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William Shakespeare

by E from Plainfield

Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood. ~William Shakespeare
Picture of William Shakespeare (http://departments.oxy.edu/library/geninfo/collections/special/bannedbooks/shakespeare.jpg)
Picture of William Shakespeare (http://departments.oxy.edu/library/geninfo/collections/special/bannedbooks/shakespeare.jpg)

A hero is a person you look up to. He/she is someone you would like to be like one day and who is a role model to you. William Shakespeare is a hero because he loved his job as a successful poet, playwright, and is an inspiration to all who read, or are still reading, his works today. Shakespeare is an inspiration to me and one day I would like to inspire people with the poetry that I write.

William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. His father was John Shakespeare, and his mother was Mary Arden. John Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s father, was a leather worker and was elected mayor of Stratford. Mary Arden, Shakespeare’s mother, married John Shakespeare in 1577, and was the youngest daughter in her family. When her father died, she inherited all the land and the farm that her father had owned when he was alive.

William Shakespeare (http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~Harsch/anglica/Chronology/16thC/Shakespeare/)
William Shakespeare (http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~Harsch/anglica/Chronology/16thC/Shakespeare/)

William Shakespeare grew up with seven brothers and sisters, though only four brothers and one sister lived through adulthood. At the age of eighteen, he fell in love with a twenty-seven year old woman named Anne Hathaway. Anne became pregnant and three months later they were married. Six months into the marriage, they had their first daughter named Susanna. Later, they had their second child, a son, named Hamnet who later died at the age of eleven.

In 1609, his poetry was published without his permission. He did not want those poems and sonnets out into the world because they were personal and meant a lot to him. They were his personal writings and he was very angry when they were published.

William Shakespeare wrote thirty-seven plays and one hundred fifty-four sonnets; still to this day his plays are performed. Some of his most famous works were Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and Sonnet XVIII. His work was mostly about love and relationships, like in Romeo and Juliet. This play is about a boy named Romeo who fell in love with a girl woman named Juliet. Their love was forbidden because Romeo’s family hated Juliet’s family, and Juliet’s family hated Romeo’s family. People relate to these writings because they may be going through the same situations as the characters in these stories. The themes of Shakespeare’s writing relates to people because they are still relevant to this day, which is why Romeo and Juliet is still read.

William Shakespeare is a hero because he is a successful poet who loves what he does. I look up to him because I write poetry and I would like to be successful one day. He is an inspiration to all who read his work and someday I would like to inspire people with my poetry. Still to this day, people read William Shakespeare’s poetry, sonnets, and plays and people are still inspired. My favorite sonnet is Sonnet XVIII and my favorite play is Romeo and Juliet. I like those because there is a lot of meaning in them, and they also have an impact on people’s lives today.

Sonnet XVIII

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Page created on 5/28/2009 12:00:00 AM

Last edited 5/28/2009 12:00:00 AM

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