WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Life
He was born on April 23, 1564 in Stratford-upon-
Avon, England.
He was the oldest of the five surviving children of
John Shakespeare and Mary Arden.
The young Shakespeare began his education at the
age of five.
He primarily studied Latin along with languages
such as French and Italian.
Three years after leaving school, Shakespeare
married Anne Hathaway.
Shakespeare was eighteen when he married,
whereas Hathaway was twenty-six.
They had three children: Susanna, Hamnet and
Judith.
He was a playwright and he also wrote sonnets.
He became a member of The Lord Chamberlain's
Men, a company of actors that performed in The
Theatre and later The Globe.
The company was Queen Elizabeth's favourite
theatre group.
In 1594, Shakespeare became a founder, actor,
chief playwright, and shareholder of The Lord
Chamberlain's Men, a company of actors that
performed in The Theatre and later The Globe.
The company was Queen Elizabeth's favourite
theatre group.
The Globe Theatre
The Lord Chamberlain's Men performed in two
different theatres: "The Theatre" and the world
famous "Globe Theatre."
Both theatres were in the round with the audience
seated on three levels:
the upper class sat on the highest level,
the middle class sat on the lower levels,
and the groundlings stood in the pit around the stage.
The audience did not have to be quiet and often
criticized the plays loudly if they didn't like the
acting or the plot.
The groundlings would throw things at the actors
if they were displeased with the play.
All of the characters in Shakespeare's plays were
played by men.
Shakespeare's women are strong, often stronger
than the men.
Whereas Shakespeare's women are strong in
character, Shakespeare's men are the opposite.
William Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616 on his
fifty-fourth birthday.
Plays
Tragedies
Hamlet
Julius Caesar
King Lear
Macbeth
Othello
Romeo and Juliet
Comedies
All’s Well That Ends Well
As You Like It
The Comedy of Errors
The Merry Wives of Windsor
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
The Taming of The Shrew
He also wrote some Histories about kings and
other famous historical people
Sonnets
He wrote 154 sonnets.
A sonnet is a poem with 14 lines.
The Shakespearean sonnet’s rhyme scheme:
a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g
Sonnet 18
 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.