William Shakespeare: Life and Works

Questions and Answers

Comedies and histories

The First Folio

Ben Jonson Signup and view all the answers

36 Signup and view all the answers

The Bard of Avon Signup and view all the answers

Stratford-upon-Avon Signup and view all the answers

His works include around 39 plays and 154 sonnets. Signup and view all the answers

Lord Chamberlain's Men/King's Men Signup and view all the answers

23 April 1616 Signup and view all the answers

Study Notes

William Shakespeare was born circa 23 April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, and died on 23 April 1616 at the age of 52.
He was an English playwright, poet, and actor.
He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.

Shakespeare began his career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men, between 1585 and 1592.
He wrote most of his known works between 1589 and 1613.
He produced 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship.

His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.
His works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon".
His works include tragedies, comedies, histories, and tragicomedies.

At the age of 18, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, Hamnet, and Judith.
He appears to have retired to Stratford at the age of 49 (around 1613) and died three years later.

Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime.
In 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell published a more definitive text known as the First Folio, a posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works.