential figures in English, Maths, Science and more. This blog explores the bard himself, William Shakespeare, by providing a Shakespeare biography for KS3 or GCSE English students. Our Shakespeare biography will look at:

• William Shakespeare’s Family 
• William Shakespeare’s Early life 
• William Shakespeare in London 
• Shakespeare’s Works 

Shakespeare’s Legacy

Shakespeare activities.

You can also subscribe to  Beyond Secondary Resources  for access to thousands of worksheets and revision tools. Our site was created with teachers in mind and includes lots of teacher instructions, however, it also contains content for students that will be particularly useful when revising! You can  sign up for a free account here  and take a look around  at our free resources  before you subscribe too.

William Shakespeare’s Family

In 1564, Stratford-upon-Avon, England, the famous playwright William Shakespeare was born. The exact date of his birth is unknown. However, there are records of his baptism on the 26th of April. It was very common at this time to baptise babies around three days after their birth so his ‘official’ birthday is celebrated on the 23rd of April.

William was one of six children born to John and Mary Shakespeare. He had two older sisters, Joan and Judith and three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard and Edmund.

William’s father was a leather merchant and his mother came from a wealthy family. She was often referred to as a ‘local-landed heiress’ for this reason.

• Shakespeare was born in 1564 Stratford-upon-Avon
• He was baptised on April 26th
• His parents were John and Mary Shakespeare
• He had five siblings
• His father was a successful merchant and his mother came from a wealthy family

William Shakespeare’s Early Life

Along with the lack of birth records, there is also a lack of school records for William Shakespeare. However, it is believed that we attended King’s New School in Stratford. Although there are no ‘official’ documents confirming his education there, the school often refers to itself as “Shakespeare’s School”. Traditionally an all boys school, the grammar school began admitting girls in 2013 and boasts a long list of notable ex students including famous musicians and actors.

William’s father, John Shakespeare, continued to be a successful merchant throughout William’s early life. He held positions such as alderman and bailiff which today would be similar to acting as Mayor to the town.

On the 28th November 1582, William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway. She was 26 years old when they were married, whilst he was only 18 years old. She was pregnant with their first child at the time of their marriage. Their daughter Susana was born not long later in 1583. The couple then welcomed twins into the world two years later, a boy named Hamnet and a girl named Judith. Little is known about their mother or their lives. However, it is recorded that sadly at the age of 11, Hamnet died.

After his twin children were born, William Shakespeare disappeared from legal records. These years are often referred to as “The Lost Years”. 

There are many theories to explain what Shakespeare may have been doing during this time. A popular story to cover this missing time revolves around William and a landowner named Sir Thomas Lucy. The story goes that Shakespeare had poached deer from Sir Lucy’s estate and had fled to London to escape punishment where he began his career as an actor.

Other theories ponder whether he had worked as a school master in Stratford or served time as a soldier. Either way it was very common during the 1500s to record baptisms, marriages and deaths. Therefore it is not unusual to find gaps and perhaps it is more fun to imagine where this famous playwright may have spent his time during these ‘lost years’.

• It is thought Shakespeare attended King’s New School in Stratford
• Shakespeare’s father was alderman and bailiff to the town
• On 28th November 1582, William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway
• They had 3 children together, a daughter Susana and twinks Judith and Hamnet
• Between the baptism of his twins and his early success in London, there is no record of where Shakespeare was. This is known as “The Lost Years”.

William Shakespeare in London

In 1592, William Shakespeare was recorded once again, this time in London. When he first arrived it is believed he worked as a horse attendant at the local theatres. By the time he is next recorded in history, he was already earning money as an actor and playwright.

William Shakespeare joined an acting company whilst in London named The Lord Chamberlain’s Men. After King James I was crowned, they changed their name to The King’s Men in tribute. 

It was during this time that Shakespeare began to sell his written work and his popularity amongst Londoners began to grow.

By 1597, he was earning so much money that he purchased a new home in Stratford. It was the second largest property in the town. However, it took almost four days to travel between London and Stratford at this time so he rarely visited. He usually would return during the forty days of Lent when the theatres would close and he was not needed in London.

