William Shakespeare

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616)

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, a small country town in 1564. We know this from the earliest record we have of his life; his baptism which happened on Wednesday, April the 26th, 1564. We don’t actually know his birthday but from this record we assume he was born in 1564. The black plague killed in 1564 one out of seven of the town's 1,500 inhabitants. Shakespeare was the eldest son of Mary Arden, the daughter of a local landowner, and her husband, John Shakespeare, a glover and wood dealer.

Shakespeare was an english poet, dramatist, and actor, considered by many to be the greatest dramatist of all time. Some of Shakespeare's plays, such as Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, are among the most famous literary pieces of the world. Shakespeare possessed a large vocabulary for his day, having used 29,066 different words in his plays. Today the average English-speaking person uses something like 2,000 words in everyday speech.

At the age of 18, Shakespeare married the 26-year-old Anne Hathaway. Six months after the marriage Anne gave birth to a daughter, Susanna, baptised 26 May 1583.Twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised 2 February 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596.

Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616 and was survived by his wife and two daughters. Susanna had married a physician, John Hall, in 1607,and Judith had married Thomas Quiney a vintner, two months before Shakespeare’s death. Shakespeare was buried in the chancel of the Holy Trinity Church two days after his death.

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