Shakespeare left school at age 15, and his contemporary Ben Johnson said
Shakespeare had “little Latin and less Greek.” It wasn't where he was born: Stratford is
still a pretty small town even today. It wasn't a long career: Shakespeare wrote all of his
great works in about a twenty-five-year span and died relatively young at 52. It wasn't
even his story ideas: the Bard adapted almost all his plots from known sources. No,
what's impressive about Shakespeare is that his genius seems to have come from nowhere
except himself. He penned comedies, tragedies, and lyric poems; and his mastery of
language, character psychology, and emotion combined to make him the greatest writer
in English.
Interesting facts about William Shakespeare:
1. Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway when he was 18. She was eight years older
and gave birth six months after the wedding...suggesting they may have had to get
married.
2. Shakespeare’s will leaves his “second best bed” to his wife. Who got the best
bed—and why?
3. In 1890, Eugene Schieffelin released eighty starlings into New York’s Central
Park because they were mentioned in Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part I. There are
now hundreds of millions of starlings in America.
4. Actors try to avoid saying “Macbeth” in a theater. Tradition (superstition?) says
that it brings bad luck, so actors call it the “Scottish play” instead.
5. Some say that Shakespeare didn’t write any of the works staged under his name.
This theory became popular in the nineteenth century, and some say you can find
clues to the real author (Francis Bacon?) all through the works...if you read
closely enough.
http://www.enotes.com/authors/william-shakespeare