As his fortune grew, he began to invest in other properties around Stratford and rent them out, becoming a prosperous landlord. It is said he earned around £60 a year from his properties. This is the equivalent of approximately £8,000 today and would cover 1200 days of regular wages.

• In 1592, Shakespeare was a successful actor and playwright in London
• He was a member of The Lord Chamberlain acting company which was later renamed The King’s Men as tribute to James I who had become King
• In 1597, Shakespeare bought the second largest house in Stratford
• He continued to expand his property portfolio and became a prosperous landlord

Shakespeare’s Works

William Shakespeare wrote over 38 plays and over 150 poems during his career. His plays could be broken down into three categories. Comedies, which were full of fun, irony, wordplay and mystery. He wrote Tragedies which as the name would suggest often ended in sadness or heartbreak. The final plays under the category of Historical, exploring the kings and queens of Britain and other figures throughout history and mythology.

Many of his plays were performed for Queen Elizabeth I and included themes of religion, love and monarchy.

There are several plays that are famous throughout the world such as Romeo and Juliet or Macbeth. However, it is in his lesser known plays that some of Shakespeare’s best writing can be found.

You can find all of Shakespeare’s plays in alphabetical order here .

Shakespeare’s Comedies

• All’s Well That Ends Well
• As You Like It
• The Comedy of Errors
• Love’s Labour’s Lost
• Measure for Measure
• The Merry Wives of Windsor
• The Merchant of Venice
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream
• Much Ado About Nothing
• Pericles, 
• Prince of Tyre 
• Taming of the Shrew 
• The Tempest 
• Troilus and Cressida 
• Twelfth Night 
• Two Gentlemen of Verona 
• Winter’s Tale 

Shakespeare’s Histories 

• Henry IV, part 1 
• Henry IV, part 2 
• Henry V 
• Henry VI, part 1 
• Henry VI, part 2 
• Henry VI, part 3 
• Henry VIII 
• King John 
• Richard II 
• Richard III 

Shakespeare’s Tragedies

• Antony and Cleopatra 
• Coriolanus 
• Hamlet 
• Julius Caesar 
• King Lear 
• Macbeth 
• Othello 
• Romeo and Juliet 
• Timon of Athens 
• Titus Andronicus 

Shakespeare’s Poetry 

• The Sonnets 
• A Lover’s Complaint 
• The Rape of Lucrece 
• Venus and Adonis 
• Funeral Elegy by W.S.
• Shakespeare wrote over 38 plays and over 150 poems
• His plays come under three categories – Comedy, Tragedy and History
• His work often features themes of religion, love and monarchy
• Queen Elizabeth I attended many performances of Shakespeare’s work

The works of William Shakespeare have become so popular that they have been translated into 80 languages, worldwide. We ourselves have over three hundred words and well-known phrases in the English language, which Shakespeare invented himself. 

Some of these words for example include, ‘barefaced’, ‘fair-play’, ‘well-read’ and ‘lacklustre’. We can also thank Shakespeare for phrases such as ‘seen better days’. ‘Wild goose chase’ and ‘good riddance’.

Included in Shakeseare’s poetry are his 154 sonnets. A sonnet is a poem with 14 lines and is written in iambic pentameter. The term ‘sonnet’ comes from the Italian word ‘sonetto’, meaning “a little sound or song”. Most of Shakespeare’s sonnets are about love, loss and death.

William Shakespeare died on April 23rd 1616 at the age of 52. A vicar reported several years later that he likely died from a fever he had caught after a night out ‘merry making’, but no official cause of death was ever recorded.

A few months before his death, William Shakespeare had written his will. He wrote, “Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed with the furniture”. Many people have mistakenly thought this was a snub towards his wife, Anne. However, this was not unusual. The ‘best bed’ was often an heirloom passed down from generation to generation. It could have also been a reference to the guest room which was kept grand for when people came to visit. The second best bed is a reference to the one he would have shared with his wife. Therefore it more likely means he left their shared belongings of their home to her. He left the rest of his belongings to his eldest daughter Susana.

