The Bard: William Shakespeare
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. 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.
Because Shakespeare lived four centuries ago, we do not know everything about his life. Some records
have been lost over the years and some say that Shakespeare was purposely hiding from the world. There are
two periods in his life known as the “lost years”. There are absolutely no records of his activities between when
he left the King Edward IV Grammar School to when he married Hathaway, from 1578 to 1582. Another time
period, from 1585 to 1592 is also lost, and this seven year period is believed to be the time Shakespeare worked
on some plots of his plays.
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. The
contributors of LitFinder Contemporary on Gale Database claims that “By then the foremost London Company,
the Lord Chamberlain's Men also performed at Court on numerous occasions, their success largely due to the
fact that Shakespeare wrote for no other company”.
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, however,
in 1596, he composed what is 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 wrote one of his masterpieces, Midsummer Night's Dream, in the late 1590s. In this play he
showed his skill for romantic comedy. This play features multiple plots going on at the same time, like The
Taming of the Shrew. There are many peculiar aspects in this story like fairy magic. During this time,
Shakespeare favored writing stories out of the ordinary, with bits and pieces of fantasy. The main characters are
the Duke Theseus of Athens and an Amazonian warrior named Hippolyta, Hermia and Lysander, Helena and
Demetrius, and Queen Titania and King Oberon of the fairies. Through 4 complicated plot lines, in the end, the
plots cross over together, and creates a beautiful masterpiece.
Shakespeare composed 154 sonnets between 1593 to 1601. His style of sonnets, now acknowledged as
“Shakespearen”, 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 talks about a handsome, young friend of his. The sonnets 127 to 152 talks of the "Dark Lady", who the
poet is in love with. Most of his sonnets features the "inevitable decay of time", and the "immortalization of
beauty and love in poetry", as a contributer of Poets.org discussed. 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. “Forever and a
day” from As You Like It, “it smells like heaven” from Hamlet, and “not slept one wink” from Cymbeline are a
few of Shakespeare’s many famous expressions. It is hard to believe how expressions Shakespeare used over
four centuries ago are still used and known well, when teenagers today have trouble understanding slangs from
the 80's that parents like to use sometimes such as "411" or "what's crackalackin'?’"
Shakespeare's beautiful writings consists 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. 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.
If Shakespeare was still living today, it is obvious that he would most likely receive high awards and
recognition for his splendid works. However, back in the 16th century, there were not much of a system, such as
Nobel Prize, that gave out honorary awards for excellence in literature. Many of the best writers in those days
were not recognized at respected events like that. Now, after over four centuries, there are festivals or college
classes specifically dedicated to William Shakespeare and his accomplishments. He may not have been given
much recognition during his lifetime, but now he is one of the most respected writers of all time.
During his lifetime, only eighteen of Shakespeare's plays were formally published. Until the publication
of the First Folio several years after his death, there were no complete collection of his works. After the
collection, Shakespeare became even more famous and many studied his plays, sonnets, and poems. Even after
his death, scholars recognized Shakespeare's accomplishments and praised him for his works. Today there is no
writer on earth that is not familiar with the bard or his stories.
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.
Work Cited
"Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 - Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day." Shakespeare Online.
N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
Bevington, David. "William Shakespeare." Britannica's Original Sources. Encyclopaedia Britannica,
N.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2014.
"Shakespeare's Biography." Shakespeare Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.
"William Shakespeare." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: Norton, 2000. 1026031. Print.
"William Shakespeare." Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.
"Words and Phrases Coined by Shakespeare." The Pathology Guy. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.