Who was William Shakespeare?
William Shakespeare was an English playwright and poet, widely considered the greatest writer in the English language. He wrote about 39 plays, including Hamlet, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet, and 154 sonnets.
Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564. He married Anne Hathaway and had three children. By the early 1590s, he was working in London as an actor and writer. He was a part-owner of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later the King's Men, and of the Globe Theatre, built in 1599.
His plays include comedies like A Midsummer Night's Dream, histories like Henry V and tragedies like Othello and King Lear. They are performed more than those of any other playwright. He died in 1616, and in 1623 two of his colleagues published 36 of his plays in a collection known as the First Folio.
His influence on English
Shakespeare is credited with first recording or popularizing hundreds of words and phrases, such as eyeball, bedroom, break the ice and wild-goose chase. His works have been translated into every major language and adapted into countless films.
Did You Know?
A rebuilt version of the Globe Theatre opened in London in 1997, close to the site of the original.