According to tradition, the great English playwright and poet William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 23, 1564.
It is not possible to determine the exact day he was born, but church records show that he was baptized on April 26, and it was customary to wait three days before baptizing a newborn.
However, the date of Shakespeare's death is known with certainty. It was April 23, 1616. He was 52 years old, and three years before he had retired to Stratford.
Shakespeare left no personal papers, and his collected works were not published in print until after his death. What we know about his life comes from period documents.
To fill the gaps in knowledge, the Folgers Shakespeare Library in Washington is attempting to digitize all known references to Shakespeare and his family written during and around his lifetime.
The project, called Shakespeare Documented, has so far collected more than 500 references in about 400 documents. The letters are written in an Elizabethan secretarial hand, a style common in the 16th century but indecipherable to the untrained eye today.
Shakespeare wrote two epic narrative poems, 38 plays and 154 sonnets. Yet there are few surviving details of the playwright's life.
This lack of biographical information is mainly due to his position in life. He was not a nobleman, but the son of John Shakespeare, a leather merchant and town bailiff. Events from William Shakespeare's early life can only be gleaned from official records, such as baptism and marriage records.
He probably attended Stratford grammar school, where he would have studied Latin and read classical literature. He didn't go to university.
At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, who was eight years older and pregnant at the time of the wedding. Their first daughter, Susanna, was born six months later, and in 1585 William and Anne had twins, Hamlet and Judith.
Hamlet, Shakespeare's only son, died 11 years later, and Anne Shakespeare survived her husband, dying in 1623.
Nothing is known about the period between the birth of the twins and Shakespeare's emergence as a playwright in London in the early 1590s, but unsubstantiated stories have him stealing deer, joining a troupe of traveling players, becoming a teacher, or serving as a soldier in the Netherlands.
The first mention of Shakespeare as a London playwright dates from 1592, when fellow playwright Robert Greene wrote disparagingly about him on his deathbed. Shakespeare is believed to have written three parts of Henry VI by then.
In 1593 Venus and Adonis was Shakespeare's first published poem, and he dedicated it to the young Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton. In 1594, probably having composed the plays Richard III, The Comedy of Errors and The Taming of the Shrew, among others, he became the actor and dramatist of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, which became the King's Men after the accession of James I in 1603.
The company became the best in England, thanks in no small measure to Shakespeare, who was its chief dramatist. It also had the best actor of the day, Richard Burbage, and the best Globe Theatre, which was on the south bank of the Thames. Shakespeare remained with the King's Men until his retirement, often appearing in small roles.
By 1596, the company had staged Shakespeare's classic plays Romeo and Juliet, Richard II. and A Midsummer Night's Dream. John Shakespeare was granted a coat of arms that year, a testament to his son's growing wealth and fame. In 1597, William Shakespeare bought a large house in Stratford.
In 1599, after producing his great historical series, the first and second volumes of Henry IV. and Jindřich V., became a partner in the ownership of the Globe theater. In the early 17th century, the first of his great tragedies, Hamlet, was performed.
Another play, The Merry Wives of Windsor, was written at the request of Queen Elizabeth I, who wanted to see another play that included the popular character of Falstaff. Over the next decade Shakespeare produced such masterpieces as Othello, King Lear, Macbeth and The Tempest.
His sonnets, written probably in the 1690s, were published in 1609. The 154 sonnets feature recurring themes of the mutability of beauty and the transcendent power of love and art. Shakespeare died in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 23, 1616.
Today, nearly 400 years later, his plays are performed and read more often and in more nations than ever before. In a million words written over 20 years, he captured the full range of human emotions and conflicts with an accuracy that remains sharp and relevant today.
As his great contemporary, the poet and dramatist Ben Jonson, said: "He was not in age, but forever."
Quotes by Shakespeare,
" Earth has music for those who listen"
"Have more than you show, Speak less than you know"
"Love all, Trust a few, Do wrong to none"
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