William Shakespeare.
Shakespeare is the most famous British
playwright in history. People know his
name in almost every country in the
world. But who exactly was William
Shakespeare? That is the question!
Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-
Avon on 23 April, 1564. Families were
big in those days. William had seven
brothers and sisters. But his parent’s
weren’t poor; his father, John
Shakespeare, was a successful
businessman who bought and sold leather
and wool. His mother was the daughter of
a rich farmer. When Shakespeare left
school, he went to work for his father.
But soon after, he met and fell in love
with Ann Hathaway, the daughter of a
farmer who lived in Stratford. They got
married in December 1582, and just five
months late, their first daughter,
Susanna, was born. William was 18. Ann
was 25. What did Shakespeare do for the
next ten years? We don’t know exactly.
We don’t know why he gave up a good job
in his father’s business and moved to
London. We don’t know exactly when or
why he became an actor and playwright.
All we know is that in 1592 he wrote his
first play. After that, his plays became
popular very quickly, and he made a lot
of money. Four hundred years ago,
Shakespeare built a theatre – The Globe
– here in the center of London. It was
one of London’s first theatres. It was
round and had no roof over the center –
like the theatres of ancient Rome. OK in
Rome – not such a good idea in cold,
rainy London! The people of London loves
going to the theatre. The globe could
hold three thousand people. Some people
sat to watch the plays; other stood in
the middle, in front of the stage. The
audience were usually noisy, often
clapping and cheering, and shouting to
the actors – and there were only actors,
no actresses. Young boys played the
parts of women. It often rained in
London then, too. And everyone got very
wet. In 1610, after about twenty-five
years in London, Shakespeare came back
here to Stratford. He was rich, and he
had a big house where he enjoyed life
with his family and friends. But he
didn’t stop writing plays. What kind of
plays did William Shakespeare write?
Well, he wrote thirty-nine plays. Some
of them are comedies, for example, A
Midsummer Night’s Dream and Comedy of
Errors. They have happy endings. Others
are stories from English history, for
example, stories about the kings of
England. They are very patriotic. Queen
Elizabeth 1 often went to see them. And
the others are tragedies, such as Hamlet
and MacBeth – these are sad, dark
stories of murder and revenge.
Shakespeare died on his fifty-second
birthday in 1616. He is buried in Holy
Trinity Church, Stratford. But the
characters in his plays are still with
us today.
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