The Great Bard
William Shakespeare is one of the most famous writers of all. For hundreds of years his plays have been running in theatres all over the world in just about every language there is. Shakespeare's plays were fantastically popular in his own time and they still are today.
The great author was born in 1564 on 23 April to John and Mary Shakespeare. John Shakespeare was a glove maker and the family was quite comfortable. They lived in Stratford-upon-Avon, a small but busy town in central England. John Shakespeare sent his son William to school. When the boy left it at the age of about 14, he had to work in the family business.
William Shakespeare didn't go to university and never received a university education.
He married early, at the age of 18. He and his wife Anne had three children, two girls and a boy. Sadly, the boy died when he was just 11.
Then suddenly Shakespeare left Stratford for London. We don't know for sure why he did it. A lot of people believe that he was thrilled by the idea of becoming an actor. In those days theatre was a very popular and not expensive form of entertainment in the country. People watched all kinds of plays which traveling theatre groups performed in the streets and squares. The performances were rather primitive there was no scenery, no music, no special effects. Probably Shakespeare joined one of such groups when he decided to devote his life to acting. The city of London was noise, dangerous and possibly very dirty in those days. There were several theaters, or playhouse. One of them, the Theatre, was popular with Queen Elizabeth I herself. Here Shakespeare began his acting career and later started to write plays.
In those days the tastes of the audiences were very different from what we like now. Theatergoers enjoyed it when they saw cruel scenes or when there was blood all over the stage (they used sheep blood to produce the effect). Tragedies in which the central characters died at the end were especially popular with the public.