"THE BARD OF AVON ''
1564-1616
* Shakespeare lived to 52. It is known that he was born in April, 1564 and that he died on 23rd April, 1616. We know that he was baptised on 26th April, 1564 and scholars now believe that he was born on April 23rd. He therefore died on fifty-second birthday, coinciding with St. George's Day.
* Shakespeare had seven siblings. Shakespeare and Anne Hathawy had three children together - a son, Hamnet, who died in 1596 and two daughters, Susanna and Judith.
* Shakespeare died a rich man. He made several gifts to various people but left his property due to his daughter, Susanna. The only mention of his wife in Shakespeare's own will is: ''I gvve unto my wief my second bed with the furniture''.
* Shakespeare lived a double life. By the seventeenth century he had become a famous playwright in London but in his hometown of Stratford, where his wife and children were, and which he visited frequently, he was a well known and highly respected businessman and property owner.
* Shakespeare was buried in the Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon. He put a curse on anyone daring to move his body from that final resting place. His epitath was:
Good friend for Jesus ' sake forbear.
To dig the dust enclosed here:
Blest be the man that spares these stones.
And curst be he that move my bones.
* During his life, Shakespeare wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets! This means an average 1.5 plays a year since he started writing in 1589. His last play, The Two Noble Kinsmen is reckoned to have been written in 1613 when he was 49 years old. While he was writing the plays at such a pace he was also conducting a family life, a social life and a full business life, running an acting company and a theatre.
* Few people realise that apart from writing his numerous plays and sonnets, Shakespeare was also an actor who performed many of his own plays as well as those of other playwrights. During his life Shakespeare performed before Queen Elizabeth land, later, before James I who was an enthusiastic patron of his work. Shakespeare's profession was acting. He is listed in documents of 1592, 1598 and 1603 as an actor. We know that he acted in a Ben Jonson play and also ij his own plays but its thought that, as a very busy man, writing, managing the theatre and communicating between London an d his own home in Stratford where his family was, he didn't undertake big parts. There is evidence that he played a ghost in Hamlet and Adam in As You Like It.
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