William Shakespeare (1564-1616) I INTRODUCTION English playwright and poet, recognized in much of the world as the greatest of all dramatists. Shakespeare’s plays communicate a profound knowledge of the wellsprings of human behavior, revealed through portrayals of a wide variety of characters. His use of poetic and dramatic means to create a unified aesthetic effect out of a multiplicity of vocal expressions and actions is recognized as a singular achievement, and his use of …showed first 75 words of 1839 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1839 total…Sonnets 1623 First Folio, a compilation of all of Shakespeare's plays, was posthumously published. Did You Know During a performance of Shakespeare's Henry VIII at London's Globe Theatre in 1613, a cannon set the roof on fire and the theater was destroyed. At 18, Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway. They had a daughter, Susanna, and twins, Hamnet and Judith. In the mid-19th century, some scholars believed that Shakespeare’s plays were authored instead by Sir Francis Bacon.