WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

• English poet, playwright and actor
• Widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language
• Worlds pre-eminet dramatist
• Often called England's national poet
• And the band of Avon

BASIC INFORMATION

• Believed to be born on or near April 23,1564
• Baptized on April 26th 1564 in Stratford upon Avon England
• Located 103 miles west of London
• Died on his birthday April 23rd 1616, many scholars believe this is a myth
• Church records show he was at trinity church on April 5th, 1616

FAMILY INFORMATION

• Married Anne Hathaway on November 28th 1582 in Worcester in Canterbury province
• William-18 Anne- 26
• First child born on May 26th 1583, named Susanna
• 2 years later 1585 twins hamnet and Judith were born
• Hamnet later died of unknown causes at age 11

PLAYS

• By 1597 15 of 37 plays written were published
• Early plays were written in the conventional style of the day
• Most plays were histories written in the early 1590's
• Wrote several comedies during his early period
• After 1600 he wrote tragedies such as hamlet, king Lear, othello and Macbeth

HIS LEGACY

• After 150 years after his death questions arose about the authorship of Shakespeare
• Skeptics also questioned how anyone of such modest education could write with the intellectual perceptiveness
• Today his plays are highly popular and constantly studied and reinterpreted
• His reputation as a dramatic genius wasn't recognized until the 19th century
• In the 20th century new movement in scholarship and performance have rediscovered and adopted his works

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