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Shakespeare's Biography: birthplace, home life, parents marriage family life, death, etc.

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Shakespeare's Biography: birthplace, home life, parents marriage family life, death, etc.

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Who Was William Shakespeare?

William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor of the Renaissance era. He was an important member of the King's Men company of theatrical players from roughly 1594 onward.

Known throughout the world, Shakespeare's writings capture the range of human emotion and conflict and have been celebrated for more than 400 years. And yet, the personal life of William Shakespeare is somewhat a mystery.

There are two primary sources that provide historians with an outline of his life. One is his work - the plays, poems and sonnets - and the other is official documentation such as church and court records. However, these provide only brief sketches of specific events in his life and yield little insight into the man himself.

When Was Shakespeare Born?

No birth records exist, but an old church record indicates that a William Shakespeare was baptized at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26, 1564. From this, it is believed he was born on or near April 23, 1564, and this is the date scholars acknowledge as Shakespeare's birthday.

Located about 100 miles northwest of London, during Shakespeare's time Stratford-upon-Avon was a bustling market town along the River Avon and bisected by a country road.

Family

Shakespeare was the third child of John Shakespeare, a leather merchant, and Mary Arden, a local landed heiress. Shakespeare had two older sisters, Joan and Judith, and three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard and Edmund.

Before Shakespeare's birth, his father became a successful merchant and held official positions as alderman and bailiff, an office resembling a mayor. However, records indicate John's fortunes declined sometime in the late 1570s.

Childhood and Education

Scant records exist of Shakespeare's childhood and virtually none regarding his education. Scholars have surmised that he most likely attended the King's New School, in Stratford, which taught reading, writing and the classics.

Being a public official's child, Shakespeare would have undoubtedly qualified for free tuition. But this uncertainty regarding his education has led some to raise questions about the authorship of his work (and even about whether or not Shakespeare really existed).

Wife and Children

Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway on November 28, 1582, in Worcester, in Canterbury Province. Hathaway was from Shottery, a small village a mile west of Stratford. Shakespeare was 18 and Anne was 26, and, as it turns out, pregnant.

Their first child, a daughter they named Susanna, was born on May 26, 1583. Two years later, on February 2, 1585, twins Hamnet and Judith were born. Hamnet later died of unknown causes at age 11.

Shakespeare's Lost Years

There are seven years of Shakespeare's life where no records exist after the birth of his twins in 1585. Scholars call this period the "lost years," and there is wide speculation on what he was doing during this period.

One theory is that he might have gone into hiding for poaching game from the local landlord, Sir Thomas Lucy. Another possibility is that he might have been working as an assistant schoolmaster in Lancashire.

It's generally believed he arrived in London in the mid- to late 1580s and may have found work as a horse attendant at some of London's finer theaters, a scenario updated centuries later by the countless aspiring actors and playwrights in Hollywood and Broadway.

The King's Men

By the early 1590s, documents show Shakespeare was a managing partner in the Lord Chamberlain's Men, an acting company in London with which he was connected for most of his career.

Considered the most important troupe of its time, the company changed its name to the King's Men following the crowning of King James I in 1603. From all accounts, the King's Men company was very popular. Records show that Shakespeare had works published and sold as popular literature.

Although the theater culture in 16th century England was not highly admired by people of high rank, some of the nobility were good patrons of the performing arts and friends of the actors.

DOWNLOAD BIOGRAPHY'S WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE FACT CARD

Actor and Playwright

By 1592, there is evidence Shakespeare earned a living as an actor and a playwright in London and possibly had several plays produced.

The September 20, 1592 edition of the Stationers' Register (a guild publication) includes an article by London playwright Robert Greene that takes a few jabs at Shakespeare: "...There is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country," Greene wrote of Shakespeare.

Scholars differ on the interpretation of this criticism, but most agree that it was Greene's way of saying Shakespeare was reaching above his rank, trying to match better known and educated playwrights like Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe or Greene himself.

Early in his career, Shakespeare was able to attract the attention of Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, to whom he dedicated his first and second published poems: "Venus and Adonis" (1593) and "The Rape of Lucrece" (1594).

By 1597, Shakespeare had already written and published 15 of his 37 plays. Civil records show that at this time he purchased the second-largest house in Stratford, called New House, for his family.

