William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet and actor born in 1564 in Stratford-Upon-Avon, England who had a successful career in London writing 38 plays, 154 sonnets and 2 long narrative poems across the genres of tragedies, comedies, histories and late romances before dying in 1616 at the age of 52; he wrote in a stylized language that did not always naturally derive from the needs of the characters or drama and left a significant impact on English literature.