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    William Shakespeare

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    Virginia Clayton

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    William Shakespeare

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    Virginia Clayton
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    William Shakespeare

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    Virginia Clayton

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    William Shakespeare

    BRIEF HISTORY

    William Shakespeare (26 April 1564 (baptised) 23 April 1616) was an


    English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English
    language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national
    poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including some collaborations, consist of
    about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, of which the
    authorship of some is uncertain. His plays have been translated into every major living
    language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

    Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he


    married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and
    twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London
    as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's
    Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at
    age 49, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive,
    and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his physical
    appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him
    were written by others.

    Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays
    were mainly comedies and histories and these works remain regarded as some of the best
    work produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608,
    including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in
    the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances,
    and collaborated with other playwrights.
    Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his
    lifetime. In 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell, two friends and fellow actors of
    Shakespeare, published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that
    included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's. It was prefaced with a
    poem by Ben Jonson, in which Shakespeare is hailed, presciently, as "not of an age, but for
    all time". In the 20th and 21st century, his work has been repeatedly adopted and
    rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly
    popular today and are constantly studied, performed, and reinterpreted in diverse cultural
    and political contexts throughout the world.
    COMEDIES, HISTORIES, TRAGEDIES AND POETRY
    Tragedies
    - Antony and Cleopatra
    - Coriolanus
    Comedies
    - All's Well That Ends Well
    - The Winter's Tale
    Histories
    - Henry IV
    - King John
    Poetry
    - A Lover's Complaint
    - Venus and Adonis

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