400th Anniversary of William Shakespeare's death.

William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, 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". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long-narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. 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 brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children, Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, at age 49, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, which has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, and religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.

Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories, and these are regarded as some of the best work ever produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragi-comedies, 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. In 1623, however, John Heminges and Henry Condell, two friends and fellow actors of Shakespeare, published a more definitive text known as the First Folio, a posthumous collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's. It was prefaced with a poem by Ben Jonson, in which Shakespeare is hailed, presciently, as "not of an age, but for all time". In the 20th and 21st centuries, his works have been repeatedly adapted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular, and are constantly studied, performed, and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.

Today, 23th April, 2016, the 400th anniversary of the playwright's death, celebrations ware commencing in the United Kingdom and across the world to honour Shakespeare and his work.

Shakespeare's Legacy

William Shakespeare is one of the most famous and prolific writers in the history of English. His plays include perennial classics like "Romeo and Juliet," "Hamlet," "Macbeth," "The Tempest," "Julius Caesar," and "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and he coined many now-common expressions and words. Here is an overview of Shakespeare's impressive legacy.

Tragedies

Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello, Timon of Athens, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus

Comedies

The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, The Comedy of Errors, Love's Labour's Lost, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Troilus and Cressida, Measure for Measure, All's Well that Ends Well, Pericles Prince of Tyre, The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, The Tempest

Histories

Richard III, Richard II, King John, Henry VIII, 1 Henry VI, 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, Henry V

Poetry

The Sonnets, A Lover's Complaint, The Rape of Lucrece, Venus and Adonis, Funeral Elegy by W.S.

Popular expressions

• Bated breath (The Merchant of Venice)


• To be-all and the end-all (Macbeth)


• To beggar description (Antony and Cleopatra)


• We have seen better days (As You Like It)


• A blinking idiot (The Merchant of Venice)


• Brave new world (The Tempest)


• Brevity is the soul of wit (Hamlet)


• Cruel to be kind (Hamlet)


• A dish fit for the Gods (Julius Caesar)


• He hath eaten me out of house and home (Henry IV Part 2)


• Foregone conclusion (Othello)


• Laid on with a trowel (As You Like It)


• Neither rhyme nor reason (The Comedy of Errors)


• Short shrift (Richard III)


• Sterner stuff (Julius Caesar)


• Too much of a good thing (As You Like It)


• A tower of strength (Richard III)


• Wild-goose chase (Romeo and Juliet)


• William #Shakespeare's 400th anniversary marked by Google doodle

William Shakespeare's 400th anniversary marked by Google doodle

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