WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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The last half of the XVI and the beginning of the XVII enturies are known as the golden age of English litera­ture. It was the time of the English Renaissance, and sometimes it is even called «the age of Shakespeare».

William Shakespeare, the greatest and most famous of English writers, and probably the greatest playwright who has ever lived, was born in Straford-on-Avon. We know very little about his life. The things that we know about Shakespeare's life begin with the date when he was baptised in the church of Stratford, on April 26, 1564, when he was only a few days old. So he is believed to have been born on April 23.

Though little is known about William's childhood, there is every reason to believe that he was educated at the local Grammar School. When little over eighteen he married Anne Halthaway of Shottery.

William lived in Stratford until he was about twenty-one, when he went to London. We do not know why he left Stratford-on-Avon.

There is a story that Shakespeare's first job in Lon­don was holding rich men's horses at the theatre door. But nobody can be sure that this story is true.

Later, Shakespeare became an actor and a member of one of the chief acting companies. Soon he began to write plays for this company and in a few years became a well-known author.

Shakespeare's experience as an actor (although he usually acted only small parts, like the Ghost in Hamlet) helped him greatly in the writing of his plays. His knowl­edge of the stage and his poetical genius made his plays the most wonderful ones ever written.

Shakespeare's wrote 37 plays. Among them there are deep tragedies, such as Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth, light comedies, such as All's Well That Ends Well, Twelfth Night, historical dramas, such as Henry IV, Richard III.

Most of Shakespeare's plays were not published in his lifetime. So some of them may have been lost in the fire when the «Globe» burned down in 1613.

Shakespeare's spent the last years of his life at Strat­ford, where he died in 1616. He was buried in the church of Stratford. A monument was erected to the memory of the great playwright in the Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey.