d to be sometime around 1591(Biography.com). It is here that Shakespeare the actorcame to be known. The first evidence of Shakespeareappearing on stage was in 1594 with Lord Chamberlain’s Men. It is also not known when he started writing for sure, but he rapidly established himself as an actor and scriptwriter, probably freelance, working for several theater troops (Kay 141). His first official publication appeared in 1593 while all of the theaters were closed for the plague. This was Venus and Adonis, which will be discussed later. The most information we have about Shakespeare is the plays and poems he has written. His plays are probably the best well known. His imagination was stirred greatly by a wide range of theatrical models such as mystery plays, ancient drama and the drama of the generations immediately preceding him (Kay 43). The histories and tragedies almost always claim at some level to be true, to be based on real events. His comedies often stress fictional situations andproclaim their relation to literary traditions. The first recorded play written by Shakespeare is thought to be Two Gentlemen of Verona. Love's Labour's Lost was the first script to have Shakespeare's name printed on it as the author in 1598. His name was never even mentioned publicly as a playwright until Frances Meres made the statement that Shakespeare was the best of the English for both tragedy and comedy, and listed eleven plays that he had written (Ogburn 1974). Some of his more memorable plays includeRomeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Taming of the Shrew. When all of Shakespeare’s plays were written cannot be exactly pinned down. Researchers have only been able to estimate the dates from the records of performances of the plays or of someone discussing them in writing. Shakespeare wrote thirty-eight plays in all. Many of the plays have been made into movies. They are set in either Elizabethan England or in con...
