William Shakespeare is undoubtedly one of the greatest literary geniuses of all time. Author of over 30 plays and over 150 poems, he masterfully knit together over 20,000 English words, all out inventing some 1,700 of them, to beautifully capture full ranges of complex emotions and subtle nuances of human nature that still capture audiences over 400 years later. Pretty impressive for a 16th century man from a modest family with only a grammar school education, illiterate parents, illiterate children, who never left the country, didn’t seem to own any books, and has no surviving handwritten letters or documents of any kind today. So impressive, in fact, it actually raises some pretty big questions. How exactly did a man like William Shakespeare write such an impressive collection of literary masterpieces? Or didn’t he? Let’s fix that. 

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Sources: 

• poets.org "About William Shakespeare"
• Shakespeare Birthplace Trust "William Shakespeare Biography"
• shakespeareauthorship.com "How Do We Know That Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare?"
• History Extra "The Globe Theatre Fire of 1613"
• Book Brunch "The British and Reading: a Short History"
• Shakespeare Birthplace Trust "Shakespeare's Words"
• History.com "10 Things You Didn't Know About William Shakespeare"
• Encyclopedia Britannica "William Shakespeare"
• biography.com "Was Shakespeare the Real Author of His Plays?"
• EBSCO "Shakespeare Authorship Question"
• Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship "How Wrote Shakespeare? Shakespeare Authorship 101"

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