His full name is William Shakespeare. His lifespan is 1566 to 1616. 23rd of April is generally accepted as the poet’s birthday. His father’s name is John Shakespeare. He(John Shakespeare) was a farmer’s son from the neighbouring village of Snitterfield, who came to Stratford about 1551, and began to prosper as a trader in corn, meat,leather, and other agricultural products. His(William Shakespeare’s) mother name is Mary Arden. She was the daughter of a prosperous farmer descended from an old Warwickshire family of mixed Anglo-Saxon and Norman blood. He probably attended the endowed grammar school at Stratford, where he picked up the “small Latin and less Greek” to which his learned friend Ben Jonson refers.

His Poems –

1)Venus Adonis(1593) – This poem is composed in six-line stanzas.

It shows signs of immaturity.

Its Subject – in accordance with popular taste.

Its Description – heavily ornamented and conventional.

It contains individual lines and expressions of great beauty.

2)The Rape of Lucrece(1594) – Rhyme royal stanzas.

The action was retarded with long speeches, but there was Shakespearean touches all through.

3)The Passionate Pilgrim(1599) – It is a collection of verse.

Shakespeare’s name appeared on the title page of the collection.

4)Shakespeare’s sonnets – The sonnets are 154 in numbers. The sonnets are composed in the English form of the sonnet i.e., of 3 quatrains clenched with a couplet.

Shakespeare used popular songs as the basis of many of his lyrics.

His Plays –

1591-92 – 1 Henry vi

2 Henry vi

3 Henry vi

1593 – Richard iii

The Comedy of Errors

1594 – Titus Andronicus

The Taming of the Shrew

Love’s Labour’s Lost

Romeo and Juliet

1595 – A Midsummer Night’s Dream

The Two Gentleman of Verona

King John

1596 – Richard II

The Merchant of Venice

1597 – 1 Henry IV

1598 – 2 Henry IV

Much Ado About Nothing

1599 – Henry V

Julius Caesar

1600 – The Merry Wives of Windsor

As You Like It

1601 – Hamlet

Twelfth Night

1602 – Troilus and Cressida

All’s Well that Ends Well

1603 – (Theatres Closed)

1604 – Measure for Measure

Othello

1605 – Macbeth

King Lear

1606 – Antony and Cleopatra

Coriolanus

1607 – Timon of Athens(Unfinished)

1608 – Pericles(in part)

1609 – Cymbeline

1610 – The Winter’s Tale

1611 – The Tempest

1613 – Henry VIII(in part)

The dates of his plays can be approximate estimates of the dates of the plays. His Prose – Shakespeare’s prose appears all through his plays. In his comedies, prose is the common vehicle for his comic scenes, though used in serious passages also as in “Hamlet”.