William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564 and died of unknown causes at the age of 52 on his birthday on April 23, 1616. The education Shakespeare received included learning to speak and write in Latin. At that time, Shakespeare would have been expected to translate Latin to English and English to Latin. He also studied the works of classical authors and dramatists such as Ovid, Plautus, Horace, Virgil, Cicero, and Seneca. When Shakespeare was 14, he left school and not much is known of his life until he was 18 when he married Anne Hatheway, who was 26 and already several months pregnant. Shakespeare was away in London for long periods of time, until he retired. When he retired he remained in Stratford until his death. He was buried at Holy Trinity Church. Shakespeare is best known for being a dramatist who wrote numerous plays for entertainment. To this day, many different kinds of theatre companies put on Shakespeare plays, from small amateur groups to large professional companies. Shakespeare's contribution to the arts also includes many film and television productions of his plays, his plots, characters, and poetry.

William Shakespeare's wife, Anne Hatheway was born in 1556. She lived in Shottery which was not far from Stratford. The house was shared between Anne and her brother after the death of their parents. She married Shakespeare in November, 1582. Anne gave birth to three children, Susanna in 1583, and the twins Hamnet and Judith in 1585. Shakespeare has often been thought to have disliked his wife. For most of their marriage, he lived in London while she remained in Stratford. In addition, Shakespeare left Anne only the "second-best bed," according to his will. During that time period, "the best-bed" was ...

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...ad kept an assistant historian to be able to write his plays. Some experts have said that Francis Bacon, a philosopher who lived around the same time, was the true author of the plays. People can not believe that Shakespeare, who came from an ordinary background, could have written such great works of literature. In 1995, a Shakespeare Oxford Society Home Page and a new electronic magazine were started for the purpose of bringing the news of this continuing debate to a global audience.

Shakespeare's plays, as we know them, are now performed all over the world in hundreds of languages. The reason his work is so popular is that Shakespeare wrote about human nature, and how people behave. Therefore, all human beings can identify with the characters of his plays.

William Shakespeare, The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Columbia University Press, New York, 2004.