April 26, 1564 – April 23, 1616

Biography

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, often considered the greatest English-speaking writer and one of the best playwrights in the world. He is often called the national poet of England. His extant works, including some co-written with other authors, consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, 4 poems, and 3 epitaphs. Shakespeare’s plays have been translated into all major languages and are performed more often than works by other playwrights.

Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At 18 he married Anne Hathaway, to whom he had three children: a daughter Susannah and twins Hamnet and Judith. Shakespeare’s career began between 1585 and 1592, when he moved to London. He soon became a successful actor, playwright, and co-owner of a theater company called the Servants of the Lord Chamberlain, later known as the King’s Servants. Around 1613, at the age of 49, he returned to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few historical accounts of Shakespeare’s life have survived, and theories about his life are based on official documents and contemporary accounts, so there is still debate in the scholarly community about his appearance and religious beliefs, and the view that the works attributed to him were created by someone else; it is popular in culture, though rejected by the vast majority of scholarly Shakespeareans.

Most of Shakespeare’s works were written between 1589 and 1613. His early plays are mostly comedies and chronicles, in which Shakespeare excelled considerably. Then came his period of tragedies, including Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Macbeth, which are considered some of the best in the English language. Toward the end of his career, Shakespeare wrote several tragicomedies and also collaborated with other writers.

Many of Shakespeare’s plays were published during his lifetime. In 1623 two of Shakespeare’s friends, John Heminge and Henry Condell, published the First Folio, a collection of all but two of Shakespeare’s plays now included in the canon. Several more plays (or fragments of them) were later attributed to Shakespeare by various scholars with varying degrees of evidence.

Already during his lifetime Shakespeare was praised for his works, but it was not until the nineteenth century that he truly became popular. In particular, the Romanticists and Victorians worshipped Shakespeare so much that Bernard Shaw called it “bardolatry,” which means “bardworship.” Shakespeare’s works remain popular today and are constantly being studied and reinterpreted according to political and cultural conditions.