William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616
Author of this webpage: Renée Goodvin

William Shakespeare was a poet, dramatist, and actor and is considered by many to be the greatest dramatist of all time. He is the foremost figure in English literature and had a primary influence on the development of the English literary language.

Little is known about Shakespeare’s early life and the only documented facts come from christening and marriage records and other legal documents. The eldest child of John Shakespeare, a tradesman and public servant, and Mary Arden Shakespeare, the daughter of a gentleman farmer, William was baptized on April 26, 1564. Based on this fact, it is hypothesized that he was born on or about April 23, 1564.

Though no records exist, it is possible young William may have attended the King's New School and received what would have been considered a classical education. He probably would have been taught the basics of Latin, Greek, Italian, and French and read such authors as Aesop, Caesar, Virgil, and Ovid. He probably also would have been taught logic, rhetoric, grammar, speech, and drama.

On November 27, 1582, eighteen year old William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway. Six months later, on May 26, 1583, William and Anne's first daughter, Susanna, was born. Between 1584 and 1592 Shakespeare began to achieve recognition in London as an actor and emerging playwright. In February of 1585, a set of twins, Hamnet and Judith, were born to Shakespeare and Hathaway. It was also during this time period that Shakespeare became of part of Lord Chamberlain’s Men.

As a member of Lord Chamberlain’s Men, Shakespeare enjoyed fame and prosperity and in 1594, he began to hold stock in the company. Shakespeare and his company opened the Globe Theatre in 1599. That same year, Lord Chamberlain’s Men performed Julius Caesar for the first time, probably at the Globe. In 1603, Queen Elizabeth died and her successor, James I, pronounced Shakespeare’s troupe his servants under the name the King’s Men.

Around 1610, Shakespeare returned to Stratford-Upon-Avon to retire and live as a country gentleman, though his plays continued to be performed at the Globe until its burning in 1613. On April 23, 1616, Shakespeare died and seven years later, in 1623, the First Folio of his works was published.

Notes about Shakespeare’s Works:

Shakespeare’s dramatic works do not survive in manuscript and the exact order in which his plays were written and produced is not known with certainty. However, comedies such as The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream and his early tragedy Romeo and Juliet were performed in the early 1590s. These early works are influenced by prevailing contemporary conventions, but are also marked by vivid characterization and rich and inventive use of the English Language that are strictly Shakespearean. In the early 17^th century, Shakespeare produced his four great tragedies; Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, which mark one of the high points in the history of Western Literature. His last plays, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest combine elements of romance comedy, and tragedy.

In addition to his dramatic works, Shakespeare wrote over 150 sonnets, which were published in 1609, and two heroic narrative poems, Venus and Adonis (1593) and (The Rape of) Lucrece (1594).

The information for William Shakespeare’s biography was adapted from The Dictionary of Literary Biography (DLB), vol. 62, Elizabethan Dramatists, pp. 267-353, The Oxford Companion to the English Language, edited by Tom McArthur, and Merriam Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature.

Shakespeare Links:

The Works of The Bard

This site claims to be the "Web's Oldest Shakespeare Site" and contains the complete works of Shakespeare and a Shakespeare Search Engine.

Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet

Annotated guide to scholarly Shakespeare resources available on Internet.

Shakespeare Bookshelf

The complete works of Shakespeare, brought to you by the Internet Public Library.

Shakespeare - Criticism

From the IPL Online Literary Criticism Collection

Shakespeare Illustrated

Explores nineteenth-century paintings, criticism, and productions of Shakespeare's plays and their influences on one another.

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Last updated January 28, 2005