William Shakespeare

Date of birth & Death:

William Shakespeare was born in Stadford-Upon-Avon, England, in April 1564. The exact
date of his birth is not recorded, but it is most often celebrated around the world on 23
April. Shakespeare’s baptism is recorded in the Parish Register at Holy Trinity Church,
Stratford-upon-Avon on Wednesday 26 April 1564. Baptisms typically took place within
three days of a new arrival. This means that it’s unlikely that Shakespeare was born any
earlier than the previous Sunday, 23 April. Given that three days would be a reasonable
interval between birth and baptism, 23 April has therefore come to be celebrated as his
birthday.
William Shakespeare died in 1616 at 52 years of age. His burial in Holy Trinity Church is
recorded in Stratford-upon-Avon's parish register on 25 April 1616. A monument still
stands in the church, which notes the date of Shakespeare's death as 23 April 1616. The
grave below Shakespeare's monument does not bear his name, but was believed to be
Shakespeare's from at least 1656.William Shakespeare's grave, where a curse is inscribed on
the stone: 'Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare, To digg the dust encloased heare, Blest by
the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones.

Education:
William Shakespeare's education would have started at home. His mother, Mary Arden,
would have told him fables and fairy tales during his early youth. Mary was certainly
literate. She acted as the executor of her father’s will. The kinds of stories Mary told him
are referred to much later in Shakespeare’s playsS. His home education would also have
included reading the bible. Shakespeare’s home was just a short walk from the grammar
school, the King’s New School. The school was available to all boys within the borough,
free of charge. The grammar-school's demanding curriculum was geared to teaching pupils
Latin, both spoken and written. The boys studied authors such as Terence, Virgil, and
Horace in their original Latin. In fact, the students were even expected to speak Latin to
each other in the playground or at home. We can see the influence of these Classical writers,
particularly Ovid, in Shakespeare’s poems and plays. While grammar schools focused on
Latin rhetoric, drama was also included. He probably left school at fourteen to undertake
an apprenticeship of seven years until his coming of age.
Family:
He was John and Mary Shakespeare's oldest surviving child; their first two children, both
girls, did not live beyond infancy. Growing up as the big brother of the family, William had
three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard, and Edmund, and two younger sisters: Anne, who
died at seven, and Joan. Their father, John Shakespeare, was a leatherworker who
specialized in the soft white leather used for gloves and similar items. A prosperous
businessman, he married Mary Arden, of the prominent Arden family. In early 1585, the
couple had twins, Judith and Hamnet, completing the family. In the years ahead, Anne and
the children lived in Stratford while Shakespeare worked in London. Shakespeare's only son,
Hamnet, died in 1596 at the age of 11. His older daughter Susanna later married a well-to-
do Stratford doctor, John Hall. Their daughter Elizabeth, Shakespeare's first grandchild,
was born in 1608. In 1616, just months before his death, Shakespeare's daughter Judith
married Thomas Quiney, a Stratford vintner. The family subsequently died out, leaving no
direct descendants of Shakespeare.

Works of William Shakespeare: Plays:

The first recorded works of Shakespeare are “Richard III” and the three parts of “ Henry
VI”, written in the early 1590s during a vogue for historical drama. Shakespeare's plays are
difficult to date precisely, however, and studies of the texts suggest that “Titus Andronicus,
The Comedy of Errors, The Traming of the Shrew, and the Two Gentlemen od Verona” may
also belong to Shakespeare's earliest period. His first histories, which draw heavily on the
1587 edition of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles os England, Scotland & Ireland, dramatise
the destructive results of weak or corrupt rule and have been interpreted as a justification
for the origins of the Tudor Dynasty. The early plays were influenced by the works of other
Elizabethan dramatists, especially Thomas Kyde and Christopher Marlowe, by the
traditions of medieval drama, and by the plays of “Seneca”.The Comedy of Errors was also
based on classical models, but no source for The Taming of the Shrew has been found,
though it is related to a separate play of the same name and may have derived from a folk
story. Like The Two Gentlemen of Verona, in which two friends appear to approve of
rape,the Shrew's story of the taming of a woman's independent spirit by a man sometimes
troubles modern critics, directors, and audiences. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is a witty
mixture of romance, fairy magic, and comic lowlife scenes. Shakespeare's next comedy, the
equally romantic Merchant of Venice, contains a portrayal of the vengeful Jewish
moneylender Shylock, which reflects dominant Elizabethan views but may appear
derogatory to modern audiences.
Styles of Writing:
Prose is the form of speech used by common people in Shakespearean drama. There is no
rhythm or meter in the line. It is everyday language. Shakespeare’s audience would
recognize the speech as their language. These are characters such as murderers, servants, and
porters. However, many important characters can speak in prose. The majority of The
Merry Wives of Windsor is written in prose because it deals with middle-class. The Rustics
from A Midsummer Night’s Dream speak in prose.The majority of Shakespeare’s plays are
written in verse. A character who speaks in verse is a noble or a member of the upper class.
Most of Shakespeare’s plays focused on these characters. The verse form he uses is blank
verse. It contains no rhyme, but each line has an internal rhythm with a regular rhythmic
pattern. The pattern most favored by Shakespeare is iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter
is defined as a ten-syllable line with the accent on every other syllable, beginning with the
second one.

Five Famous quotes of Shakespeare:

Shakespeare’s famous quotes are from his works of writing. Some of his famous quotes are:
1.“All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits
and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.” ~ As You Like It
2.“Do you not know I am a woman? When I think , I must speak.” ~ As You Like It
3.“Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have
greatness thrust upon them.” ~ Twelfth Night
4.“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”
~ The Tempest
5.“How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes!” ~ As you
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