William Shakespeare, who is considered to be one of the greatest dramatists of all ages, was born in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 23, 1564. His father, John Shakespeare, was involved in various kinds of trade and in 1568 was chosen a bailiff, a position corresponding to mayor. Shakespeare’s mother, Mary Arden of Wilmcote, came from an ancient family and was the heiress to some land. He was their youngest son.

Shakespeare attended the local grammar school, which was the school of good quality. His education would consist of Latin studies - learning to read, write and speak the language fairly well and studying some of the classical historians, moralists and poets. After having finished his secondary education he did not go on to the university, he got married instead. His wife Anne Hathaway was eight years older than him, they had two daughters - Susanna and Judith. Judith had a twin Hamnet but he died at the age of eleven.

How Shakespeare spent the next eight years until his name begins to appear in London theatre records is not known. There are some stories of stealing deer and getting in trouble with local magnate, Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, of earning his living as a schoolmaster in the country, of going to London and gaining entry to the world of theatre by minding the horses of theatregoers etc. No evidence proves that these stories are true, it is supposed that they were made out according to some of his writings.

He came to London in 1592 and joined a group of actors known as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, which became the King’s Men under the patronage of James I. Lord Chamberlain’s Men ran the theatre The Globe, which was a public playhouse where almost all classes of citizens went to. In summer they toured the provinces, and on occasion they performed at London’s Inns of Court (associations of law students), at universities or in great houses.

Shakespeare wrote 37 plays and more than a hundred sonnets. With a few exceptions, Shakespeare did not invent the plots of his plays, for the aim of Renaissance was to improve plots of early dramas. Sometimes he used old stories, sometimes he worked from the stories of comparatively recent Italian writers, such as Boccaccio, sometimes he was looking for inspiration in English and European history.

The idea that Shakespeare’s plays and poems were not actually written by him has been the subject of many books and is widely regarded as at least an interesting possibility. The source of all doubts lies in the disparity between the greatness of his literary achievement and his comparatively humble origin, the supposed inadequacy of his education. Probably the most often, he was identified with Christopher Marlowe, one theory is even going so far that it claims Ch. Marlowe not to be killed in 1593 (the corpse of another being represented as his own) but was smuggled to France and then to Italy, where he continued to write in exile, his plays being fathered on Shakespeare.

It is not sure if we will ever have the possibility to find out who was the author of Shakespeare’s dramas or if it was Shakespeare himself. Nevertheless, this is not important - whether it was one man or a group of authors, his (or their) plays will always be the most popular plays that were ever written.

Shakespeare’s early plays were principally histories and comedies. He dramatised almost the whole English history from Richard II to Henry VII. Historical plays were very popular in Elizabethan times, about one fifth of all plays were histories. (Henry VI, Richard III, Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, King John)This astonishing project carried him off with triumphant success. The early comedies share popular and romantic forms (The Comedy of Errors, The Marry Wives of Windsor, the Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night - these are comedies of intrigue, fast moving, often placing a high premium on humour; The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love’s Labour’s Lost, A Midsummer’s Night Dream, As You Like It - these comedies take often place in natural environment, where the main characters are looking for freedom and justice. ) All the comedies share a belief in the positive, health giving powers of play. The comedies The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, All’s Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure approach tragicomedy. These plays give greater weight to the less optimistic perspectives on society.

The confusions and contradictions of Shakespeare’s age find their highest expression in his tragedies. He sets husband against wife, father against his child, the individual against the society; he uncrowns kings, levels the nobleman with the beggar. Already in the early experimental tragedies Titus Andronicus with its spectacular violence and Romeo and Juliet with its comedy and romantic tale of adolescents love, Shakespeare had broken away from the conventional Elizabethan understanding of a tragedy as a twist of fortune. Apart from comedies Shakespeare’s tragedies cannot be defined by a single general statement that covers all cases, for each tragedy belongs to separate category: revenge tragedy in Hamlet, domestic tragedy in Othello, social tragedy in King Lear, political tragedy in Macbeth and heroic tragedy in Antony and Cleopatra. He usually seeks the tragedy in the main hero himself. The characters are always psychologically developed, he usually creates two opposite characters in the main roles, which strengthened the dramatic tension of the play. (e. g. Hamlet and Claudius, Iago and Othello).

Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest, and Henry VIII, written between 1608 and 1612, are commonly known as Shakespeare’s late plays or his last plays, and sometimes, with reference to their tragicomic form, they are called his romances. They differ from earlier comedies in their structural emphasis on a renewal of hope that comes from penitence and forgiveness together with a faith in the younger generation, who by love will heal the wounds inflicted in the past.