William Shakespeare

Shakespeare's birthplace                                    photo by Diliff

According to tradition and expert guesses, William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564, on Stratford-on-Avon. No records of his birth have been found, but church records do show he was baptized on April 26, 1564, and it was customary to baptist a baby three days after birth.

He married Anne Hathaway when he was eighteen, and they had three children: Susana and twins, Hamnet and Judith. Sometime after 1585, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company. Few details are known about his private life, although there's been much speculation. We don't even know what he might have looked like, for portraits of him are unconfirmed or happened long after his death.

Globe Theatre reconstruction                photo by Diego Delso

He is often noted as probably the greatest playwright in the world and the greatest writer in the English language for all time. His known works include 38 plays, 154 sonnets, and 2 lengthy narrative poems. Records do show he died on his supposed birthday, April 23, 1616, at only fifty-two years of age. Of course, life expectancy was different then than it is now. He had gone back to Stratford-on-Avon to retire three years before. But he has left quite a literary legacy behind, and it would be hard to find people in the civilized world who have never heard of William Shakespeare.

_____________________________________