I love Shakespeare! I love to read his works and I love to watch performances of his plays. But even though I’ve acted on stage for many years, I have never had the opportunity to perform in any of his plays – except in class situations. Maybe someday I could play Juliet in Romeo and Juliet or Ophelia in Hamlet. No? You’re probably right.
There appears to be some mystery surrounding portions of the life of William Shakespeare, but scholars generally agree on the date of April 23, 1564 as the date of his birth in Stratford-upon-Avon, England.
The timing is rather interesting for me because I’m working on curriculum for an online English course about literary criticism right now in which I’m including his play The Taming of the Shrew as an example for a literary analysis using Feminist Criticism. This play is rich with content that can fit Feminist Criticism from many angles.
Maybe you’ve seen the movie version of the play with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
If you aren’t familiar with the play, maybe you’ve seen (or heard of) the musical Kiss Me, Kate. It’s a musical based on The Taming of the Shrew.
(Oooops! Song interlude. Rachel York as Kate in Kiss Me, Kate.)
Whether you’re familiar with Shakespeare’s work or not, he’s definitely still popular with many people even after all these years. What a legacy!
Happy Birthday, William Shakespeare!
Grandawn - Aging Semi-Gracefully 
Yes Dawn…take it off your bucket list. 🙂
Granny, do you have a bucket list? How cool!
There’s been some recent debate about whether he wrote all of the work attributed to him, don’t know if you’ve caught whiff of it?
Oh, yes. There’s been some controversy about that for quite a while. I haven’t seen anything that proves to me that he didn’t write the works, so I’m going with the side that says he wrote them. That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it. 🙂