It is commonly believed that the great English dramatist and poet William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on-Avon on April 23, 1564. But it is impossible to know the (26)_____ day on which he was born. Church records show he was baptized (施洗礼) on April 26, and three days was a customary amount of time to wait before baptizing a newly born baby. Shakespeare’s date of death is (27)_____ known, however: it was April 23, 1616. He was 52 and had retired to Stratford three years before.
Although few plays have been performed or analyzed as extensively as the 38 plays Shakespeare wrote, there are few surviving details about his life. This (28)_____ of biographical information is due primarily to his social (29)_____; he was not a noble, but the son of a leather trader.
Shakespeare (30)_____ attended the grammar school in Stratford, where he would have studied Latin and read (31)_____ literature. He did not go to university and at age 18 married Anne Hathaway, who was eight years his (32)_____. They had four children, including the twins, Hamnet and Judith. Nothing is known of the period between the birth of the twins and Shakespeare’s (33)_____ as a dramatist in London in the early 1590s.In a million words written over 20 years, he (34)_____ the full range of human emotions and conflicts with a (35)_____ that remains sharp today. As his great contemporary the poet and dramatist Ben Jonson said, “He was not of an age, but for all time.”
