William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was an English poet and playwright best known for Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth, and for the 154 sonnets first printed in 1609. Over about 25 years in London, he wrote some 39 plays and three long poems, and many of his phrases, from “to be, or not to be” to “all the world’s a stage,” are still part of everyday English.

Our view: Shakespeare is best understood as a poet first. His plays are written mostly in verse, his reputation in his own lifetime rested partly on his poems, and the sonnets are the closest thing we have to his private voice. Read him on the page, line by line, and the playwright turns out to be the greatest lyric poet in the language as well.

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Why He Matters · Timeline · Life and Career · Poetry and Style · Famous Poems and Books · Legacy · FAQ
Related Poets

Why William Shakespeare Matters

No writer has shaped the English language more. Shakespeare gave us characters who have become types, such as the jealous Othello and the ambitious Macbeth, and phrases so familiar that most people use them without knowing where they came from. His plays are performed and taught in every corner of the world, and they have been adapted into films, novels, operas, and musicals for four centuries.

For readers of poetry, he matters for a more specific reason. He made blank verse sound like people thinking aloud, and in the sonnets he took a courtly fashion and turned it into a record of desire, jealousy, aging, and fear of death. The fourteen-line form he used is still called the Shakespearean sonnet. Few poets have written so well about time, and none has been read by so many.

William Shakespeare Timeline

1564

Baptized on April 26 at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, the son of the glove maker John Shakespeare and Mary Arden.

1582

Marries Anne Hathaway, who is 26; the marriage license is issued on November 27.

1583

His daughter Susanna is baptized on May 26.

1585

His twins, Hamnet and Judith, are baptized on February 2; the “lost years,” with no record of him, begin.

1592

The writer Robert Greene attacks him in print as an “upstart Crow,” proof that he is already known in London theater.

1593

Publishes the narrative poem Venus and Adonis, his first printed work.

1594

Publishes The Rape of Lucrece and joins the Lord Chamberlain’s Men as actor, writer, and shareholder.

1595

Writes Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, around this year.

1596

His son, Hamnet, dies at 11, and his father is granted a coat of arms.

1597

Buys New Place, one of the largest houses in Stratford.

1599

His company builds the Globe Theatre on the south bank of the Thames.

1600

Writes Hamlet, around this year.

1603

James I takes the throne, and the company becomes the King’s Men.

1606

Writes King Lear and Macbeth, around this year.

1608

The King’s Men take over the indoor Blackfriars Theatre.

1609

Shake-speares Sonnets is published by Thomas Thorpe.

1611

Writes The Tempest, often read as his farewell to the stage, around this year.

1613

The Globe burns down on June 29 during a performance of Henry VIII; he retires to Stratford around this time.

1616

Dies on April 23 and is buried in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon.

1623

His fellow actors John Heminges and Henry Condell publish the First Folio, with 36 plays, 18 of them printed for the first time; Anne Hathaway dies the same year.

Life and Career

For such a famous writer, Shakespeare left surprisingly few personal records. What survives is mostly legal and financial: baptisms, a marriage license, property deeds, lawsuits, and a will. The outline of his life, however, is clear.

Stratford Beginnings (1564–1585)

Shakespeare was baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26, 1564, and his birthday is traditionally celebrated on April 23. His father, John, was a glove maker who rose to become an alderman of the town, and his mother, Mary Arden, came from a family of landowners. He probably attended the local grammar school, the King’s New School, where boys studied Latin, rhetoric, and classical writers such as Ovid, whose influence runs through his poems. He did not go to university.

In 1582, at 18, he married Anne Hathaway, who was 26. Their daughter Susanna was born the next year, and the twins, Hamnet and Judith, followed in 1585. After that, the records go silent for about seven years, a stretch known as the lost years.

London and the Poems (1585–1594)

By 1592, Shakespeare was working in the London theater, successful enough that the playwright Robert Greene mocked him as an “upstart Crow.” When plague closed the theaters in 1592 and 1593, he turned to poetry and published two long narrative poems, Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594), both dedicated to the Earl of Southampton. They were popular and reprinted often, and they made his name as a poet before he was famous as a dramatist.

The Globe Years (1594–1603)

In 1594, he joined the Lord Chamberlain’s Men as an actor, playwright, and part owner, an unusual position that made him wealthy. In these years, he wrote comedies such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, history plays, Romeo and Juliet, and, around 1600, Hamlet. His son, Hamnet, died in 1596, and in 1597 he bought New Place in Stratford. In 1599, the company built the Globe Theatre, and his sonnets were already circulating among his private friends.

The King’s Men and the Great Tragedies (1603–1613)

When James I became king in 1603, he took the company under his patronage as the King’s Men. Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies, including Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, date from these years. In 1608, the company added the indoor Blackfriars Theatre, and in 1609 the Sonnets appeared in print. His late romances, including The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest, followed, and he wrote his last plays in collaboration with younger writers such as John Fletcher.

Retirement and Death (1613–1616)

After the Globe burned down in 1613, Shakespeare spent most of his time in Stratford. He signed his will in March 1616 and died on April 23, 1616, at 52. The cause is unknown. He was buried in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church, under a stone carved with a curse on anyone who moves his bones. Seven years later, two of his fellow actors gathered his plays into the First Folio, which saved half of them from being lost.

