Things You Never Knew About Shakespeare
- schlesadv
- Jan 13
- 2 min read
His exact birthday is unknown.He was baptized on April 26, 1564, so historians assume he was born a few days earlier—often celebrated on April 23.
He died on his birthday (probably).Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616, which tradition holds was also his birthday—making his life span almost exactly 52 years.
He invented hundreds of words and phrases.Over 1,700 English words are first recorded in his works, including bedroom, eyeball, lonely, swagger, and manager. Common phrases like “break the ice,” “heart of gold,” and “wild-goose chase” also come from him.
He spelled his own name multiple ways.No standardized spelling existed at the time. Surviving documents show variations like Shakspeare, Shakspere, and Shakespeare.
He never published his plays himself.Many plays were printed without his involvement. The famous First Folio (1623) was published seven years after his death by fellow actors, preserving 18 plays that might otherwise have been lost.
Actors didn’t use actresses.Female roles—including Juliet and Lady Macbeth—were played by young boys, since women were not allowed on the English stage.
He wrote during outbreaks of plague.When theaters were closed due to the bubonic plague, Shakespeare turned to poetry, producing works like Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece.
He was also a savvy businessman.Beyond writing, he was a shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (later the King’s Men) and co-owned the Globe Theatre, making him quite wealthy.
His will is famously strange.He left most of his estate to his daughter Susanna and bequeathed his wife Anne Hathaway his “second-best bed,” a line that has puzzled scholars for centuries.
Some people still doubt he wrote the plays.
Various conspiracy theories suggest other authors (like Francis Bacon or the Earl of Oxford), though mainstream scholarship firmly supports Shakespeare as the author.
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