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PRIMARY. William Shakespeare was born in April 1564 in a house in Stratford-upon-Avon. His father, John Shakespeare, was a glove maker and Mary, his mother, was the daughter of a local farmer. In the year William was born, the plague was in Stratford-upon-Avon and many people died as a result. There was a special doctor called a plague doctor.
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- Explore the life of William Shakespeare and his greatest plays
William Shakespeare, (baptized April 26, 1564, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, Eng.—died April 23, 1616, Stratford-upon-Avon), English poet and playwright, often considered the greatest writer in world literature.
Shakespeare spent his early life in Stratford-upon-Avon, receiving at most a grammar-school education, and at age 18 he married a local woman, Anne Hathaway. By 1594 he was apparently a rising playwright in London and an actor in a leading theatre company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (later King’s Men); the company performed at the Globe Theatre from 1599.
The order in which Shakespeare’s plays were written and performed is highly uncertain. His earliest plays seem to date from the late 1580s to the mid-1590s and include the comedies Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream; history plays based on the lives of the English kings, including Henry VI (parts 1, 2, and 3), Richard III, and Richard II; and the tragedy Romeo and Juliet.
The plays apparently written between 1596 and 1600 are mostly comedies, including The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado About Nothing, and As You Like It, and histories, including Henry IV (parts 1 and 2), Henry V, and Julius Caesar.
Approximately between 1600 and 1607 he wrote the comedies Twelfth Night, All’s Well That Ends Well, and Measure for Measure, as well as the great tragedies Hamlet (probably begun in 1599), Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear, which mark the summit of his art.
Among his later works (about 1607 to 1614) are the tragedies Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and Timon of Athens, as well as the fantastical romances The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest.
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Shakespeare's Family Life. Records survive relating to William Shakespeare’s family that offer an understanding of the context of Shakespeare's early life and the lives of his family members. John Shakespeare married Mary Arden, and together they had eight children. John and Mary lost two daughters as infants, so William became their eldest ...
Nov 27, 2013 · William Shakespeare (b. 1564–d. 1616) is widely regarded as the greatest writer and dramatist of all time. His poetry, plays, and life continue to fascinate academics, theater practitioners, and the general public over four hundred years after his death. Over the course of his career, he wrote 154 sonnets, forty plays that are known about ...
His own contributions included an account of the life of Queen Victoria and (in Volume 51, 1897) William Shakespeare. This full-length life followed in 1898 and is often credited as the first modern biography of the poet. It was an immediate popular success, and, given the limitations of the material available at the time of writing, was ...
- Sidney Lee
- 1898
ationally renowned as the world's greatest ever playwright.On March 25th 1616, William Sh. kespeare made his will, signed 'by me. William Shakspeare'. He died on April 25th that same year. Some people believe that. he caught a fever at a 'merry party' thrown by Ben Johnson. Others p.
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Nonfiction Excerpt 1: Biography of William Shakespeare William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was an English playwright, poet, and actor who lived during the Renaissance—specifically, during the Elizabethan Age in England. Many people think Shakespeare was the greatest playwright in history. Shakespeare, Biography, and Anti-Biography Brian …
