Let’s learn five whimsical William Shakespeare facts for kids. Step into the fascinating world of William Shakespeare, the greatest storyteller and poet the English language has ever known! While you might know his famous plays like Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet, Shakespeare was much more than just a playwright. He was a master wordsmith who invented thousands of words we still use today, and his life was full of surprising and often whimsical details. Get ready to pull back the curtain on this amazing historical figure as we discover five fun and interesting facts about William Shakespeare that every kid should know!
William Shakespeare loved to write and is best known for his plays which included comedies and tragedies. We know that he wrote around 39 plays during his lifetime but two of them have been lost. Historians studying Shakespeare think that he may have written even more plays but because they were written down on paper they were lost over time. Shakespeare also wrote a lot of poetry, there are over 150 poems he wrote that we know of. His favourite type of poems to write were sonnets, an Italian style of poetry.
In 1599 Shakespeare’s acting company who he owned part of and wrote for created a circular theatre called The Globe.
The Globe theatre was an exciting place to perform and performances in it involved trap doors, special effects made from fire and smoke, and some actors were even lifted using strings. The original Globe theatre no longer exists but there is a modern version of it still in London where Shakespeare’s plays are performed.
One of Shakespeare’s most famous plays is the story of Macbeth, but it is considered bad luck to say the word ‘Macbeth’ in theatres. To avoid saying Macbeth some people call it The Scottish Play instead when they are in a theatre. Some believe that Shakespeare cursed his own play by putting real spells into the story. When Macbeth was first written it was unpopular because it had witches in it. During the 16th century people believed in witches and were frightened of them so they didn’t enjoy the play.
Shakespeare had a beard cut to look like the tail of a swallow which was very fashionable in the Elizabethan age. He also wore a single gold hoop earring which was a popular style for artists at the time. Shakespeare also created the word fashionable, he first used it in his play ‘Troilus’ and in many of his other plays. He used it just like we do to describe things that are trendy.
Shakespeare performed his works in front of Queen Elizabeth the first and King James the first. Both Queen Elizabeth and King James hired Shakespeare and his acting company to perform at the royal court. The first play Shakespeare released following King James being crowned was Macbeth which was set in Scotland where King James the first was from.
We hope you enjoyed learning more things about William Shakespeare as much as we loved teaching you about them. Now that you know how majestic this person is, you can move on to learn about famous people like: Barack Obama, Albert Einstein and David Attenborough.
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