Poetry and Style

Shakespeare wrote in three main poetic modes. His narrative poems are ornate and sensuous, in the fashion of the 1590s. His plays are written largely in blank verse, unrhymed iambic pentameter, which he loosened over his career until it could follow the jumps and stalls of a mind under pressure, as in Hamlet’s soliloquies or Lear’s ravings. His sonnets use the English form of three quatrains and a couplet, rhymed ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, which now carries his name.

His great subjects are time, love, power, and identity, and in the sonnets especially, the fear that time will destroy everything he loves. His language is dense with metaphor, puns, and double meanings, and he packs ideas into images: time as a scythe, beauty as a lease, love as a fixed star. Many sonnets turn on a single argument that the closing couplet sums up or reverses.

He has faults, and critics have named them since the 1700s. Samuel Johnson complained that Shakespeare could never resist a pun, even at the cost of sense. Some sonnets are strained or repetitive, and a few couplets feel tacked on after brilliant quatrains. The unevenness, though, is part of his range: few writers took as many risks with language, and his failures come from the same daring as his triumphs.

Famous Poems and Books

These are the works a reader of poetry should know first, from the early narrative poems to the plays and sonnets. For the complete sonnet sequence and guides to the plays, see our sister site, WShakespeare.com.

• Venus and Adonis (1593): His first published work, a playful, erotic narrative poem about the goddess of love and the young man who refuses her.
• The Rape of Lucrece (1594): A dark companion piece, a long poem on violence, shame, and the fall of Roman kings.
• Romeo and Juliet (about 1595): The tragedy of two young lovers from feuding families, which contains a sonnet within its dialogue.
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream (about 1595): A comedy of lovers, fairies, and amateur actors lost in an enchanted wood.
• Hamlet (about 1600): His longest play and the most famous tragedy in English, with the soliloquy “To be, or not to be.”
• King Lear (about 1606): An old king divides his kingdom and loses everything, his bleakest and perhaps greatest tragedy.
• Macbeth (about 1606): A short, fast tragedy of ambition, murder, and guilt.
• Shake-speares Sonnets (1609): The sequence of 154 sonnets to a young man and a dark-haired woman, the heart of his lyric poetry.
• Sonnet 18 (1609): “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” His most famous poem, promising a beloved eternal life in verse.
• Sonnet 116 (1609): A definition of true love as the thing that does not change and a favorite reading at weddings.
• Sonnet 130 (1609): “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,” a love poem that mocks flattering comparisons.
• The Tempest (about 1611): A magician gives up his power on an island, often read as Shakespeare’s farewell to the stage.
• The First Folio (1623): The collected plays, published after his death by two fellow actors, which preserved 18 plays that had never been printed.

Reputation and Legacy

Shakespeare was admired in his own lifetime, but his status as the supreme English writer came later. In his poem for the First Folio, Ben Jonson called him “not of an age, but for all time.” In the 1700s, editors such as Samuel Johnson established him as a national classic, and the Romantics, led by Coleridge, praised his imagination and his insight into character. By the Victorian era, his reputation had grown into a near-religious reverence that George Bernard Shaw mocked as “bardolatry.”

Because so few personal records survive, some people since the 1800s have doubted that the man from Stratford wrote the works, proposing Francis Bacon or the Earl of Oxford instead. Nearly all scholars reject these theories: Shakespeare’s authorship is supported by the title pages, by the First Folio, and by the testimony of writers who knew him. Today, his plays are performed around the world, and his sonnets remain among the most widely read love poems in English.

Frequently Asked Questions

These are the questions readers most often ask about Shakespeare’s life and family.

When and Where Was William Shakespeare Born?

He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, in April 1564. His exact birth date is unknown, but he was baptized on April 26, and his birthday is traditionally celebrated on April 23.

How Did William Shakespeare Die?

No one knows. He died in Stratford on April 23, 1616, at the age of 52, and no record of the cause survives.

Did William Shakespeare Have Children?

Yes. He had three children: Susanna, born in 1583, and the twins Hamnet and Judith, born in 1585. Hamnet died in 1596 at the age of 11.

Who Was William Shakespeare’s Wife?

His wife was Anne Hathaway, whom he married in 1582, when he was 18 and she was 26. She stayed in Stratford while he worked in London, and she died in 1623.

Was William Shakespeare a Real Person?

Yes. His baptism, marriage, property, lawsuits, will, and burial are all recorded, and writers who knew him, including Ben Jonson, identified him as the author of his plays and poems. Theories that someone else wrote the works are rejected by nearly all scholars.

Related Poets

• Christopher Marlowe: His great rival and early model, whose “mighty line” showed Shakespeare what blank verse could do.
• Edmund Spenser: The leading poet of the 1590s, whose Amoretti sonnets offer a different, more devout English sonnet sequence.
• Sir Philip Sidney: Author of Astrophel and Stella, the sonnet sequence that started the Elizabethan sonnet craze.
• Ben Jonson: His friend and rival, whose tribute in the First Folio set the terms of Shakespeare’s fame.
• John Donne: A younger contemporary who took the love sonnet and the love lyric in a sharper, more argumentative direction.

Sources

• William Shakespeare, Wikipedia
• William Shakespeare, Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
• William Shakespeare, Wikidata