It was a four-day ride by horse from Stratford to London, so it's believed that Shakespeare spent most of his time in the city writing and acting and came home once a year during the 40-day Lenten period, when the theaters were closed.

Globe Theater

By 1599, Shakespeare and his business partners built their own theater on the south bank of the Thames River, which they called the Globe Theater.

In 1605, Shakespeare purchased leases of real estate near Stratford for 440 pounds, which doubled in value and earned him 60 pounds a year. This made him an entrepreneur as well as an artist, and scholars believe these investments gave him the time to write his plays uninterrupted.

Shakespeare's Writing Style

Shakespeare's early plays were written in the conventional style of the day, with elaborate metaphors and rhetorical phrases that didn't always align naturally with the story's plot or characters.

However, Shakespeare was very innovative, adapting the traditional style to his own purposes and creating a freer flow of words.

With only small degrees of variation, Shakespeare primarily used a metrical pattern consisting of lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter, or blank verse, to compose his plays. At the same time, there are passages in all the plays that deviate from this and use forms of poetry or simple prose.

William Shakespeare's Plays

While it's difficult to determine the exact chronology of Shakespeare's plays, over the course of two decades, from about 1590 to 1613, he wrote a total of 37 plays revolving around several main themes: histories, tragedies, comedies and tragicomedies.

Early Works: Histories and Comedies

With the exception of the tragic love story Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare's first plays were mostly histories. Henry VI (Parts I, II and III), Richard II and Henry V dramatize the destructive results of weak or corrupt rulers and have been interpreted by drama historians as Shakespeare's way of justifying the origins of the Tudor Dynasty.

Julius Caesar portrays upheaval in Roman politics that may have resonated with viewers at a time when England's aging monarch, Queen Elizabeth I, had no legitimate heir, thus creating the potential for future power struggles.

Shakespeare also wrote several comedies during his early period: the whimsical A Midsummer Night's Dream, the romantic Merchant of Venice, the wit and wordplay of Much Ado About Nothing and the charming As You Like It and Twelfth Night.

Other plays written before 1600 include Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, Love's Labour's Lost, King John, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry V.

Works after 1600: Tragedies and Tragicomedies

It was in Shakespeare's later period, after 1600, that he wrote the tragedies Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. In these, Shakespeare's characters present vivid impressions of human temperament that are timeless and universal.

Possibly the best known of these plays is Hamlet, which explores betrayal, retribution, incest and moral failure. These moral failures often drive the twists and turns of Shakespeare's plots, destroying the hero and those he loves.

In Shakespeare's final period, he wrote several tragicomedies. Among these are Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest. Though graver in tone than the comedies, they are not the dark tragedies of King Lear or Macbeth because they end with reconciliation and forgiveness.

Other plays written during this period include All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Timon of Athens, Coriolanus, Pericles and Henry VIII.

When Did Shakespeare Die?

Tradition holds that Shakespeare died on his 52nd birthday, April 23, 1616, but some scholars believe this is a myth. Church records show he was interred at Trinity Church on April 25, 1616.

The exact cause of Shakespeare's death is unknown, though many believe he died following a brief illness.

In his will, he left the bulk of his possessions to his eldest daughter, Susanna. Though entitled to a third of his estate, little seems to have gone to his wife, Anne, whom he bequeathed his "second-best bed." This has drawn speculation that she had fallen out of favor, or that the couple was not close.

However, there is very little evidence the two had a difficult marriage. Other scholars note that the term "second-best bed" often refers to the bed belonging to the household's master and mistress - the marital bed - and the "first-best bed" was reserved for guests.

Did Shakespeare Write His Own Plays?

About 150 years after his death, questions arose about the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. Scholars and literary critics began to float names like Christopher Marlowe, Edward de Vere and Francis Bacon - men of more known backgrounds, literary accreditation, or inspiration - as the true authors of the plays.

Much of this stemmed from the sketchy details of Shakespeare's life and the dearth of contemporary primary sources. Official records from the Holy Trinity Church and the Stratford government record the existence of a Shakespeare, but none of these attest to him being an actor or playwright.

Skeptics also questioned how anyone of such modest education could write with the intellectual perceptiveness and poetic power that is displayed in Shakespeare's works. Over the centuries, several groups have emerged that question the authorship of Shakespeare's plays.

