William Shakespeare is a well known name to most people, with his plays being the most famous and most commonly preformed in the world. It is not known when he was born, but we do know he was baptized on April 26th 1564, so many people attribute his birthday to the 23rd since that’s the day he died in 1616.
He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, a small english town, and was most probably raised in Stratford, but we really don’t have much information about his early life, since he was simply a common peasant. He was married, however, at the age of 18, to his wife Anne Hathaway, who then gave birth to William’s eldest daughter six months later, implying they got married upon finding out she was pregnant. He then had a pair of twins two years later in 1585. we then continue to know nothing about his life until 1592, though some believe he was a school teacher for those years.
In 1592 however, his plays began appearing in various theaters until 1594, when he got picked up by the “Lord Chamberlain’s Men” an acting company that had an impressive theater called “The Globe Theater” because it was (surprise!) a theater shaped like a globe so that everyone could hear the actors equally well. It was based in London, so after his plays started to become obviously well liked they made him a partner, and gave him resources to write more plays. In 1596 his only son, one of the twins, died of unknown causes. In 1603 Queen Elizabeth 1st died, giving way to King James 1st who sponsored “The Lord Chamberlain’s Men” who then changed their very long name to the much more sensible “King’s Men”
Shakespeare split his time between Stratford and London, owning the second largest house in Stratford. He is probably most well known for his play “Romeo and Juliet” but he had many famous plays, such as Tempest, Macbeth, A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, Henry VIII, Julius Caesar, and many others, but there are a recorded 39 plays that he wrote, commonly divided into Comedies, Histories, and Romances, none of which are entirely disliked, which shows how popular he was and still is.
There are some people who believe that Shakespeare was simply the publisher of the plays, since they believe someone so ill taught out of the common people couldn’t write such successful plays, and the major name that they put forward is Francis Bacon, an English chancellor and scientist. They believe that publishing them himself would’ve hurt his chances at election for chancellor, since they were seen as primarily frivolous, so he gave credit to William.
Either way, the plays that Shakespeare says he wrote are extremely popular, and have actually managed to alter English as we speak it today.
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