William Shakespeare

English poet and playwright (1564-1616). Born on April 20 in Stratford-on-Avon, he is considered by many to be the greatest writer in history. He had no education beyond grammar school and married Anne Hathaway, an older woman, when he was just 18. They had three children, Susanna, Hamnet, and Judith (the latter two were twins).

After moving to London (he continued to support his family back in Stratford), Shakespeare got work as an actor and playwright for the King's Men, an extremely successful acting company. After the King's Men built the famous Globe Theater, Shakespeare became quite wealthy. He eventually retired to Stratford, where he died on his birthday.

Shakespeare is, of course, best known for his sonnets and his many plays, including "Macbeth", "Hamlet", "The Tempest", "Julius Caesar", "Romeo and Juliet", "King Lear", "Much Ado about Nothing", "The Taming of the Shrew", "Henry V", and many, many more. He actually valued his poems more than his plays--he considered his work for the stage to be merely commercial labor to pay his bills. He may have been bisexual, since many of his sonnets were written to an unknown young man.

Many beginning Shakespearean readers wonder where to begin digging through the wealth of plays that the Bard wrote. It is widely accepted, however, that five of Shakespeare's plays rise above the rest and provide a wonderful foundation for the beginning Shakespeare reader. These five are truly the essentials of Shakespeare.

Hamlet, The Prince of Denmark is probably the best known of William Shakespeare's works, and may well be the most famous English play ever written. This play displays the fully mature Bard's extraordinary talents, but also has developed a reputation as a difficult work to break down. This is because Hamlet is a very complex character within a play that exhibits many intertwined and multilayered themes. It is a play of internal conflict and revenge.

King Lear is a play driven by the mesmerizing central character, who descends into madness as the play bears on mostly due to his internal conflicts about the true intentions of his children. The popularity of this play is likely due to the realistic painting of Lear himself as he breaks down, not knowing who to trust and eventually not even trusting himself.

Macbeth is likely the Bard's darkest play, invoking a touch of the supernatural in Macbeth's bloody rise to power in Scotland and the subsequent demises of both himself and his lady. Macbeth is surely the darkest central character in any of Shakespeare's works, as his machinations result in a great deal of mistrust and, eventually, murder and suicide.

Othello introduces the element of race into Shakespearean tragedy. Iago, a wonderfully evil and manipulative fellow, convinces Othello (who is black) that his wife Desdemona has been unfaithful, leading to a complex web of deceit, jealousy, rage, and murder. This is perhaps the best example of Shakespeare's ability to weave a plot; there is no monolithic character here.

The Tempest is the lone comedy included in the upper echelons of Shakespeare's works. The tale revolves around Prospero and his daughter Miranda who have been exiled to an island that has some mystical powers. Prospero draws upon these to create a mighty tempest with which to produce revenge upon his friends. This play has a great deal of comedic elements but a streak of seriousness runs through the play as well.

These five plays are considered the essentials of Shakespeare, and deservedly so; most literature written in the interim has mostly just followed themes established in these five works of genius.