Romeo and Juliet

About William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was an English poet playwright and actor. Born in Stratford-upon-Avon he was the son of John Shakespeare an alderman and glove-maker and Mary Arden a woman from a wealthy family. Likely educated at the Kings New School he would have studied Latin in his youth. At eighteen he married Anne Hathaway then twenty-six. Together they raised three childrenSusanna and twins Hamnet and Judith. By 1892 several of his early plays had appeared on stage in London. These works including Richard III and Henry VI show the influence of Elizabethan dramatists Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe. He then found success with a series of comedies such as A Midsummer Nights Dream The Merchant of Venice As You Like It and Twelfth Night. By the late 1590s Shakespeare wrote two of his finest tragedies Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar proving his talent and thematic versatility. The beginning of the 17th century marked a turn in his work ushering in an era often considered his darkest and most productive. Between 1600 and 1606 he produced such masterpieces as Hamlet Othello Macbeth and King Lear all of which are undoubtedly some of the finest works ever written in the English language. In addition to his 39 plays many of which were performed by his own company at the legendary Globe Theatre Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets and three long poems many of which continue to be read around the world.