The English poet, playwright and actor William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is one of the world’s most important dramatists and is often referred to as England’s national poet. Although the information we have about his personal life is muddled, his plays and their productions have been written about extensively. A prolific writer, he produced comedies, tragedies and sonnets with equal facility. His tragedies feature usurpers, conspirators and tyrannical characters who commit terrible crimes, driven by their thirst for power and the superstitions of the time. His comedies are characterised by witty repartee and happy endings, in which love triumphs following playful misunderstandings, mistaken identities, and reversals of fortune. He enjoyed enormous success and was acclaimed both by theatregoers and his peers (although he had his detractors), enjoying the patronage of both Elizabeth I and James I.

His gravestone bears the following warning:

Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blessed be the man that spares these stones
And cursed be he that moves my bones.

 

He wrote 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and many other works of poetry.

 

A short list of his plays:
Richard III, The merchant of Venice, A midsummer night's dream, Love's labour's lost, The taming of the shrew, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Twelfth night, Othello, Macbeth , King Lear, The tempest.

 

Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life's as cheap as beast's. (King Lear) 

Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak Whispers the  o’er-fraught   heart and bids it break. (Macbeth)

-A thousand times good night!
-A thousand times the worse, to want thy light.
-Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be tomorrow. (Romeo and Juliet)

This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, may prove a beauteous flower when next we meet. (Romeo and Juliet)

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief, that thou her maid art far more fair than she (Romeo and Juliet)