Have you ever heard of the Bard of Avon? He is only the number one best-selling fiction author of all time! Still don’t know? It’s William Shakespeare! Does his name ring a bell? Let me tell you about his life story.
William Shakespeare was born in April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, UK. He was baptized on April 26, 1564. He has a couple of nickname such as The Bard or The Bard of Avon. He made 37 different plays that were around four different themes. Those themes were histories, tragedies, comedies, and tragicomedies.
When he first started playwriting, otherwise known as his early works, he started with the two themes of histories and comedies. Other than the play of Romeo and Juliet most of those plays were histories. Henry VI, Richard II, and Henry V dramatize the destructive results of corrupt or weak rulers. Some of the comedies that he created were A Midsummers night, Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night.
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The play genres that he wrote after 1600 were tragedies and tragicomedies. Some of those plays were called; Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. During William Shakespeare’s last period of playwriting he wrote a lot of tragicomedies. Some of those include, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest.
For his education some scholars guess he went to King’s New School in Stratford. King’s New School taught reading, writing, and the classics. Other than that there weren’t any other sources stating that he did anything else education wise.
He was the third son of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden. John was a leather merchant and Anne was a local landed heiress. William had two older sisters named Joan and Judith. Along with three younger brothers named Gilbert, Richard, and Edmund. Before William was born his father became a very good merchant and became an alderman and bailiff, which is an office resembling a mayor.
He married Anne Hathaway when he was eighteen and Anne was 26. Also Anne was pregnant before that. They had three children named Susanna who was born on May 26,1583, two years later, they had twins, Hamnet and Judith on February 2, 1885. Hamnet later died of unknown causes at age 11.
There is a period of seven years after the birth of his twins where there is no history of what happened then. Scholars call this the “Lost Years”.
William Shakespeare then died at age fifty-two on April 23, 1616. His death is still a mystery. Some scholars say he died of syphilis or even murdered. Syphilis is a chronic infectious disease caused by a spirochete. Spirochete are any various spiral-shaped bacteria.
References
- Biography.com – William Shakespeare
- Shakespeare Birthplace Trust – Shakespedia
- Encyclopedia Britannica – William Shakespeare
- History.com – William Shakespeare
- The Shakespeare Resource Center
- The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (MIT)
- Folger Shakespeare Library
- Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre
- Shakespeare’s England: Discover his Life and Legacy
- Wikipedia – William Shakespeare
