William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor of the Renaissance era.

Shakespeare was the third child of John Shakespeare, a leather merchant, and Mary Arden, a local landed heiress. Shakespeare had two older sisters, Joan and Judith, and three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard and Edmund. Before Shakespeare’s birth, his father became a successful merchant and held official positions as alderman and bailiff, an office resembling a mayor. Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway on November 28, 1582 in Worcester. They had three children, Susanna Hamnet and Judith, but Hamnet later died of unknown causes at age 11. There are seven years of Shakespeare’s life where no records exist in which scholars call this period the “lost years,” and there is wide speculation on what he was doing during this period. By the early 1590s, documents show Shakespeare was a managing partner in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, an acting company in London with which he was connected for most of his career.  The company soon changed its name to the King’s Men following the crowning of King James I in 1603. The King’s Men company was very popular. Records show that Shakespeare had works published and sold as popular literature. Shakespeare wrote more than thirty plays which were each divided into four categories: histories, comedies, tragedies, and romances. His earliest plays were primarily comedies and histories such as Henry VI and The Comedy of Errors,and later switched to tragedies such as Romeo and Juliet. Some of his best plays in which he is known for is plays for are Julius Caesar, Hamlet and MacBeth. In his final years, Shakespeare turned to the romantic with Cymbeline, A Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest.

Sometime after 1612, Shakespeare retired from the stage and returned to his home in Stratford and passed away on 23, 1616. One thing that I found most interesting about Shakespeare was the fact that he has absolutely no records for 7 years. Nobody knows what happened to him or what shaped him which makes him seem mysterious and gives us  sense that we don’t know the full story to him. This sense of mystery as to what his life entails and intrigues the reader. Whatever happened in those 7  years very much shaped him into the amazing writer that he is. Another thing I found very interesting was the broad categories in which he wrote his plays.During his lifetime, Shakespeare wrote histories, comedies, tragedies, and romances. To me this is very impressive and shows what an amazing writer Shakespeare is.

Information source:

“Shakespeare, William 1564–1616 English Writer.” Renaissance: An Encyclopedia for Students, edited by Paul F. Grendler, vol. 4, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2004, pp. 83-89. Gale eBooks,

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