Facts About William Shakespeare

• Romantic poet John Keats kept a bust of Shakespeare near his desk in the hope that Shakespeare would spark his creativity
• Bardolatry' was a term coined by George Bernard Shaw to illustrate the reverence held by many Victorians for anything Shakespeare.
• By 1592, Shakespeare was receiving his first literary criticism with playwright Robert Greene, criticising Shakespeare for being a 'Jack of all trades' - a second rate tinkerer with the work of others.
• This criticism may be motivated by the fact Shakespeare was not university educated like contemporary writers such as Christopher Marlowe. 
• Early praise for Shakespeare came from writers such as Ben Johnson. Ben Jonson remarked of Shakespeare he was the -  “Soul of the age, the applause, delight, the wonder of our stage”
• Shakespeare acted in many of his plays.
• Shakespeare was acquainted with Queen Elizabeth I.
• After the death of Queen Elizabeth I, Shakespeare's company was awarded a royal patent by the new King James I and changed its name to the Kings Men. 
•      Shakespeare is often referred to as Elizabethan playwright, but most of his players were written in the Jacobean period.
• In 1599, the company built their own theatre, The Globe on the south banks of the River Thames.
• Shakespeare lived through an outbreak of the bubonic plague in London (1524-94) and 1609. The plague also came to Stratford, when Shakespeare was just 3 months old
• Many of Shakespeare’s plays were based on historical accounts, dramatised by Shakespeare. He also dramatised stories from classical writers such as Plutarch and Holinshed.
• Hamlet was based on a well known Scandinavian legend called -Amleth,
• Shakespeare’s plays contain 200 references to dogs and 600 references to birds.
• In 1890, Eugene Schiffelin an American ‘Bardolator’ decided to import every kind of bird mentioned in Shakespeare but not native to America. This included a flock of 60 starlings released in New York. Starlings have now driven many native birds to the edge of extinction.
• Shakespeare’s plays are usually separated into three main divisions
  Comedies – ‘All’s well that Ends Well’, ‘Much Ado About Nothing’
  Histories – ‘Henry V’
  Tragedies – ‘Romeo and Juliet’, ‘Hamlet’, and ‘Othello’.
• There are those who question whether William Shakespeare was actually the author of the plays, attributed to him. Other contenders include the ‘Oxford school’ – suggesting Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford was a better contender.
• Shakespeare was the most quoted author in Samuel Johnson’s early “Dictionary of the English Language’
• Before Shakespeare, the English language was much less codified with no official dictionary and many variations on spelling.
• Shakespeare has given many words (estimate of 1,700 – 3,000) to the English language.
• Estimations of Shakespeare’s vocabulary range from 17,000 to 29,000 words.
• Shakespeare has given many memorable phrases to the English language, such as “wild goose chase”, “foregone conclusion” “in a pickle”
• Shakespeare has given many memorable insults, “Thou art like a toad; ugly and venomous.”, “You scullion! You rampallian! You fustilarian! I’ll tickle your catastrophe!”, “Thou clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch!”
• Shakespeare never seemed to spell his name properly, often signing his name “Willm Shakp,”
• By others, he was referred to by over 80 different names, such as Shaxberd.” and “Shappere”
• Macbeth was often unpopular for its reference to witches which created fear in the middle ages. There remains a long theatre superstition of saying aloud the name ‘Macbeth’
• In his will, he appeared to only give his wife (Anne) a bed.
• Shakespeare’s grave includes a curse against moving his bones.