LIT LEGENDS 1: WILLIAMS SHAKESPEARE

William Shakespeare
How much do you know about the legend, Williams Shakespeare?
What you wouldn't know about Williams Shakespeare and only I would tell you is that, he influenced my writing and much of my speech. I remember reading TWELFTH NIGHT OR WHAT YOU WILL at age nine. Not the summarized one that many of you would have read, but the original version written by him in the " eth, thee, thy, ere, whereof" language of the Renaissance Period in which he lived. It was a difficult book to read, even my mum who owned it, probably didn't enjoy it, but had to read it to get her degree. Anyway, I read it, start to finish, appendices as well, and was fascinated by the poetry, style and the speeches, like the duke's line in the first act, "if music be the food of love, play on..." A poem, or was it a song, "what is love, it's not hereafter/ present mirth hath present laughter..." dunno whose song 'twas, probably Fabian's (c'mon, I was nine, how d' you expect me to remember?). Well, that was the beginning of poetry for me, and the beginning of a great love and respect for this Wonder of Literature. I went on to read many of his works which are full of many quotes which I throw always into my speech as punch -and pick up- lines. Obviously, God is my biggest inspiration, the source, but I can't tell my writing story or my book story without mentioning the Legend... Williams Shakespeare.


William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "The Bard"). His surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language, and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. Scholars believe that he died on his fifty-second birthday, coinciding with St George's Day. It is an interesting idea that English writer is so closely identified with the Patron Saint of England!

At the age of 18 he married Anne Hathaway, who bore him three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592 he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of the playing company the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.

Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1590 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century. Next he wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest examples in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime, and in 1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's.

Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the nineteenth century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians hero-worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry". In the twentieth century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are consistently performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.

According to historians, Shakespeare write 37 plays and 154 sonnets throughout the span of his life. Shakespeare's writing average was 1.5 plays a year since he first started writing in 1589. There have been plays and sonnets attributed to Shakespeare that were not authentically written by the great master of language and literature.

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