William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright. He was alive during the Elizabethan era but to this day there are no records of his birth date. William was baptized on April 26 1564. He is one of the greatest writers in history.

William later married Anne Hathaway and had three children. He lived in a small town called Stratford-Upon-Avon where he mostly worked as a writer and an actor. Between 1585 and 1592 William became part owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlains Men where they showed lots of Shakespeare’s plays. They were then given a royal patent by James I and changed their name to The King’s Men.

William Shakespeare was best known for his amazing plays. There were different genres of plays that he created. Comedy back then was a little different from the comedy we know of today. His comedy was a story with a happy ending.  Other genres of his plays included:

History: a story that has happened in real life.

Tragedies: a very unhappy story that most likely had a sad ending.

Tragicomedy: It mostly likely had a happy ending.

The King’s Men build a brand new theater called The Globe where they showed more plays. William soon became very rich and was able to buy new place to live that was a pretty big upgrade compared to how he started out.

William later retired and soon after that he died in April 1616.

Even though Shakespeare has been credited with all of his amazing work, there was (and still is) some controversy whether or not he was the one who wrote all of the plays and poems. Some suggest there was a handful of people who were writers in some of Shakespeare’s works like:

17^th Earl of Oxford

Francis Bacon

Christopher Marlowe

6^th Earl of Derby

Overall William Shakespeare influenced the English language over time. He even influenced some of the later authors like Charles Dickens. Although we will never know if there was anybody else who took part in some of the writings and if William was the actual writer of some of them.