William Shakespeare was surely the world’s most performed and admired playwright. He was well known in his time, and like many artists his fame continues to grow after his death. Shakespeare in Life Wherever we go today, we just can’t seem to get away from him. He is in movies, in the theater, even on TV. Whether modernized or set back in Elizabethan times, his influence is everywhere in the things we use for our entertainment.
We think we know who he really was, what his life has all about. He almost seems immortal in our eyes. Who was William Shakespeare? Who was this man we still have placed on a pedestal almost four thousand years after he lived? Was he really the man that Hollywood glamorized? Shakespeare’s life, work and controversies come together to form our beliefs of who this great writer really is. William Shakespeare is clouded with mystery.
John Shakespeare married Mary Arden in 1557. Both the Shakespeare’s and the Arden’s were farmers, and sold their products to make a living. (Brown 23) Shakespeare had two sisters. Joan died in 1562; Margaret died at infancy. Then in 1566 Gilbert was born. In 1569 a second child named Joan was born; in 1571 came Anne, who died when she was eight year’s old. Richard was then born in 1574 followed by Edmund in 1580.
