William Shakespeare

Shakespeare was born on April 23,1564, in Warwickshire town of Start ford. His mother, Mary Arden, was the daughter of a landowner. His father, John, was a glove maker ad a trader. Like other Elizabethan schoolboys, Shakespeare studied Latin grammar during the early years. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith.
Shakespeare's first extant play is probably ''The Comedy of Errors'' 1950 a brilliant and intricate comedy. His next comedy, 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona' 1591, is more prophetic of his later comedy. Shakespeare's most famous poems, probably composed in this period but not published until 1609, the 154 sonnets, the supreme English examples of form.
By 1594 Shakespeare was fully engaged in his career. In that year he became principal writer for the successful Lord Chamberlain's Men one of the two leading companies of actors. For this company Shakespeare produced plays. The comedies include 'The Taming of the Shrew' 1594,' A Midsummer Night's Dream' 1595, 'The Merchant of Venice' 1596, perhaps the most perfect of the comedies. Shakespeare's only tragedies of the period are among his most familiar plays; ' Romeo and Juliet' 1596,' Julius Caesar' 1599, and 'Hamlet' 1601.
During his last decade in the theater Shakespeare was to write fewer but perhaps even finer plays. Almost all the greatest tragedies belong to this period. The best is 'Macbeth' and 'Othello', 'King Lear', 1605, was Shakespeare's masterpiece. 'Antony and Cleopatra' and 'Coriolanus' both written in 1607-1608 embody Shakespeare's bitterest images of political life, one more tragedy, 'Timon of Athens', was written during this period. A final of plays takes a turn in a new direction.' Pericles' 1607,' Cymbeline' 1609,'The Winter's Tale' and 'The Tempest' in 1611 share their conventions with the tragicomedy that had been growing popular since the early years of century. Shakespeare died in 1616, at the age of 52.