English Playwright and Poet, the Most Influential Writer in English Literary History
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was an English playwright and poet who over his life wrote more than thirty plays — Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet — and a large body of sonnets, acknowledged as the most far-reaching influence in English literary history. His career fell in the golden age of London theater culture, from the later reign of Elizabeth I into the early reign of James I. His works shaped a vast body of original words and expressions still found throughout everyday English, and because the records of his life are relatively scant, there has also been a fringe scholarly discussion of the "authorship question" around his true identity and the attribution of his works.
Shakespeare’s company built the famous "Globe Theatre" on the south bank of the Thames, its stage surrounded on three sides by the audience, groundlings and gallery nobles sharing one house, and theater became a mass entertainment across classes — many of his classic plays premiered here, until in 1613 the theater was accidentally burned down by a cannon effect during a performance and was later rebuilt to the original design.
A great many common words and idioms of modern English are said to trace to Shakespeare’s coinage or first written use — such as "break the ice" and "wild-goose chase" — and his shaping of the English language itself is in some ways no less than his achievement in dramatic art.
There is a fringe scholarly discussion of whether the true author of Shakespeare’s plays was someone else (the "Shakespeare authorship question"), but mainstream scholarship broadly holds such claims to lack reliable evidence, and Shakespeare’s own authorship is the scholarly consensus.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.
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