William shakespeare William Shakespeare (26 April 1564  – 23 April 1616) was an English poet, playwright and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems

Shakespeare’life  William Shakespeare was born in Stratford on about April 23rd 1564. His father William was a successful local businessman and his mother Mary was the daughter of a landowner. Relatively prosperous, it is likely the family paid for Williams education, although there is no evidence he attended university. In 1582 William, aged only 18, married an older woman named Anne Hathaway. Soon after they had their first daughter, Susanna. They had another two children but William’s only son Hamnet died aged only 11.

Shakespeare’s sonetts During the years of the plague, he would write poetry since the theaters were often closed. It was considered by the Elizabethans to be more important to write poetry than to write plays He wrote 154 sonnets during “a time when sonneteering was in vogue in London.” After the plague he wrote about 2 plays a year. Shakespeare wrote a total of 37 plays. This made William a wealthy man.

Shakespeare’s theatre It is not known exactly when Shakespeare began writing, but contemporary allusions and records of performances show that several of his plays were on the London stage by 1592 From 1594, Shakespeare's plays were performed by only the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a company owned by a group of players, including Shakespeare, that soon became the leading playing company in London After the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, the company was awarded a royal patent by the new king, James I, and changed its name to the King's Men

Globe theatre In 1599, a partnership of company members built their own theatre on the south bank of the River Thames, which they called the Globe The Theatre, which had been built by Richard Burbage's father, James Burbage, in Shoreditch in 1576. The Burbages originally had a 21-year lease of the site on which The Theatre was built but owned the building outright

Shakespeare style Shakespeare used a metrical pattern consisting of lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter, called blank verse. His plays were composed using blank verse, although there are passages in all the plays that deviate from the norm and are composed of other forms of poetry and/or simple prose. Shakespeare's sonnets are written in iambic pentameter, with the exception of Sonnet 145, which is written in iambic tetrameter. Shakespeare's style of writing and metre choice were typical of the day, and other writings of the time influenced how he structured his compositions

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