William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is conventionally regarded as the greatest English-language playwright of all time. Many of his plays are required reading in many U. S. school curriculums; those taught in schools often include The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedie of Romeo and Juliet, The Tragedy of Macbeth (the scottish play), A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,

He is also famous for his one hundred and fifty-four sonnets, short poems written in a very strict rhyme scheme. The sonnets fall into series or sequences. Most of them appear to be expressions of romantic love; some appear to be written to a married woman known in the sonnets as the "Dark Lady," some to a young man known as the "Fair Lord."