William Shakespeare

Life and writing

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) worked as an actor and playwright in London and maintained family and property connections in Stratford-upon-Avon. His baptism is recorded in April 1564; the precise day of his birth is not known. The profile therefore uses life years rather than presenting a traditional birthday as a documented birth date.

His theatre work included acting, writing and partnership in the company that became the King’s Men in 1603. He also wrote poetry: Venus and Adonis appeared in 1593. These different forms matter when reading a historical anthology that gathers short passages under his name.

Hamlet places speech within a court troubled by the old king’s death and a demand for revenge. Its advice, questions and final words belong to different dramatic situations: Polonius addresses Laertes in Act I, scene III, while Hamlet’s concluding words appear in Act V, scene II. Treat a selected line as part of that exchange before deciding what lesson it offers.

Reading this voice

The selected passages below are from Hamlet, while the wider archive includes many other plays and poems. A character’s statement is not automatically Shakespeare’s own belief or a universal rule. Bartlett’s 1891 wording, punctuation and selections remain intact and may differ from the linked electronic text. The archive’s approximate 1590 placement uses the midpoint of 1564–1616; it is not the date when a passage was composed. Gutenberg’s 1998 release and 2025 update describe this electronic file, not the play’s first publication or a verified print edition.

Subjects to explore

Words to begin with

• For this relief much thanks: 't is bitter cold, And I am sick at heart.
• Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.