William Shakespeare is buried in the Holy Trinity churchyard in Stratford. Shortly after he was laid to rest, there was some discussion about moving his remains to Westminster Abbey. However, the decision to leave him in his hometown was made. Instead on the 29th January 1741, a life-size marble statue was erected of the bard in the Poet’s corner of Westminster Abbey. It is here that many other actors and actresses are now buried and remembered for their work in Shakespearean plays.

• William Shakespeare’s work has been translated into 80 languages
• He invented over 300 words and phrases that are used in English today
• He wrote 154 sonnets about love, loss and death
• He died on April 23rd 1616 at the age of 52
• He left his shared belongings to his wife and the rest of his things to his eldest daughter
• William Shakespeare is buried in Holy Trinity churchyard, Stratford
• He is also remembered through his life-size marble statue in Westminster Abbey

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Shakespeare's Words

William shakespeare is credited with the invention or introduction of over 1,700 words that are still used in english today.

• In this section

William Shakespeare used more than 20,000 words in his plays and poems, and his works provide the first recorded use of over 1,700 words in the English language. It is believed that he may have invented or introduced many of these words himself, often by combining words, changing nouns into verbs, adding prefixes or suffixes, and so on. Some words stuck around and some didn't. 

Although lexicographers are continually discovering new origins and earliest usages of words, below are listed words and definitions we still use today that are widely attributed to Shakespeare.

Shakespeare's Words A-Z

Alligator:  (n) a large, carnivorous reptile closely related to the crocodile       Romeo and Juliet , Act 5 Scene 1

Bedroom:  (n) a room for sleeping; furnished with a bed       A Midsummer Night's Dream , Act 2 Scene 2

Critic:  (n) one who judges merit or expresses a reasoned opinion       Love's Labour's Lost , Act 3 Scene 1

Downstairs:  (adv) on a lower floor; down the steps        Henry IV Part 1 , Act 2 Scene 4

Eyeball:  (n) the round part of the eye; organ for vision       Henry VI Part 1 , Act 4 Scene 7

Fashionable:  (adj) stylish; characteristic of a particular period       Troilus and Cressida , Act 3 Scene 3

Gossip:  (v) to talk casually, usually about others       The Comedy of Errors , Act 5 Scene 1

Hurry:  (v) to act or move quickly       The Comedy of Errors , Act 5 Scene 1

Inaudible:  (adj) not heard; unable to be heard       All's Well That Ends Well , Act 5 Scene 3

Jaded:  (adj) worn out; bored or past feeling       Henry VI Part 2 , Act 4 Scene 1

Kissing:  (ppl adj) touching with the lips; exchanging kisses       Love's Labour's Lost , Act 5 Scene 2

Lonely:  (adj) feeling sad due to lack of companionship       Coriolanus , Act 4 Scene 1

Manager:  (n) one who controls or administers; person in charge       Love's Labour's Lost , Act 1 Scene 2

Nervy:  (adj) sinewy or strong; bold; easily agitated       Coriolanus , Act 2 Scene 1

Obscene:  (adj) repulsive or disgusting; offensive to one's morality       Love's Labour's Lost , Act 1 Scene 1

Puppy dog:  (n) a young, domestic dog        King John , Act 2 Scene 1

Questioning:  (n) the act of inquiring or interrogating       As You Like It , Act 5 Scene 4

Rant: (v) to speak at length in inflated or extravagant language       Hamlet , Act 5 Scene 1

Skim milk: (n) milk with its cream removed       Henry IV Part 1 , Act 2 Scene 3

Traditional : (adj) conventional; long-established, bound by tradition       Richard III , Act 3 Scene 1

Undress: (v) to remove clothes or other covering       The Taming of the Shrew , Induction Scene 2

Varied: (adj) incorporating different types or kinds; diverse       Titus Andronicus , Act 3 Scene 1

Worthless: (adj) having no value or merit; contemptible       The Two Gentlemen of Verona , Act 4 Scene 2

Xantippe: (n) shrewish wife of Socrates; figuratively, a bad-tempered woman       The Taming of the Shrew , Act 1 Scene 2

Yelping: (adj) uttering sharp, high-pitched cries       Henry VI Part 1 , Act 4 Scene 2

Zany: (n) clown's assistant; performer who mimics another's antics       Love's Labour's Lost , Act 5 Scene 2

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