The most serious and intense skepticism began in the 19th century when adoration for Shakespeare was at its highest. The detractors believed that the only hard evidence surrounding Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon described a man from modest beginnings who married young and became successful in real estate.

Members of the Shakespeare Oxford Society (founded in 1957) put forth arguments that English aristocrat and poet Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the true author of the poems and plays of "William Shakespeare."

The Oxfordians cite de Vere's extensive knowledge of aristocratic society, his education, and the structural similarities between his poetry and that found in the works attributed to Shakespeare. They contend that Shakespeare had neither the education nor the literary training to write such eloquent prose and create such rich characters.

However, the vast majority of Shakespearean scholars contend that Shakespeare wrote all his own plays. They point out that other playwrights of the time also had sketchy histories and came from modest backgrounds.

They contend that Stratford's New Grammar School curriculum of Latin and the classics could have provided a good foundation for literary writers. Supporters of Shakespeare's authorship argue that the lack of evidence about Shakespeare's life doesn't mean his life didn't exist. They point to evidence that displays his name on the title pages of published poems and plays.

Examples exist of authors and critics of the time acknowledging Shakespeare as the author of plays such as The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Comedy of Errors and King John.

Royal records from 1601 show that Shakespeare was recognized as a member of the King's Men theater company and a Groom of the Chamber by the court of King James I, where the company performed seven of Shakespeare's plays.

There is also strong circumstantial evidence of personal relationships by contemporaries who interacted with Shakespeare as an actor and a playwright.

Literary Legacy

What seems to be true is that Shakespeare was a respected man of the dramatic arts who wrote plays and acted in some in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. But his reputation as a dramatic genius wasn't recognized until the 19th century.

Beginning with the Romantic period of the early 1800s and continuing through the Victorian period, acclaim and reverence for Shakespeare and his work reached its height. In the 20th century, new movements in scholarship and performance have rediscovered and adopted his works.

Today, his plays are highly popular and constantly studied and reinterpreted in performances with diverse cultural and political contexts. The genius of Shakespeare's characters and plots are that they present real human beings in a wide range of emotions and conflicts that transcend their origins in Elizabethan England.

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William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor of the Renaissance era. He was an important member of the King's Men company of theatrical players from roughly 1594 onward. Known throughout the world, Shakespeare's writings capture the range of human emotion and conflict and have been celebrated for more than 400 years.

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Shakespeare's Biography: birthplace, home life, parents marriage family life,death,etc. (2)

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Shakespeare's Biography: birthplace, home life, parents marriage family life,death,etc. (2)

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Free Study Guide Answers, Book and Literature Notes - Novelguide.com

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Get homework help from novelguide.com. Get free study guide answers, book notes including complete summary analysis, chapter analysis from all authors.

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Ian Johnston, "Dramatic Structure: Comedy and Tragedy"

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King Lear. The full version of this lecture can be accessedhere.]

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Elizabethan England: Clothing, Queen Elizabeth, Living conditions during this time period 

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Elizabethan England: Clothing, Queen Elizabeth, Living conditions during this time period 

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Elizabethan England Life.com started as a site primarily focused on life in England during the Elizabethan era. Over the period of time, it has grown to include information about logically extending to the era before the Elizabethan era and the period after the Elizabethan era.

The Elizabethan era is the period in English history associated with the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603). It is often considered to be a golden age in English history.

During the Elizabethan era, England was a leading naval and military power, with a strong economy and a flourishing culture that included theatre, music, and literature.

The Elizabethan era saw the rise of the Church of England and the defeat of the Spanish Armada, which marked a turning point in English history.

Elizabeth I was nicknamed the "Virgin Queen" because she was never married. She was succeeded by her cousin James VI of Scotland, who became James I of England.

Sir Walter Raleigh was an English explorer, soldier, and writer who is best remembered for his part in the colonization of North America.

The Elizabethan era is named after Queen Elizabeth I, who ruled England from 1558 to 1603. The era is often considered to be a golden age in English history.

Elizabeth I was succeeded by her cousin James VI of Scotland, who became James I of England. The Elizabethan era is often considered to be a golden age in English history.

The English Renaissance began in the 14th century and reached its peak in the 15th century. It was a time of great change in England, with the rise of the Tudor dynasty and the Reformation.

