Who was William Shakespeare? Was he an ordinary man with a splendent talent or was he a genius? Why was he so popular and why does he still popular today? It is difficult to judge, we can hardly answer these questions, and I think that we can only guess…
William Shakespeare is a world-known poet and playwright. Someone said that “Shakespeare was not of an age, but for all time”. Many centuries later these words still ring true. Shakespeare’s surviving works include 38 plays, 154 sonnets and several other poems. Among the most famous Shakespeare’s works I can name “Romeo and Juliet”, “Macbeth”, “Othello”, “Twelfth Night” and many others. I want to admit that we all know a great deal about his creative work but know almost nothing about his life and his personality. Some people confirm that the Cobbe portrait is the only authentic portrait of Shakespeare made during his lifetime, and this portrait is considered to be the only original image from which Bard have copied modern iconic portrait of the great playwright.
There are theories which try to prove that it was not Shakespeare who wrote these poems and plays, but this fact can be easily explained. Some of Shakespeare’s plays that we are reading today have been changed a bit by members of the acting company Shakespeare worked in and they do not really represent scripts written by the author. It happened because Shakespeare’s plays belonged to the acting company but not to the author; and it was far more important to make a performance popular and attracting for spectators rather than to care about copyright because all the actors and playwrights at that time were dependent on the money that actors earned.
I’d like to add that Shakespeare was a really gifted man with extraordinary talent which makes him popular even today when many centuries have passed already.