In Stratford-upon-Avon on the 26th of April 1564, William Shakespeare was born to John Shakespeare and Mary Arden. Out of eight children, William was third for his parents and the only eldest surviving son. At the young age of 18, William married the 26-year-old Anne Hathaway. During the years they had three children, Susanna and the twins Hamnet and Judith in the case being male and female respectively.
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. In England he is known as the Bard of Avon. His surviving works include some collaborations which consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. 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. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the 16th century. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, 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. Some of the plays he wrote are: Romeo and Juliet, Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Julius Caesar. When writing his plays, William Shakespeare writes them in his own conventional style. He wrote them in a stylised language that does not always spring naturally from the needs of the characters or the drama. The poetry depends on extended, sometimes elaborate metaphors and conceits, and the language is often rhetorical—written for actors to declaim rather than speak.
