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William Shakespeare

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William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is sometimes considered the greatest playwright of all time. What is it that made Shakespeare so famous? In his plays he combined the elements that people of his time loved and that people still like today. Many things greatly influenced the writing of Shakespeare"s plays.

William Shakespeare had a very interesting life that undoubtedly greatly affected his plays. He was born on April 23, 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon and was the third of eight children. Shakespeare went to grammar school and learned
Latin and literature. He went on and married a woman named Annie Hathaway on
November 27, 1582 and had three children. His first daughter was named Susanna and was born on May 26, 1583 and then, two years later, he had twins-Hamnet and
Judith-that were born on February 2, 1585. By 1592, Shakespeare was a well-known popular actor in the Elizabethan theatres. Without a doubt, this probably had a great affect on him when he later on became a playwright. Shakespeare retired completely in 1613. On April 23, 1616, three years after his retirement, and on his fifty-second birthday, William Shakespeare died.

Shakespeare gathered ideas for some of his plays from other popular writers of his time. Although this may not have made for one hundred percent originality, his plays were interesting and became very popular. For The Winter"s
Tale, Shakespeare got the names for some of his characters from Sir Phillip
Sidney"s Arcadia. This was one of the

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