3. His actual date of birth
remains unknown,
but is observed on 23
April, St George's Day.
He died on 23 April
1616. The cause of
Shakespeare's death is a
mystery.
4. He is often called England's national poet
and the "Bard of Avon".
His extant works, including some
collaborations, consist of about 38
plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative
poems, two epitaphs on a man named John
Combe, one epitaph on Elias James, and
several other poems. His plays have been
translated into every major living language
and are performed more often than those
of any other playwright
5.
6.
7. At eighteen, he married
Anne Hathaway, a
woman seven or eight
years his senior.
Together they raised two
daughters: Susanna, who
was born in 1583, and
Judith (whose twin
brother died in
boyhood), born in 1585.
8. Little is known about Shakespeare's activities between
1585 and 1592. Shakespeare may have taught at school
during this period, but it seems more probable that
shortly after 1585 he went to London to begin his
apprenticeship as an actor.
June 1592 and April 1594.
During that
period, Shakespeare
probably had some income
from his patron, Henry
Wriothesley, earl of
Southampton, to whom he dedicated his first two poems,
Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594)
9.
10. In 1594, Shakespeare joined the
Lord Chamberlain's company of
actors, the most popular of the
companies acting at Court. In 1599
Shakespeare joined a group of
Chamberlain's Men that would form
a syndicate to build and operate a
new playhouse: the Globe, which
became the most famous theater of
its time. With his share of the
income from the Globe,
Shakespeare was able to purchase
New Place, his home in Stratford.
11. Shakespeare's sonnets were
composed between 1593 and
1601, though not published until
1609. That edition, The Sonnets
of Shakespeare, consists of 154
sonnets, all written in the form of
three quatrains and a couplet that
is now recognized as
Shakespearean. The sonnets fall
into two groups: sonnets 1-
126, addressed to a beloved
friend, a handsome and noble
young man, and sonnets 127-
152, to a malignant but fascinating
"Dark Lady," whom the poet loves
in spite of himself.
* Nearly all of Shakespeare's sonnets examine the inevitable decay
of time, and the immortalization of beauty and love in poetry. *
12. In his poems and plays, Shakespeare
invented thousands of words, often
combining or contorting
Latin, French and native roots. His
impressive expansion of the English
language, according to the Oxford
English Dictionary, includes such
words as: arch-
villain, birthplace, bloodsucking, cou
rtship, dewdrop, downstairs, fanged,
heartsore, hunchbacked, leapfrog, m
isquote, pageantry, radiance, schoolb
oy, stillborn, watchdog, and zany.
14. Shakespeare wrote more than 30 plays. These are
usually divided into four categories:
histories, comedies, tragedies, and romances. His
earliest plays were primarily comedies and histories such
as Henry VI and The Comedy of Errors, but in
1596, Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, his second
tragedy, and over the next dozen years he would return
to the form, writing the plays for which he is now best
known:
In his final years, Shakespeare turned to the
romantic with Cymbeline, A Winter's Tale, and
The Tempest.
Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello, King
Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra.
15. Only eighteen of Shakespeare's plays were published
separately in quarto editions during his lifetime; a
complete collection of his works did not appear until
the publication of the First Folio in 1623, several years
after his death. Nonetheless, his contemporaries
recognized Shakespeare's achievements. Francis Meres
cited "honey-tongued" Shakespeare for his plays and
poems in 1598, and the Chamberlain's Men rose to
become the leading dramatic company in
London, installed as members of the royal household
16. William Shakespeare signed his will on 25 March 1616.
To Anne Shakespeare (nee Hathaway), his wife of 34
years and mother of his children, he left the following,
inserted near the end of the document: Item I gyve unto
my wief my second best bed wth the furniture (furniture
is used to refer to the curtains and bedcover which
formed part of the complete bed). Under medieval
common law in England a widow was entitled to one
third of her late husband's estate for her life (or
widowhood) even though it was not specifically
mentioned in the will. In practice however, most wives
were mentioned, usually in terms of affection and trust,
and were frequently made executrix of the will. Unusually, in Shakespeare's will we find no
affectionate reference. The bequest of the
second best bed is not in itself unusual, nor
probably a snub as has been suggested. The best
bed, or indeed best of any type of item was
usually regarded as an heirloom to be passed to
the heir. It is quite possible that the best bed had
been reserved for guests and that the second
best was, in fact, the bed that William and Anne
shared. Why this is the only specified bequest to
her has never been resolved.
17. Shakespeare, and his wife Anne had three
children: Susanna, who was born in 1583
and twins Judith and Hamnet, who were
born in 1585. Hamnet, a boy, died in 1596
at 11 years of age.
Susanna married John Hall in 1607 and
had one child, Elizabeth, in 1608. Although
Elizabeth was married twice (in 1626 to
Thomas Nash and in 1649 to John
Bernard), she never had any children.
Judith married Thomas Quiney in 1616
and had three sons, one of whom died in
infancy. The other two sons both died
unmarried in 1639.
There
are, however, numerous
descendants of
Shakespeare's
sister, Joan Hart, who
are alive today and can
claim some relationship
to the great bard.
18. Shakespeare was reasonably well-
known during his lifetime in the
London theatrical community, and
many of his plays as well as his
poems were published before his
death. His plays continued to be
acted after the
Restoration, although they were
thought to be old hat. Only in the
eighteenth century, with David
Garrick, did Shakespeare attain the
status of a "superwriter" in Britain.
Later, people outside the English-
speaking world became impressed
with him--Goethe was a particular
fan.
So Shakespeare was always to some
degree famous, but he just became
more and more famous as time
An original Shakespeare manuscript,
held by the Folger Shakespeare Library.
