Shakespeare wrote 38 plays, and numerous sonnets. It is not just the breadth of his work that makes Shakespeare the greatest British dramatist, but the beauty and inventiveness
of his language and the universal nature of his writing. Shakespeare is performed today because his writing still speaks to audiences all over the world.
England’s most famous playwright was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564. His father was a glove maker and wool dealer. William attended the local grammar school
in Stratford until he was 14 or 15 but there is no record of him going on to university. It is not known what Shakespeare did after leaving school. At the age of 18 in
1582 he married Anne Hathaway and they had three children. However there are no records of how he was employed.
Shakespeare went to London where his first Patron was the young Earl of Southampton. The first reference to Shakespeare as a writer was in 1592, whern his early plays were
successful enough to arouse professional jealousy in some of his peers. Many of Shakespeare’s contemporaries were scathing about his lack of a university education.
By 1594 Shakespeare had joined the Lord Chamberlain’s Men as an actor and their principal playwright. He wrote on average two new plays a year for the company. His
earliest plays included The Comedy of Errors and his first published work was the poem Venus and Adonis in 1593. His tragedies; Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth and King
Lear were written after 1600. His last plays, the romances, are Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest which were written between 1608 and 1612.
In comparison with contemporary playwrights Christopher Marlowe and
Ben Jonson, Shakespeare had a relatively scandal free life.
Shakespeare returned to his Stratford home and died there in 1616.
Visit the Shakespeare in Performance Timeline.
Early Theatre in Britain
The Globe
