Beginning of Essay
Almost every nation on earth reads, studies and performs the works of William Shakespeare. No writer of any country, nor any age, has ever enjoyed such universal popularity. Neither has any writer been so praised. As William Hazlitt observed, "The most striking pe ....

Middle of Essay
.... Who was William Shakespeare? The life of William Shakespeare is shrouded in mystery. There is no record of him receiving an education, buying a book or writing a single letter, and no original manuscript of a Shakespeare play survives. There is no direct record of his conversations, and no one in his home town seems to have known that he was a successful playwright while he was alive. There is not even a contemporary portrait to reveal his true appearance. Although a number of mentions of William Shakespeare the poet-dramatist appear on record during the 1590's and early 1600's, they comment only briefly on his writings, telling us nothing about the ....