Question | Answer |
William Shakespeare was baptized on April 26, 1564 and it is believed that he was born 3 days prior, though no official record exists | Question 1
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Shakespeare was born in Stratford-Upon-Avon, a market town in England | Question 2
| His mother was an heiress and his father a leather merchant. He had 5 siblings and was the 3rd born child | Question 3
| William Shakespeare is also known as the "Bard of Avon" or simply, "the Bard" | Question 4
| Shakespeare is largely a mystery; what we know comes from his plays and various official documents (church and court records) | Question 5
| While it’s difficult to determine the exact chronology of William Shakespeare’s plays, over the course of two decades, from about 1590 to 1613, he wrote a total of 37 plays | Question 6
| His work revolves around several main themes: histories, tragedies, comedies and tragicomedies. | Question 7
| There are no records of William's schooling. Scholars have surmised that he most likely attended the King's New School, in Stratford, which taught reading, writing and the classics. Being a public official's child, William would have undoubtedly qualified for free tuition. Though the lack of records has lead many to question the existence of Shakespeare. | Question 8
| Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway on November 28, 1582. William was 18 and Anne was 26, and, as it turns out, pregnant. | Question 9
| He had a daughter named Susanna, born on May 26, 1583. Two years later, on February 2, 1585, twins Hamnet and Judith were born. Hamnet later died of unknown causes at age 11. | Question 10
| After the birth of his twins, there are no records of Shakespeare for 7 years. This period is known as the "lost years," as we have no clue what he might have been up to. | Question 11
| The Lord Chamberlain's Men (later the King's Men) was an acting company in London. Shakespeare joined its management around 1590. | Question 12
| By 1592, there is evidence William Shakespeare earned a living as an actor and a playwright in London and possibly had several plays produced. | Question 13
| By 1599, William Shakespeare and his business partners built their own theater on the south bank of the Thames River, which they called the Globe. | Question 14
| Shakespeare was very innovative, adapting traditional style to his own purposes and creating a freer flow of words. With only small degrees of variation, Shakespeare primarily used a metrical pattern consisting of lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter, or blank verse, to compose his plays. | Question 15 |