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William Shakespeare was the greatest writer in the English language. He was born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of eighteen he married Anne Hathaway, who was eight years older than he was. A few years later he moved to London, where he worked as an actor and a playwright.

Shakespeare wrote thirty-seven plays and 154 sonnets (a kind of poem). His most famous plays are the four great tragedies – Othello, Macbeth, Hamlet, and King Lear. He also wrote several historical plays. Eight of these plays were about English kings, including Richard II, Henry V and Richard III. Others dealt with Roman history and included Julius Caesar and Anthony and Cleopatra. But not all of Shakespeare’s plays were serious. He also wrote comedies, such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night.

Shakespeare died in Stratford on 23 April 1616 but his plays are still very popular today. They have been translated into several different languages, and many of them have been made into films, both in English and other languages. Shakespeare’s plays are about the great issues of life – love, hatred, jealousy, power, ambition, death and so on. So, his plays are just as relevant today as they were in the sixteenth century. To show this, modern directors sometimes do the plays in modern dress, and one of Shakespeare’s plays has even been turned into a modern musical. His romantic tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, was the basis for the musical West Side Story.