Shakespeare, William (1564-1616), was an English playwright, poet, and actor. Many people regard him as the world’s greatest dramatist and the finest poet England has ever produced.

Stratford-upon-Avon is a quiet English market town famous as the birthplace of William Shakespeare.

Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616, English dramatist and poet, b. Stratford-upon-Avon. He is widely considered the greatest playwright who ever lived.

William Shakespeare, often called the English national poet, is widely considered the greatest dramatist of all time.

For all his fame and celebration, William Shakespeare remains a mysterious figure with regards to personal history.

Many of Shakespeare’s plays were first performed at the Globe, although his plays were performed at other theatres and many playwrights wrote for the Globe

Elizabethan Age, or Elizabethan Era, was a period of English history during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, from 1558 to 1603

Elizabeth I (1533-1603) was queen of England from 1558 until her death in 1603. Her reign is often called the Golden Age or the Elizabethan Age because it was a time of great achievement in England.

Renaissance was a great cultural movement that began in Italy during the early 1300's. It spread to England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and other countries in the late 1400's and ended about 1600.

Shakespeare’s plays and poems
The early plays
Shakespeare arrived in London probably sometime in the late 1580s. He was in his mid-20s. It is not known how he got started in the theatre or for what acting companies he wrote his early plays, which are not easy to date.

Shakespeare's Plays
Before the publication of the First Folio in 1623, nineteen of the thirty-seven plays in Shakespeare's canon had appeared in quarto format. With the exception of Othello (1622), all of the quartos were published prior to the date of Shakespeare's retirement from the theatre in about 1611.