About 200 million starlings from North America have nobody but one man to thank for their success: William Shakespeare. He improved tremendously from being just a novice from a little town, to a globally honored writer in London. During his short lifetime of 52 years, he completed 34 plays, 154 sonnets, and 4 poems. Also, Shakespeare created new words and phrases that are still used today in 21st century such as bloodsucking. After joining the Lord Chamberlain’s Men and beginning his writing and acting career, William Shakespeare became one of the most successful writers of all time and contributed many famous plays and sonnets, which are still popular today after four centuries.
Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire, England. There are no official records for Shakespeare’s birthday; however, many scholars believe that he was born on April 23rd, 1564, because there are records of his baptism on April 26th. “The actual date of Shakespeare's birth is not known, but, traditionally, April 23, St George's Day, has been Shakespeare's accepted birthday” (Mabillard 2014). He was the first born son of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden. Shakespeare received his education at the King Edward IV Grammar School in Stratford, where it is believed that he first began writing as a student. He probably learned Latin, a little Greek, and read the Roman dramatists.
At the young age of 18, Shakespeare married a woman, Anne Hathaway, who was eight years older than him. Their first daughter, Susanna, was born six months after the couple’s wedding in November of 1582. Because of this, there are many theories for Shakespeare’s marriage. As David Bevington suggests, “The marriage thus appears to have been a ‘shotgun’ wedding”. Some believe that Hathaway’s family forced them into marriage after the news of her pregnancy was out. There are theories suggesting that he was seeing two other women other than Hathaway. Many assume that Shakespeare’s love to her was scarce, however there are no exact evidence that proves that it was not his intention to get Hathaway pregnant.
The couple had three children, Susanna, Hamnet, and Judith. At age 24, Susanna married John Hall, a successful physician in Stratford. Together they had one daughter, Elizabeth. Judith and Hamnet were twins born on January of 1585. Sadly, Hamnet died when he was only 11, and the cause of his death is still unknown. Judith married Thomas Quiney, a vintner in February of 1616. Together they had three boys: Shakespeare, Richard, and Thomas.
Shakespeare was a playwright and poet as well as an actor. After moving to London to work on his plays and dramatic theaters, he joined the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, an acting company, and this was the turning point in his life. The company included members such as Richard Burbage and Will Kempe, who were both quite famous actors in Shakespeare’s time. The company started performing at a playhouse simply known as the Theatre and at the Cross Keys Inn, later transferring to the Swan Theatre on Bankside. In 1599, Shakespeare and the company financed one of the most famous Elizabethan theaters of all: the Globe Theatre.
In his life, Shakespeare wrote a total of 34 plays. His plays were about history, comedy, tragedy, or romance. His first plays were mostly comedies and histories like Henry VI or The Comedy on Errors. “By the year of Marlowe’s death, we have seen, Shakespeare had written not only some four plays on English history, but probably his first three comedies” (Rowe 1963). However, in 1596, he composed possibly the most famous play ever written: Romeo and Juliet. In the next dozen years he wrote other famous plays like Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth. He stayed away from romance until his final years of writing, and composed Cybeline, A Winter's Tale, and The Tempest.
Shakespeare composed 154 sonnets between 1593 and 1601. His style of sonnets, now acknowledged as Shakespearean, is written in the form of three quatrains and a rhyming couplet. The Norton Anthology of English Literature states: “Shakespeare's sequence suggests a story, although the details are vague, and there is even doubt whether the sonnets as published are in an order established by the poet himself” (1029). Sonnets 1 to 126 talk about a handsome, young friend of his. The sonnets 127 to 152 talk of the "Dark Lady", who the poet is in love with. In his Sonnet 18, “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?”, Shakespeare compares a beautiful young man to summer and alludes his love and passion for him. He claims that the man is better than summer, for summer does not stay for long enough. Even though everything beautiful will one day lose its beauty, he says that the man's beauty will never be lost, and will be remembered forever from this sonnet.
In his writings, Shakespeare used grandiloquent language and invented many words, mostly by combining words that already existed, like putting together daunt and less to make dauntless. Some other words are birthplace, cold-blooded, gossip, champion, blanket, laughable, moonbeam, and so much more. Apart from words, Shakespeare also produced many cliché expressions that people still use today.
Shakespeare's beautiful writings consist of truly phenomenal characters. His characters are always so complex and very relatable many people. His characters are diverse and sharp. None of them seems flat, like they were just written out by pencil and paper from a man's brain. They seem real, thick, and strong. “It could be said that Shakespeare was present at the invention of human motive and human purpose in English history” (Ackroyd 1949). His characters spanned from fairies like Puck, to lieges like King John, and even normal young people like Romeo and Juliet. Playing a Shakespeare character is believed to be a great honor for many actors because of this reason.
Shakespeare retired from acting and left London to go back to his home in Stratford, sometime after 1612. He composed his will in January of 1616 and died about three months after on April 23rd, 1616. Shakespeare left a long, specific document for his will. It left plenty of his property to both of his daughters and their husbands. His will is famous for how he left his second-best bed to his wife. To this day, none of the scholars know if this was an insult to his wife or it truly had a deep meaning to it that we cannot comprehend. Two days after his death, Shakespeare was buried at Stratford Church, the same church he was baptized in. The irony of Shakespeare's death, is the fact that he may have died on his birthday, however we may never know, because there are no official record of Shakespeare's birth date.
Shakespeare inspired a gargantuan amount of people with his beautiful talent for writing. He introduced a brand new style of writing in the 16th century and changed the idea plays and sonnets completely. Not only was he the most important playwright four centuries ago, his plays still continue to be read, taught, and performed today in the 21st century. On top of that, even people who has not read or heard of Shakespeare uses the words and phrases he made up in his plays all of the time. His magnificent contributions to this world will never be forgotten, and William Shakespeare will continue to live forever and remain immortal within his extraordinary works of writing.
Works Cited
Ackroyd, Peter. Shakespeare: The Biography. New York: Anchor Books, 1949. Print.
Bevington, David. “Shakespeare, William.” All About Oscar. 2016. Web. 23 Jun. 2016. <http://kids.britannica.com/oscar/article-252446>.
Mabillard, Amanda. “Shakespeare's Biography.” Shakespeare Online. 2014. Web. 23 Jun. 2016. <http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/shakespearebirth.html>.
Rowe, Alfred Lestie. William Shakespeare: A Biography. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1963. Print.
