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What was Shakespeare's family like?

How many plays did Shakespeare write?

How many sonnets did Shakespeare write?

Why is Shakespeare still important today?

William Shakespeare, Shakespeare also spelled Shakspere, byname Bard of Avon or Swan of Avon, (baptized April 26, 1564, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England-died April 23, 1616, Stratford-upon-Avon), English poet, dramatist, and actor often called the English national poet and considered by many to be the greatest dramatist of all time.

Shakespeare occupies a position unique in world literature. Other poets, such as Homer and Dante, and novelists, such as Leo Tolstoy and Charles Dickens, have transcended national barriers, but no writer's living reputation can compare to that of Shakespeare, whose plays, written in the late 16th and early 17th centuries for a small repertory theatre, are now performed and read more often and in more countries than ever before. The prophecy of his great contemporary, the poet and dramatist Ben Jonson, that Shakespeare "was not of an age, but for all time," has been fulfilled.

It may be audacious even to attempt a definition of his greatness, but it is not so difficult to describe the gifts that enabled him to create imaginative visions of pathos and mirth that, whether read or witnessed in the theatre, fill the mind and linger there. He is a writer of great intellectual rapidity, perceptiveness, and poetic power. Other writers have had these qualities, but with Shakespeare the keenness of mind was applied not to abstruse or remote subjects but to human beings and their complete range of emotions and conflicts. Other writers have applied their keenness of mind in this way, but Shakespeare is astonishingly clever with words and images, so that his mental energy, when applied to intelligible human situations, finds full and memorable expression, convincing and imaginatively stimulating. As if this were not enough, the art form into which his creative energies went was not remote and bookish but involved the vivid stage impersonation of human beings, commanding sympathy and inviting vicarious participation. Thus, Shakespeare's merits can survive translation into other languages and into cultures remote from that of Elizabethan England.

Shakespeare the man

Life

Although the amount of factual knowledge available about Shakespeare is surprisingly large for one of his station in life, many find it a little disappointing, for it is mostly gleaned from documents of an official character. Dates of baptisms, marriages, deaths, and burials; wills, conveyances, legal processes, and payments by the court-these are the dusty details. There are, however, many contemporary allusions to him as a writer, and these add a reasonable amount of flesh and blood to the biographical skeleton.

Animals in Shakespeare Quiz

Early life in Stratford

The parish register of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, shows that he was baptized there on April 26, 1564; his birthday is traditionally celebrated on April 23. His father, John Shakespeare, was a burgess of the borough, who in 1565 was chosen an alderman and in 1568 bailiff (the position corresponding to mayor, before the grant of a further charter to Stratford in 1664). He was engaged in various kinds of trade and appears to have suffered some fluctuations in prosperity. His wife, Mary Arden, of Wilmcote, Warwickshire, came from an ancient family and was the heiress to some land. (Given the somewhat rigid social distinctions of the 16th century, this marriage must have been a step up the social scale for John Shakespeare.)

Stratford enjoyed a grammar school of good quality, and the education there was free, the schoolmaster's salary being paid by the borough. No lists of the pupils who were at the school in the 16th century have survived, but it would be absurd to suppose the bailiff of the town did not send his son there. The boy's education would consist mostly of Latin studies-learning to read, write, and speak the language fairly well and studying some of the Classical historians, moralists, and poets. Shakespeare did not go on to the university, and indeed it is unlikely that the scholarly round of logic, rhetoric, and other studies then followed there would have interested him.

Instead, at age 18 he married. Where and exactly when are not known, but the episcopal registry at Worcester preserves a bond dated November 28, 1582, and executed by two yeomen of Stratford, named Sandells and Richardson, as a security to the bishop for the issue of a license for the marriage of William Shakespeare and " Anne Hathaway of Stratford," upon the consent of her friends and upon once asking of the banns. (Anne died in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare. There is good evidence to associate her with a family of Hathaways who inhabited a beautiful farmhouse, now much visited, 2 miles [3.2 km] from Stratford.) The next date of interest is found in the records of the Stratford church, where a daughter, named Susanna, born to William Shakespeare, was baptized on May 26, 1583. On February 2, 1585, twins were baptized, Hamnet and Judith. (Hamnet, Shakespeare's only son, died 11 years later.)

How Shakespeare spent the next eight years or so, until his name begins to appear in London theatre records, is not known. There are stories-given currency long after his death-of stealing deer and getting into trouble with a local magnate, Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, near Stratford; of earning his living as a schoolmaster in the country; of going to London and gaining entry to the world of theatre by minding the horses of theatregoers. It has also been conjectured that Shakespeare spent some time as a member of a great household and that he was a soldier, perhaps in the Low Countries. In lieu of external evidence, such extrapolations about Shakespeare's life have often been made from the internal "evidence" of his writings. But this method is unsatisfactory: one cannot conclude, for example, from his allusions to the law that Shakespeare was a lawyer, for he was clearly a writer who without difficulty could get whatever knowledge he needed for the composition of his plays.

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William Shakespeare | Plays, Poems, Biography, Quotes, & Facts

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William Shakespeare, the renowned English playwright and poet, crafted timeless works that continue to entertain audiences worldwide with their profound insights into human nature and enduring literary brilliance.

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If you want to read any off his plays or sonnets translated into the English language then visit: #notsponsored

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If you want to read any off his plays or sonnets translated into the English language then visit: #notsponsored

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Understand Shakespeare's plays and sonnets with SparkNotes' translations, plot summaries, character lists, quotes, lists of themes and symbols, and more.

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Shakespeare through his life has invented 1700 words for the English language, some of them are:
Addiction - Othello, Act II, Scene II
Arch-villain - Timon of Athens, Act V, Scene I
Assassination - Macbethy, Act I, Scene VII
Bedazzled - The Taming of The Shrew, Act IV, Scene V
Belongings -  Measure for Measure, Act I, Scene
If you want to see a few more go to this website:

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21 Words Created by Shakespeare (And 4 That Weren’t)

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The Bard gave us ‘bedazzled’ and so many other words—but there are a few cases where words we thought he created actually originated earlier.

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There was a man named William Painter and he looked the same as William Shakespeare. He wanted to make quick money, so he got the idea to impersonate him.

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The world's most popular and easy to use comic and storyboard creator.

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Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets and 37 plays which consist of tragedies, comedies and histories.

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The Lion King (1994) - Hamlet
10 Things I Hate About You (1999) - The Taming of The Shrew
Scotland, PA (2001) - Macbeth
Were The World Mine (2008) - A Midsummer Night's Dream
Warm Bodies (2013) - Romeo and Juliet

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A poet who wrote a sequence of love sonnets which popularized his format but faded after it's initial Renaissance.

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Modern literature based on Shakespeare's work

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Modern literature based on Shakespeare's work

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A Thousand Acres
The Wierd Sisters
A Midsummer Night's Steampunk
Wondrous Strange
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
Ophelia
etc.

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Shakespeare's sonnets were formed like 14 line-lyric poems, and written in iambic pentameter.
His rhyme scheme was ABAB CDCD EFEF GG while Petrarch's was ABBA ABBA CDCD CDCD.

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Sonnet 18 by David Tenant (Wiliam Shakespeare)

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Shakespeare's works were written in ye olden English which was used in the 5th century all throughout the 11th.

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What Shakespeare's English Sounded Like - and how we know