SHAKESPEARE

Some Facts about Shakespeare

Amazingly, we know very little about Shakespeare's life.

 Even though he is the world’s most famous and popular playwright. 

Shakespeare Biography: The Basics

• Born: April 23, 1564
• Died: April 23, 1616
• Married Anne Hathaway in November 1582
• Born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, but moved to London in the late 1580s.
• Shakespeare's 37 plays and 154 sonnets are considered the most important and enduring ever written. Although the plays have captured the imagination of theatergoers for centuries, some historians claim that Shakespeare didn't actually write them
• Shakespeare retired to Stratford in 1611 and lived comfortably off his wealth for the rest of his life.

Top 10 Most Important Plays (in chronological order):

• Romeo and Juliet (1594-1595)
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595-1596)
• Much Ado About Nothing (1598-1599)
• Henry V (1598-1599)
• Twelfth Night (1599-1600)
• Hamlet (1600-1601)
• Measure for Measure (1604-1605)
• King Lear (1605-1606)
• Macbeth ( 1605-1606)
• The Tempest (1611-1612)

If you visit Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, you can still view his grave and read his epitaph engraved into the stone:

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blessed be the man that spares these stones,
And cursed be he that moves my bones