William Shakespeare was an Elizabethan poet and playwright that is he lived during the time of the Tudor monarch Elizabeth the first he is widely considered the greatest dramatist in English Literature, the Bard of Avon and England’s National poet. On speaking about Shakespeare's imagination the French writer Alexander Tumanov said “After God Shakespeare has created most”.
Shakespeare was born in 1564 at Stratford-upon-Avon in England as a son of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden. Shakespeare’s father was a Glover and his mother belong to a wealthy landowning family . Probably Shakespeare was educated in a grammar school whose curriculum consisted of Latin grammar and classics . His contemporary Ben Johnson has written that Shakespeare new small Latin and less Greek. At the age of 18 he married Anne Hatheway who was 8 years senior to him and with Anne Shakespeare had three children a daughter by name Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith.
Sometime after 1585 he left for London the
capital city of England. In London he began his career as an actor ,writer and
part owner of a drama company called Lord Chamberlain's man with later became
the King’s Men. Shakespeare started writing plays in the traditional style adopting
traditional plots and stock dramatic devices but later he came to be known
for his insightful originality particularly in the creation of characters
he even aroused the envy of his contemporarie’s such as Robert Greene.
Shakespeare's plays were staged at three different theatres The Theatre, The
Curtain and The Globe . He lived in London for about three decades after that
he probably retired to his hometown Stratford-upon-Avon. He died on the 23rd of
April 1616.
In 1623 that is seven years after Shakespeare's
death John Heming and Henry Condell two of Shakespeare's friends
published a volume called the First Folio collection of his plays and
poems. His surviving work consists of 38 plays with this also includes
collaborations. In addition to these 38 plays the Folio also contains 154
sonnets and 2 long narrative poems Venus and Adonis and the Rape of Lucrece
and several other poems also. Shakespeare is widely studied, interpreted and his
plays are widely performed. His plays are
performed more than the works of any other playwrights. The plays are usually
classified into tragedy, comedy and historical plays. Some scholars also add the categories as
chronicle plays, Roman plays, Problem plays and Dramatic romances.
“We know
what we are
But know not
what we may be”
- By William Shakespeare
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