Drama is usually the most popular unit in any high school grade course.  And one of the most popular plays to study among freshman students is undoubtedly Romeo and Juliet (although I secretly dreaded having to read it one more time). I suggest you have students listen to a professional tape of a play as they read from their books plays during class. Allow the class to get dressed up and act a major scene in front of their peers, books in hand.

It’s important to review the known facts about the Bard of Avon that are based on public records. William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on-Avon, a market town on the River Avon, in 1564, possibly on April 23. He was baptized on April 26, 1564 and died on April 23, 1616 at fifty-two years old. In the sixteenth-century, infants were baptized three days after their birth, so Shakespeare’s birth date is assumed to have been April 23, 1564, which is a nice coincidence because he died on the same date in April fifty-two years later. Also, April 23 is St. George’s Day, St. George being the patron saint of England. He probably attended the local grammar school. In 1582, he married Anne Hathaway, eight years older than Shakespeare, by whom he had a daughter, Susanna, and two twins, Hamnet and Judith. After the births of Shakespeare’s children, we know nothing about him until the year 1592 when he was living in London and had become a successful playwright, actor, and poet. When Shakespeare left Stratford to travel to London, his wife and children remained in Stratford and lived there all their lives.

By 1594, Shakespeare was a leading member of an acting company, The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, and became prosperous as a prominent playwright and actor. In 1596, his son died. In 1597, Shakespeare purchased New Place, the second largest house in Stratford. He became a shareholder in the Globe Theater built in 1599 on the south side of the Thames River. In 1603, James I became king of England, and Shakespeare’s acting company changed its name to The King’s Men. In 1607, his daughter Susanna married a Dr. John Hall and gave birth to Shakespeare’s only granddaughter a year later. In 1616, his daughter Judith married Thomas Quiney, a wine merchant. Subsequently, Shakespeare’s line died out leaving no direct descendants. At some point early in the seventeenth century, Shakespeare retired from London to live in the house he had bought in Stratford. As noted, he died on April 23, 1616. In 1623, seven years after his death, two friends collected his 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and 2 narrative poems and published the first collection of his works, the First Folio.

That is all we know definitively about the greatest writer who has ever lived.

Here are two of Ben Jonson’s tributes to his friend: “He was a monument without a tomb. . . . He was not of an age but for all time.”

If time allows, have the class watch a fifty-minute video, William Shakespeare: A Life of Drama, produced by A & E.