William
Shakespeare’s Life and Works
William Shakespeare was born on April
23, 1564 and died April 23, 1616. During
his lifetime and after his death, he was nicknamed the “Bard of Avon” When
Shakespeare was eighteen years old, he married Anne Hathaway of the town of
Stratford-on-Avon. She was 8 years older
than he was. They had 3 children and
their son named Hamlet later died in childhood.
Shakespeare’s father was quite a prosperous merchant as a glove maker,
which allowed William to attend school as a boy and study grammar Latin classes. In 1580, Shakespeare left Stratford and moved
to London to write and act in plays.
Throughout
his writing career, William Shakespeare wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets and 3 poems.
Shakespeare’s
London
William
Shakespeare was living during an exciting time in the history of Great Britain.
Queen Elizabeth was the ruler of Great Britain and she reigned for 60
years. The time period (1500’s – 1600’s)
was known in Great Britain as the Renaissance, which means “rebirth.” Three areas in which Great Britain was
thriving in during this period of its history were literature, visual arts, and
music. After the above monarch (ruler)
dies, King James I rose to the throne.
One popular form of entertainment during
Shakespeare’s life was the theatre.
William Shakespeare worked with a company of actors called the kings men
and they performed their plays at the famous Globe Theatre, located on the bank
of the Themes River. For the first time
in English history, people of all classes were allowed to attend play
performances at the GlobeTheatre. Three
interesting facts about this theatre were peasants could come for one penny, octagon
shaped, and it had an open roof. During
Shakespeare’s drama writing career, he wrote four of the most accomplished
tragedies in literary history. These
four tragedies that he wrote between of 1604-1607 were Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, and King Lear. Eventually,
Shakespeare’s Globe and other theatres were shut down by the religious groups and
the plague (which wiped out the population of half of Europe). In 1613, the Globe Theatre was demolished by fire
due to malfunction of special effects.
After William Shakespeare’s death at the age
of 52, his critic and friend Ben Johnson helped to gather all of Shakespeare’s
works in order to get it published in one central bound book. This collection was titled The first folio.
Today,
audiences all over the world are still captivated by such plays as the one we
are about to read entitled A Mid-Summer Nights Dream, one of William
Shakespeare’s most popular love comedy.
