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William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (/ˈʃeɪkspɪər/; 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.

Excerpt from Wikipedia

Plays

Tragedies

  1. Antony and Cleopatra
  2. Coriolanus
  3. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
  4. Julius Caesar 
  5. King Lear
  6. Macbeth
  7. Othello
  8. Romeo and Juliet 
  9. Timon of Athens
  10. Titus Andronicus
  11. Troilus and Cressida

Comedies

  1. All's Well That Ends Well
  2. As You Like It
  3. The Comedy of Errors
  4. Cymbeline
  5. Love's Labour's Lost
  6. Measure for Measure
  7. The Merchant of Venice
  8. Merry Wives of Windsor
  9. A Midsummer Night's Dream
  10. Much Ado about Nothing
  11. Pericles, Prince of Tyre
  12. The Taming of the Shrew
  13. The Tempest
  14. Twelfth Night
  15. The Two Gentlemen of Verona
  16. The Two Noble Kinsmen
  17. The Winter's Tale

Histories

  1. Henry IV, Part 1
  2. Henry IV, Part 2
  3. Henry V
  4. Henry VI, Part 1
  5. Henry VI, Part 2
  6. Henry VI, Part 3
  7. Henry VIII
  8. King John
  9. Richard II
  10. Richard III

Poems

  1. A Lover's Complaint
  2. Shakespeare's Sonnets
  3. The Phoenix and the Turtle
  4. The Rape of Lucrece
  5. The Passionate Pilgrim
  6. Venus and Adonis
  7. A Funeral Elegy
  8. To the Queen

Apocrypha

  1. Edward III
  2. Sir Thomas More
  3. Cardenio
  4. Love's Labour's Won
  5. The Birth of Merlin
  6. Locrine
  7. The London Prodigal
  8. The Second Maiden's Tragedy
  9. The Puritan
  10. Sir John Oldcastle
  11. Thomas Lord Cromwell
  12. A Yorkshire Tragedy

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