William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (baptzed 26 April 1564; died 23 April 1616) is an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist.

He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon".

His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, 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.

Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon.

At the age of 18, he marries Anne Hathaway, with whom he has three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith.

Between 1585 and 1592, he begins 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, where he dies 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 produces most of his known work between 1589 and 1613.

His early plays are mainly comedies and histories, genres he raises to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century.

He then writes mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language.

In his last phase, he writes tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborates with other playwrights.

Many of his plays are published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime.

In 1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that includes all but two of the plays now recognized as Shakespeare's.

Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation will not rise to its present heights until the nineteenth century.

The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry".

In the twentieth century, his work was 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.

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