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English poet Essay William Shakespeare was baptised in 26 April, 1564 and died in 23 April, 1616. He was an English poet and playwright, widely known as the greatest writer in the English language. He is often called Englands national poet. His surviving works consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor and writer. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeares private life survived, such matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, religion, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others. Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies (romances).Romeo and Juliet is the famous romantic tragedy of sexually charged adolescence, love, and death. Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the 19th century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeares genius, and the Victorians worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw.