75 Mind-Blowing Facts About William Shakespeare You Never Knew

William Shakespeare is known as the world’s greatest playwright. His plays have been performed all over the world in many different languages.  Enjoy discovering some fantastic facts about William Shakespeare!

“To be or not to be, that is the question” is one of William Shakespeare’s most famous quotes. Now it is your turn to learn or not to learn; that is the question! So dive into these facts about Shakespeare or any facts, to be honest. We have plenty to check out. My favorites are 35 Oinktastic Facts About Pigs and 40 Pawsome Facts About Raccoons.

Facts About William Shakespeare

1. William Shakespeare is considered the world’s greatest playwright.
2. He was born in Warwickshire, England. 
3. Shakespeare’s exact birthday is unknown, but he was baptized in April 1564.
4. His father was a glove maker.
5. He created at least 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and poems in his lifetime. 

6. Shakespeare died in 1616 at the age of 52.
7. Shakespeare was one of eight children.
8. Shakespeare’s wife, Anne,  was 8 years older than him. 
9. In total, Shakespeare and his wife had three children. 
10. Of his three children, only one daughter had a child, and that child never had children.

11. There are no living descendants of Shakespeare.
12. Not only did Shakespeare write plays, but he also loved to perform in them as well!
13. Shakespeare was actually very wealthy and owned lots of property.
14. Shakespeare performed for both Queen Elizabeth I and King James I.
15. During the life of Shakespeare, women were not allowed to perform on the stage, it was illegal!

16. The Globe Theater built by Shakespeare was burnt to the ground and rebuilt the next year.
17. The only writing to be more quoted than Shakespeare is the Bible.
18. Hamlet, one of Shakespeare’s plays, takes 4 hours to perform.
19. Shakespeare loved birds and referenced them 600 times in his plays.
20. He loved dogs too and there are 200 dog references in his plays too.

21. In his time, graves were often moved to make room, but Shakespeare did not want his remains touched so he put a curse on them.
22. Shakespeare liked to make up words and some we still use today such as eyeball.
23.  Shakespeare made up a total of 420 words. 
24.  Thanks to Shakespeare, we have the word assassination. 
25. Only one play written by Shakespeare was set in England, and it was The Merry Wives of Windsor.

26. Shakespeare used the word love over 2,000 times in his works.
27. Just in his play Romeo and Juliet, the word love appears 150 times.
28. Plays by Shakespeare have influenced several Hollywood movies. West Side Story is based on Romeo and Juliet.
29. Shakespeare’s performance company did not perform on Sundays.
30. Julius Ceasar was the first play performed at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater.

31. Hamlet is Shakespeare’s most quoted play.
32.  Shakespeare’s plays had common themes: love, power and politics, identity, revenge, appearance versus reality, fate and freewill, madness and sanity.
33. It is believed that The Two Gentleman of Verona was his first play. 
34. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the most produced play by Shakespeare.
35.  Shakespeare is known as England’s poet. 

36. Shakespeare’s performance company often put on plays for Queen Elizabeth I.
37. You can visit a replica of the Globe Theater in England. It stands around 750 feet away from the original site. 
38. Shakespeare’s shortest play is The Comedy of Errors which is around 1,770  lines.
39. While his longest play is Hamlet which has 4,042 lines. 
40. Hamlet also contains 30,557 words. 

41. Shakespeare’s plays have been translated into more than 100 languages.
42. “Honorificabilitudinitatibus” is the longest word in any of Shakespeare’s plays. It means invincible glorious honorableness. 
43. Shakespeare never attended university.
44. There are superstitions surrounding the play Macbeth, and people will not utter that name in a theater thinking it will bring bad luck. 
45. It is rumored that witches put a curse on the play Macbeth since they claim it has a real spell written into the play.

46. In one of Shakespeare’s portraits, he is depicted with an earring. 
47. Shakespeare’s performance company was called the Lord Chamberlian’s Men.
48. The Globe Theater was built in 1599.
49. The Globe Theater could hold up to 3,000 people.
50. There are people who think that Shakespeare did not write his own play.

51. Shakespeare did collaborate with other authors on some of his works. 
52. Shakespeare came up with many words, but also names. He is credited with the names Jessica, Imogen, Miranda, and Olivia.
53. Uranus has 27 moons, and 24 of those moons have the names of Shakespeare’s characters.
54. Shakespeare was often referred to as “The Bard”, which means poet.
55. There are seven years, from 1585 to 1592, when Shakespeare disappears from any historical record.

56. There is a lost play, Cardenio, which was performed during Shakespeare’s life but there is no written record of the story. 
57. The Globe Theater had to close due to the plague, so Shakespeare worked on poetry instead during that time.
58. Shakespeare’s last play, The Two Noble Kinsmen, was written when he was 49 years old. 
59. It is said that one of the most accurate depictions of Shakespeare’s likeness is in Stratford’s Holy Trinity Church in Stratford.
60. Abraham Lincoln’s favorite play was Macbeth, and ironically the man who assassinated Lincoln had played the title role before.

61. Shakespeare wrote about suicide 13 times.
62. Even though Shakespeare was a wonderful writer, he was a horrible speller! There are at least 10 versions of his signature with different spellings. 
63. Shakespeare wrote comedies, tragedies, and histories.
64. Shakespeare liked to include elements of fantasy in his plays and often had fairies, witches, ghosts, and spells in them. 
65. A transcript of Shakespeare’s plays was written seven years after he died.

66. Shakespeare was known for writing the women in his plays as strong and challenging men, which was not common at the time.
67. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is considered one of the greatest love stories of all time. 
68. There are 36 films made of Romeo and Juliet.
69. If you do happen to read a Shakespeare play, you will notice that they are written in rhyming verse.
70. Over 400 versions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream have been produced for television.

71. Shakespeare took his material from events in history and stories from other countries.
72. Shakespeare’s first play was Henry IV, part I.
73. Shakespeare wrote in a style called Iambi Pentameter, which is said to resemble the beating of a heart. 
74. The Original Globe Theater burned down when the roof caught fire. 
75. Richard II  and King John are Shakespeare’s only two plays to be written completely in verse. His other plays are a mix of verse and prose. 

We hope you learned something new. I know I did! If you know any other fun facts about Shakespeare, be sure to leave them in the comments so we can all learn them.

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