The Life and Times of William Shakespeare
...country residence and land. Anne was twenty-six and pregnant at the time of the marriage and William just eighteen. The marriage produced three children. Susanna was their first child,and later followed by twins, Hamnet and Judith. Hamnet died in 1596. In 1607, his daughter Susanna married. Shakespeare's other daughter, Judith, got married in 1616. The only mention that Shakespeare made to his wife Anne in his will is the famous bequest of his "second best bed". Whether it is a loving memory, or a just a method of torment, is unknown. Considering the questionable interpretations of Shakespeare's plays, the publications are slightly accurate. The disagreements between versions of his plays from one publication to the next make it difficult for editors to put together completely accurate versions of his work. Plays could be published in large anthologies called folios, the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays contains 36 plays, or smaller quartos. Folios were so named because of the way their paper was folded in half to make pieces of two pages, each which were sewn together to make a large volume. Quartos were smaller, cheaper books containing only one play. Their paper was folded twice, making four pages. In general, the First Folio is of better quality than the quartos. Therefore, plays that are printed in the First Folio are much easier for editors to compile. Although Shakespeare's complexities and "Old English" may cause some confusion to some modern readers, they were contemporary to his audiences. The diversity of his the his audiences ranged from kings and queens, to simple clowns and servants. Even his most tragic plays include clown characters for comic relief and to comment on the events of the play. Audiences would have been familiar with his numerous references to classical mythology and literature. While Shakespeare's plays appealed to all levels of society and included familiar story lines and themes, they also expanded his audiences' vocabularies. Many phrases and words that we use today, like "amazement," "in my mind's eye," and "the milk of human kindness" were founded by Shakespeare. His plays contain a greater variety and number of words than almost any other work in the English language, showing he had a huge and unlimited vocabulary. Even though there has been a lack of evidence proving him actually being a playwright, Shakespeare must be viewed as the author of the 37 plays and 154 sonnets that bear his name. The history of this body of work is immensely huge. Some of Shakespeare's plays seem to have even been said to exceed brilliance, becoming so influential as to greatly affect the course of literature and culture ever after. The earliest proof that William did indeed write 37 plays was Robert Greene’s criticism of Shakespeare in his Groatsworth of Wit, Bought with a Million of Repentance which attacked Shakespeare for having the nerve to compete with him and other playwrights in 1592 . Proof that William was an actor comes from his own performances before Queen Elizabeth herself in 1594 and evidence of William's interest in theatre comes from Shakespeare's name being listed in 1594 and 1595 as a partial owner...