Who was William Shakespeare?

History

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by Mya Kagan (whyzz writer) >> more about the author

“To be, or not to be, that is the question.”

“All the world’s a stage.”

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

“To sleep, perchance to dream.”

You might have heard someone use one (or even all!) of these famous lines. Would you believe that the same person wrote them all? – That very special author was William Shakespeare!

William Shakespeare was a playwright and poet who lived in England from 1564-1616. During his life, he wrote 154 sonnets (which are a type of poem) and over 30 plays. You’ve probably heard of a few of Shakespeare’s titles, like Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, The Comedy of Errors, and lots more!

There are many reasons why Shakespeare and his works have remained so famous. In his huge body of work, he portrayed emotions with great talent and created lots of memorable stories, characters, images, and themes that have been able to continue to interest people for the hundreds of years since his time! He also often wrote both his plays and poetry in a special and challenging kind of verse (think “rhythm”) that makes them flow in a beautiful way when read aloud. Shakespeare’s work has also been able to appeal to people from different cultures around the world, making him and his work all the more well-known and respected!

It’s believed that Shakespeare’s works contain 884,647 words. (To compare, this answer contains about 300, which means Shakespeare wrote almost 3,000 times more words than appear on this page!)

Another thing Shakespeare is famous for is creating words. It’s estimated that he contributed over 500 words to the English language! Here are some that you might be familiar with:

Schoolboy

Watchdog

Amazement

Dewdrop

Rival

Radiance

Zany

Downstairs

Leapfrog

Posted by Monkeyz785 on 2011-03-07 12:41:26

great answer! thank you!! love the list of words shakespear made up.