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William Shakespeare, the oldest surviving son and the third child of eight, was an English poet and a playwright and is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language. He is also known as England's national poet or the "Bard of Avon" or just "The Bard". He has written 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. Today, his work has been translated into every major living language and have been peformed by a lot of playwright today, often as a basis or base for their own plays. He married a woman named Anne Hathaway at the age of 18 and had three children: his daughter Susanna, and twins, a son Hamnet and a daughter Judith. Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried on the 11th of August, 1596. William Shakespeare disappeared off the records of many books after the birth of his twin children, seeing as no one was there to record their lives at that time. Scholars called this period, Shakespeare's "lost years". There were few historical traces of Shakespeare until he appeared as mentioned as part of a London theatre in 1592. There were rumors that the reason for Shakespeare's "lost years" was because he had been escaping town for London to escape prosecution for deer poaching. In response to the question, Shakespeare really did write his plays. It's not exactly known where or when he began to write, but records show that his work began to appear on stage by 1592. He was well known in London for his plays that he was even attacked in the press by the playwright Robert Greene. As Shakespeare grew older, he began to write fewer and fewer plays. By 1613, there were no plays that were attributed to him that appeared on stage afterwards. His last three plays were works in collaboration with John Fletcher, who succeeded him a playwright for the King's Men. There have also been rumors and conspiracy theories about this very question, and there have been many stories written based on the theory that Shakespeare, in fact, did not write his plays. Over the years folks have ranged from crediting Shakespeare with doing all the work, to claiming that Roger Bacon wrote them and used the nom de plume of Shakespeare, to claiming that Shakespeare was the name used by a consortium of writers. Like every good conspiracy theory nobody can prove anything, though a lot of people have claimed to know the secret truths. The conspiracy believers claim to have identified codes and cryptic clues in Shakespeare's works and his tombstone, similarities to works by other writers. They study his life indicating that he couldn't have put out this much work or that he wouldn't be familiar enough with language, court dealings or history to provide the content and context of his plays and sonnets. Although this notion is generally rejected in academic circles, some people do not believe Shakespeare wrote some or all of the works attributed to him. Those disbelievers included Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Henry James, and Sigmund Freud. Some of the people suggested as "real" authors were Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, Sir Walter Raleigh, Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, and even Queen Elizabeth. Another question is whether Shakespeare himself wrote every word of his plays, since dramatists used to collaborate in those times. This is still a matter of academic research and does not apply to Shakespeare alone.

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13y ago
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7y ago

Um no he wrote sonnets as well. I'm not sure if he wrote other stuff. Oh wait he wrote poems for people for valentines day to give to their significant other I think. But he wrote poems and plays as well as acting in his plays.

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12y ago

All of the real historical evidence supports the theory that William Shakespeare of Stratford is the author of the plays ascribed to him. And there is a lot of such evidence, much more than there is for most of Shakespeare's contemporaries. There are some interesting documentaries on the web produced by those people who maintain that William Shakespeare did in fact not write his plays, but they do frequently present the evidence on the matter inaccurately. The viewer is advised to balance such presentations with those prepared by supporters of the theory that Shakespeare really wrote Shakespeare.

The most important thing to bear in mind is the burden of proof. The proper way to approach any historical issue is to say, "Based on the evidence which we have on hand, is this contention (that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare) more likely than not?" There is a pile of contemporary documentary evidence which says that the author of the plays was someone called William Shakespeare (spelled in various interesting ways). There is no evidence that the author of the plays was anyone else. None. Which do you think is more likely?

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12y ago

Not all by himself; he collaborated with others on some of them. His main collaborator was the man groomed as his replacement, John Fletcher. Shakespeare and Fletcher are both credited on the title page of The Two Noble Kinsmen, and it is believed that they also collaborated on Pericles and Henry VIII, and possibly the missing play Cardenio. Thomas Middleton tarted up Macbeth with some very commercial song-and-dance numbers, and Shakespeare may have worked with Thomas Nashe on Henry VI Part 1.

We can say with certainty that Shakespeare wrote at least part of all 38 plays ascribed to him.

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11y ago

Absolutely not! Only 10 of his plays are regularly classified as tragedies, which is about 26% of his total output. The problem is that schools really like to teach the tragedies, so they end up being the best known. But you should get hold of the following movies and watch them. They are all by Shakespeare and are not tragedies: Henry V starring Kenneth Branagh, 1989; Much Ado About Nothing starring Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, 1994; Twelfth Night starring Helena Bonham Carter, 1995; A Midsummer Night's Dream starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Kevin Klein, 1999; The Merchant of Venice starring Al Pacino, 2004; The Tempest starring Helen Mirren, 2010.

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12y ago

Shakespeare wrote several types of plays.

See the related question below.

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12y ago

Yes, he wrote poetry also.

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13y ago

He was an actor as well as a playwright.

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Q: Did shakespeare only write tragedies
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Related questions

What three type of drama did shakespeare write?

Greek tragedy


Which plays did Shakespeare write the most?

If we divide Shakespeare's plays into comedies, histories and tragedies, the comedies outnumber the others almost two to one. There are ten histories and ten tragedies and eighteen comedies.


What Genres did Shakespeare write with?

The plays Shakespeare wrote with are traditionally divided into Histories, Comedies and Tragedies. His favourite genre of poetry was the sonnet.


What kinds of stories did William Shakespeare write?

Mainly he wrote tragedies, but he also wrote comedies.


What types of plays did William Shakespeare mainly write?

You might think that William Shakespeare mainly wrote tragedies because he is most famous for his tragedies, but actually he wrote almost twice as many comedies (18) as tragedies (10) and histories (10).


Why and when did William shakespeare write tragedies?

William Shakespeare started writing tragedies because he thought the tragic plots used by other English writers were lacking artistic purpose and form. he wrote it during somewhere close to 1592


What are the four great tragedies in shakespeare 's life?

The only real tragedy in Shakespeare's life was the untimely death of his son Hamnet in 1596 at the age of 11. Shakespeare wrote ten plays we now call tragedies but this is the only tragic thing that we know happened to him personally.


What is an example of one of Shakespeare's tragedies?

MacBeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Antony and Cleopatra are some of Shakespeare's tragedies.


How did William Shakespeare get a job as a writer?

Shakespeare became a write when he began to write plays and tragedies. People liked them so much, they began to act out and preform his pieces. It all became history after that.


What genre did Shakespeare write?

For the theatre, Shakespeare wrote comedies, tragedies, and histories. He also wrote poetry, including a famous series OS sonnets.


Why did Shakespeare write tragedy?

cause he felt like it!


How many plays did William Shakespeare write and what are the categories into which Shakespeare's plays were divided?

William Shakespeare wrote 38 plays. They are divided into comedies, histories and tragedies. See the related question for a full list of his plays.