Interesting Facts About Shakespeare

His name is spelled in nearly 80 ways from “Shaxberd” to “Shappere”. William signed his works using abbreviations such as “Shakspeare”, “Willm Shakspere”, or “Willm Shakp”.

In 1582, William married Anne Hathaway – a farmer’s daughter. They had three children.

There is no official birth record and the only date known is the day when he was baptized – 26 of April 1564.

Nothing can be found about Shakespeare’s life from 1585 to 1592. In 1585 his twins were baptized, and in 1592 he was called an “upstart crow” by the playwright Robert Green. What was he doing during those years? Historians suppose he was a schoolteacher or traveled across Europe, but nobody knows for sure.

There are more than 600 references to different types of birds in Shakespeare’s works. Starling appeared only once in “Henry IV, part 1”.

Eugene Schiffelin, a bardolator, imported every kind of bird that appeared in Shakespeare’s works to North America. 60 starlings were moved to New York’s Central Park. Since then, the population of starlings in North America has increased to 200 million.

According to different sources, such as OpenCulture or assignment writing service, Shakespeare invented from 1,500 to 3,000 words that people use nowadays. I bet, you never thought that such words as Bandit, Critic, Lonely, Uncomfortable, or Unreal were invented by him.

During his life, Shakespeare wrote over 158 poems and 37 plays (there are no exact numbers because some of his works could be lost).

Shakespeare was acquainted with Queen Elizabeth I. Furthermore, Queen Elizabeth I together with James VI of Scotland used to hire Shakespeare’s company to perform at royal counts.

Many people doubt the fact Shakespeare wrote all the plays by himself. There are many accurate mentions of foreign countries, but Shakespeare never left England.

He had never gone to college and his parents were illiterate. Historians speculate that there were a group of people who wanted to conceal their identity behind the image of Shakespeare.

In one of the Henry V scenes, the clown Costard pronounced this word in a dialogue about useless wordiness: “I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitundinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.”

Since the death of Shakespeare, his works were translated into 90 languages. Different people from kings and queens to plumbers and homeless men read Shakespeare’s books.

Moreover, Star Trek fans translated Hamlet into a Klingon language in 2000. The Prince of Denmark starts with “taH pagh taHbe” instead of famous “to be or not to be”.