William
Shakespeare’s Life and Works
William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564 and died on April 23 1616. During his
lifetime and after his death, he was nicknamed the “Bard of Avon” When Shakespeare was eighteen years old, he
married Anne Hathaway from Stratford.
She was 8 years older than he
was. They had 3 children and their son
named Hamnet later died in childhood.
Shakespeare’s father was quite a prosperous merchant as a glove maker,
which allowed William to attend school as a boy and study grammar Latin classes. In 1580, Shakespeare left Stratford and moved
to London to write and act in plays.
Throughout
his writing career, William Shakespeare wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets and poems.
Shakespeare’s
London
William
Shakespeare was living during an exciting time in the history of Great
Britain. Queen Elizabeth was the ruler of Great Britain and she reigned
for 60 years. The time period (1500’s –
1600’s) was known in Great Britain as the Renaissance,
which means “rebirth.” Three areas in
which Great Britain was thriving in during this period of its history were
Art, Poetry, and Science. After
the above monarch (ruler) dies, King James I rose to the
throne.
One popular form of entertainment during
Shakespeare’s life was the theatre. William
Shakespeare worked with a company of actors called
lord Chamberlain's Men, and later The King's Men and they performed their plays at the famous
Globe Theatre, located on the bank of the Thames River. For the first time in English
history, people of all classes were allowed to attend play performances at the Globe Theatre. Three interesting facts about
this theatre were it had a 3000 audience capacity,
the term box office derived from it, and there was no electricity were done on summer days. During Shakespeare’s drama writing career, he
wrote four of the most accomplished tragedies in literary history. These four tragedies that he wrote between of
1604-1607 were Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear. Eventually,
Shakespeare’s Globe and other theatres were shut down by the religious
groups and the plague (which wiped out the population of half of Europe). In 1613, the Globe Theatre was
demolished by fire due to malfunction
of special effects.
After William Shakespeare’s death at the age
of 52, his critic and friend Ben Johnson helped to gather all of
Shakespeare’s works in order to get it published in one central bound book. This collection was titled
The First Folio.
Today,
audiences all over the world are still captivated by such plays as the one we
are about to read entitled A Mid Summer Night's Dream, one
of William Shakespeare’s most popular love comedy.
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| Shakespeare's Globe Theatre |
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| William Shakespeare |
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