The English Renaissance was followed by the English Civil War and the Restoration of the Monarchy.

The Elizabethan era ended with the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603. She was succeeded by her cousin James VI of Scotland, who became James I of England.

During the Elizabethan era, many important figures emerged, including Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, and William Shakespeare.

The Elizabethan era was also a time of great exploration. English explorers sailed to the New World and circumnavigated the globe.

The English navy became one of the most powerful in the world. England also established colonies in North America and the Caribbean.

The Elizabethan era was a time of religious turmoil. The Church of England was established during this time, and many people converted to Protestantism.

The Elizabethan era is often considered to be a Golden Age in English history. It was a time of great prosperity and achievement.

The Elizabethan era came to an end with the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603. her sister, Mary Queen of Scots, was executed by Elizabeth's orders.

Queen Elizabeth's reign was followed by the Stuart period. This was a time of great political and religious strife in England.

The Elizabethan era was a time of great exploration. English explorers such as Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh sailed to the Americas and the Caribbean.

The Elizabethan era was also a time of great artistic achievement. The English playwright William Shakespeare wrote some of his most famous works during this time, including Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth.

Periods in English history

Prehistoric Britain until c. 43 AD
British Iron Age c. 800 BC
Roman Britain c. 43-410
Sub-Roman Britain c. 400s - late 500s
Anglo-Saxon c. 500-1066
Norman 1066-1154
Plantagenet 1154-1485
Tudor 1485-1603
Elizabethan Era 1558-1603
Stuart 1603-1714
Jacobean 1603-1625
Caroline 1625-1649
(Interregnum) 1649-1660
Restoration 1660-1714
Georgian Britain 1714-1837
Regency Britain 1811-1820
Victorian Britain 1837-1901
Edwardian Britain 1901-1914

Middle Ages / Medieval times
Common questions about the middle ages
Age of Exploration and Pirates

Tudor and Elizabethan eras are known for the famous explorers who ventured out into the sea to explore new lands. So it is also appropriate to have much information about the age of exploration and famous European explorers Know more about Vasco the Gama the explorer his voyages, his ships. Also read about Christopher Columbus achievements as an explorer. Also read about the Pirates.

There is plenty to know about other famous people in medieval era including William Shakespeare the playwright,

For Elizabethan England, it has information on Elizabethan Costumes, Fashion, Crime, Torture, Theater, Arts and Culture, Family life, Children, Education, Medicine and many other facts about the Elizabethan times. Elizabethan Era is considered as a golden Era in English History.

We have also given detailed information of Superstitions, Laws, Religion during the period.

The below portrait of Elizabeth is a copy of a portrait that was made in approx. 1588 to commemorate the defeat of the Spanish Armada (depicted in the background). Elizabeth I's international power is reflected by the hand resting on the globe.

William Shakespeare

The most well-known author of all time, William Shakespeare, was during this age. This is source of information for his biography, family life, list of all his plays, poetry and sonnets.

Theatres

Theatre in Elizabethan England was mainly divided into venues where the plays were performed; open air amphitheatre, inn-yards and playhouses. See more information on theatres.

Costumes

Elizabethan clothing was a significant thing. In fact there was even a law related to it. These laws stated the colors as well as the type of clothing an individual was allowed to own and wear. Read more interesting information on Elizabethan age clothing.

Medicine

The Elizabethan England medicines were simple; leaches and cupping were used to get blood. Moreover; tobacco, lily root, arsenic, and dried toad were as well used. Read more on Elizabethan medicines.

Daily life

The Elizabethan period in England had a daily life based on social order: the monarch as the highest, the nobility as the second rank, the gentry as third, merchants as fourth, and laborers as fifth. The queen was believed to be God's representation here on Earth.

The Elizabethans had high regard for a family in a community. They believed that families were role models for the community. They were standardized and followed deep respect for the importance of hierarchy. See more on daily life during Elizabethan times.

Different tortures during the Elizabethan age

During the reign of Elizabeth I, the most common means of Elizabethan era torture included stretching, burning, beating, and drowning (or at least suffocating the person with water). Torture at that time was used to punish a person for his crimes, intimidate him and the group to which he belongs, gather information, and/or obtain a confession. Read more information on torture.

