William Shakespeare
1564–1616 3 entries
Biography
William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language. Born in Stratford-upon-Avon, he married Anne Hathaway at eighteen, and by the early 1590s he was working in the theatres of London. He was an actor and part-owner of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, later the King’s Men, the company that built the Globe Theatre. Over some twenty-five years he wrote about 39 plays, 154 sonnets and several longer poems.
His tragedies, among them Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth, his comedies and his histories have been performed more often than those of any other playwright. Many words and phrases he used are still part of everyday English. He died in his native town in 1616, and seven years later his fellow actors published his collected plays in the volume known as the First Folio.
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