William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) is universally regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and possibly in all of world literature — 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and several long poems that have shaped literature, language, and culture for 400 years. Born in Stratford-upon-Avon, he came to London in the late 1580s, became an actor and playwright, and became part-owner of the Globe Theatre (1599). Shakespeare invented or first recorded approximately 1,700 words now common in English (bedroom, lonely, generous, obscene, luggage, critic, champion) and created phrases we still use ('all that glitters is not gold'; 'brevity is the soul of wit'; 'to thine own self be true'; 'something is rotten in Denmark'; 'star-crossed lovers'; 'the lady doth protest too much'). His plays — performed in every language, adapted endlessly — explore the full range of human experience. Hamlet (the most performed play in history), Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet are cultural foundations.