Children's education

For most children, education would begin at home, where they were taught the basic etiquettes and proper manners. Other basic principles of childhood included respecting their mother and father, asking their parents blessing, rising early in the morning and saying their prayers. See more on children.

Fashion

Fashion in England during the Elizabethan Age was considered a way of self-expression for all members of the social ranks.

For women, fashion was simple but made attractive. It covered the skin from the neck to the ankle. Like women's clothing, men's clothes were detailed with inconvenient ruffles, too. Boys and girls also wore dresses of the same styles. Dressing was regarded as an art form which is why Elizabethan people took time and effort to dress. Read more information on Elizabethan clothing fashion for men, women, and children.

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Elizabethan England Life.com started as a site primarily focused on life in England during the Elizabethan era. Over the period of time, it has grown to include information about logically ...

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Vocabulary related to drama and words that Shakespeare invented or made popular 

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Vocabulary related to drama and words that Shakespeare invented or made popular 

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Inventors get a lot of love. Thomas Edison is held up as a tinkering genius. Steve Jobs is considered a saint in Silicon Valley. Hedy Lamar, meanwhile, may have been a Hollywood star but a new book makes clear her real legacy is in inventing the foundations of encryption. But while all these people invented things, it's possible to invent something even more fundamental. Take Shakespeare: he invented words. And he invented more words-words that continue to shape the English language-than anyone else. By a long shot.

But what does it mean to "invent" words? How many words did Shakespeare invent? What kind of words? And which words are those exactly? Rather than just listing all the words Shakespeare invented, this post digs deeper into the how and the why (or "wherefore") of Shakespeare's literary creations.

How Many Words Did Shakespeare Invent?

1700! My, what a perfectly round number! Such a large and perfectly round number is misleading at best, and is more likely just wrong-there is in fact a bunch of debate about the accuracy of this number.

So who's to blame for the uncertainty around the number of words Shakespeare invented? For starters, we can blame the Oxford English Dictionary. This famous dictionary (often called the OED for short) is famous, in part, because it provides incredibly thorough definitions of words, but also because it identifies the first time each word actually appeared in written English. Shakespeare appears as the first documented user of more words than any other writer, making it convenient to assume that he was the creator of all of those words.

In reality, though, many of these words were probably part of everyday discourse in Elizabethan England. So it's highly likely that Shakespeare didn't invent all of these words; he just produced the first preserved record of some of them. Ryan Buda, a writer at Letterpile, explains it like this:

But most likely, the word was in use for some time before it is seen in the writings of Shakespeare. The fact that the word first appears there does not necessarily mean that he made it up himself, but rather, he could have borrowed it from his peers or from conversations he had with others.

However, while Shakespeare might have been just the first person to write down some words, he definitely did create many words himself, plenty of which we still use to this day. The list a ways down below contains the 420 words that almost certainly originated from Shakespeare himself.

But all this leads to another question. What does it even mean to "invent" a word?

How Did Shakespeare Invent Words?

Some writers invent words in the same way Thomas Edison invented light bulbs: they cobble together bits of sound and create entirely new words without any meaning or relation to existing words. Lewis Carroll does in the first stanza of his "Jabberwocky" poem:

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Carroll totally made up words like "brillig," "slithy," "toves," and "mimsy"; the first stanza alone contains 11 of these made-up words, which are known as nonce words. Words like these aren't just meaningless, they're also disposable, intended to be used just once.

Shakespeare did not create nonce words. He took an entirely different approach. When he invented words, he did it by working with existing words and altering them in new ways. More specifically, he would create new words by:

Conjoining two words

Changing verbs into adjectives

Changing nouns into verbs

Adding prefixes to words

Adding suffixes to words

The most exhaustive take on Shakespeare's invented words comes from a nice little 874-page book entitled The Shakespeare Key by Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke.Here's how they explain Shakespeare's literary innovations:

Shakespeare, with the right and might of a true poet, and with his peculiar royal privilege as king of all poets, has minted several words that deserve to become current in our language. He coined them for his own special use to express his own special meanings in his own special passages; but they are so expressive and so well framed to be exponents of certain particulars in meanings common to us all, that they deserve to become generally adopted and used.

