The author William Shakespeare William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, on April 23, 1564. He attended1 the local Grammar School, where he studied Latin and Greek. He did not finish his studies because his family had financial difficulties. When Shakespeare was 18, he married Anne Hathaway, a woman seven or eight years his senior2, then he moved to London. It is difficult to say why he left Stratford and there are many legends about this period of his life. Perhaps he followed a company of actors and went to London where he had more opportunities for his career. At the age of 28 (1592), Shakespeare, the Bard3, was a popular actor. Then he started writing plays for public and private theatres. He immediately showed his remarkable ability moving from comedies of light4 and delicate verbal equivocation5 (such as Love s Labour s Lost) and through poetic tragedy (Romeo and Juliet), to the production of his great middle period. He was then the leader of a company of actors and the owner6 of The Globe theatre on Bankside7 where his great plays (Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear and Othello) were performed8. Shakespeare followed the fashion of the time and also wrote poems and sonnets, dedicated to his lord protector in terms of affection. He spent the last six years of his life at Stratford, in his new house, New Place, where he died at fifty-two, on 23 April, 1616. Shakespeare s London was the cultural capital of the world. The age took the name Elizabethan from Queen Elizabeth I, who ruled9 from 1558-1603. Under her rule, England reached10 new economic, military and cultural power. The English defeat11 of the Spanish Armada 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. attend: frequentare. senior: più vecchia. Bard: bardo, cantore celtico. light: leggero. equivocation: equivoco. owner: proprietario. 7. Bankside: nome di una zona di Londra lungo il Tamigi. 8. perform: rappresentare. 9. rule: governare. 10. reach: raggiungere. 11. defeat: sconfitta.