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His plays seem to show so much education and erudition that there are even theories that they must have been written by someone else, famous candidates being the Earl of Oxford and Sir Francis Bacon. Like Kennedy assassination theories, most scholars do not believe them, but there are enough questions that new books promoting new theories of Shakespearian authorship continue to keep coming out over the years.

His plays seem to show so much education and erudition that there are even theories that they must have been written by someone else, famous candidates being the Earl of Oxford and Sir Francis Bacon. Like Kennedy assassination theories, most scholars do not believe them, but there are enough questions that new books promoting new theories of Shakespearian authorship continue to keep coming out over the years.

A longstanding theatrical superstition holds that it is bad luck to refer to ''Macbeth'' directly by its name, and accordingly actors traditionally refer to it obliquely as "the Scottish play."

A longstanding theatrical superstition holds that it is bad luck to refer to ''Macbeth'' directly by its name, and accordingly, actors traditionally refer to it obliquely as "the Scottish play."

Because Shakespeare's plays are so familiar, there are innumerable references to them in English literature. Sometimes his stories are recast into a different form. Audiences are expected to recognize the musical ''West Side Story'' as a retelling of ''Romeo and Juliet,'' and the classic science-fiction movie ''Forbidden Planet'' as a transformed version of ''The Tempest.'' The motion picture ''Shakespeare in Love,'' which won the 1998 Academy Award as Best Picture is not a history or biography, but is enjoyed for evoking a sense of what Shakespeare's time and place might have been like.  

Because Shakespeare's plays are so familiar, there are innumerable references to them in English literature. Sometimes his stories are recast into a different form. Audiences are expected to recognize the musical ''West Side Story'' as a retelling of ''Romeo and Juliet,'' and the classic science-fiction movie ''Forbidden Planet'' as a transformed version of ''The Tempest.'' The motion picture ''Shakespeare in Love,'' which won the 1998 Academy Award as Best Picture is not a history or biography, but is enjoyed for evoking a sense of what Shakespeare's time and place might have been like.