We can call what Shakespeare did to create new words "minting," "coining" or "inventing." Whatever term we use to describe it, Shakespeare was doing things with words that no one had ever thought to do before, and that's what matters.

Shakespeare Didn't Invent Nonsense Words

Though today readers often need the help of modern English translations to fully grasp the nuance and meaning of Shakespeare's language, Shakespeare's contemporary audience would have had a much easier go of it. Why? Two main reasons.

First, Shakespeare was part of a movement in English literature that introduced more prose into plays. (Earlier plays were written primarily in rhyming verse.) Shakespeare's prose was similar to the style and cadence of everyday conversation in Elizabethan England, making it natural for members of his audience to understand.

In addition, the words he created were comprehensible intuitively because, once again, they were often built on the foundations of already existing words, and were not just unintelligible combinations of sound. Take "congreeted" for example. The prefix "con" means with, and "greet" means to receive or acknowledge someone.

It therefore wasn't a huge stretch for people to understand this line:

That, face to face and royal eye to eye.
You have congreeted.

( Henry V, Act 5, Scene 2)

Shakespeare also made nouns into verbs. He was the first person to use friend as a verb, predating Mark Zuckerberg by about 395 years.

And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
May do, to express his love and friending to you

( Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5)

Other times, despite his proclivity for making compound words, Shakespeare reached into his vast Latin vocabulary for loanwords.

His heart fracted and corroborate.

( Henry V, Act 2, Scene 1)

Here the Latin word fractus means "broken." Take away the - us and add in the English suffix - ed, anda new English word is born.

New Words Are Nothing New

Shakespeare certainly wasn't the first person to make up words. It's actually entirely commonplace for new words to enter a language. We're adding new words and terms to our "official" dictionaries every year. In the past few years, the Merriam-Webster dictionary has added several new words and phrases, like these:

So inventing words wasn't something unique to Shakespeare or Elizabethan England. It's still going on all the time.

But Shakespeare Invented a Lot of New Words

So why did Shakespeare have to make up hundreds of new words? For starters, English was smaller in Shakespeare's time. The language contained many fewer words, and not enough for a literary genius like Shakespeare. How many words? No one can be sure. One estimates, one from Encyclopedia Americana, puts the number at 50,000-60,000, likely not including medical and scientific terms.

During Shakespeare's time, the number of words in the language began to grow. Edmund Weiner, deputy chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, explains it this way:

The vocabulary of English expanded greatly during the early modern period. Writers were well aware of this and argued about it. Some were in favour of loanwords to express new concepts, especially from Latin. Others advocated the use of existing English words, or new compounds of them, for this purpose. Others advocated the revival of obsolete words and the adoption of regional dialect.

In Shakespeare's collected writings, he used a total of 31,534 different words. Whatever the size of the English lexicon at the time, Shakespeare was in command of a substantial portion of it. Jason Kottke estimates that Shakespeare knew around 66,534 words, which suggests Shakespeare was pushing the boundaries of English vocab as he knew it. He had to make up some new words.

The Complete List of Words Shakespeare Invented

Compiling a definitive list of every word that Shakespeare ever invented is impossible. But creating a list of the words that Shakespeare almost certainly invented can be done. We generated list of words below by starting with the words that Shakespeare was the first to use in written language, and then applying research that has identified which words were probably in everyday use during Shakespeare's time. The result are 420 bona fide words minted, coined, and invented by Shakespeare, from "academe" to "zany":

Words That Shakespeare Invented - Resource List

Words, words, words.

( Hamlet Act 2, Scene 2)

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The 420 Words That Shakespeare Invented - The LitCharts Blog

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Inventors get a lot of love. Thomas Edison is held up as a tinkering genius. Steve Jobs is considered a saint in Silicon Valley. Hedy Lamar, meanwhile, may have been a Hollywood star but a new book makes clear her real legacy is in inventing the foundations of encryption.

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Vocabulary related to drama and words that Shakespeare invented or made popular (2)

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Vocabulary related to drama and words that Shakespeare invented or made popular (2)

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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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Elizabethan England: Clothing, Queen Elizabeth, Living conditions during this time period  (2)

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Elizabethan England: Clothing, Queen Elizabeth, Living conditions during this time period  (2)

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Kids learn about the Elizabethan Era including the English Renaissance, theatre, arts, clothing, fashion, and fun facts.