{"id":14743,"date":"2019-09-12T09:57:32","date_gmt":"2019-09-12T16:57:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silverdolphin.wpengine.com\/?p=14743&preview=true&preview_id=14743"},"modified":"2020-02-19T12:12:33","modified_gmt":"2020-02-19T20:12:33","slug":"10-things-you-didnt-know-about-william-shakespeare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.silverdolphinbooks.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-william-shakespeare\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Things You Didn’t Know About William Shakespeare"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It\u2019s never too early to share the great works with your kids. Silver Dolphin\u2019s new series, <\/span>Wild Bios<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>are board books for pre-readers all about history and art\u2019s luminaries, reimagined as cute and furry animals. In honor of one of our subjects, <\/span>William Sheepspeare<\/em><\/a>, here are some fascinating facts about the inspiration, master playwright William Shakespeare!<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>

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What's In a Name?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Spelling words in English language wasn\u2019t as codified and universal in Shakespeare\u2019s era (the late 15th and early 16th centuries) as it is today. The playwright even spelled his name a number of different ways, including Shakespe, Shakspere, and Shakespeare.<\/span><\/span><\/o:p><\/span>\u00a0<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

His Birthday's a Mystery!<\/strong><\/h5>\n

There\u2019s actually no record of the day Shakespeare was born. However, he was baptized in his family\u2019s local church on April 26, 1564, and it was custom for babies to receive that sacrament when they were three days old. That puts the Bard\u2019s birthday as April 23, 1564. (Not so fun fact: He died on that same day in 1616.)<\/span><\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s Get Personal.<\/span><\/strong><\/h5>\n

In 1582, Shakespeare married a woman eight years his senior named Anne Hathaway. And six months later their first child, Susanna was born. Twins Judith and Hamnet (not <\/i>Hamlet) followed two years later.<\/span><\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Wordsmith\u00a0<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The works of Shakespeare contain more than 2,000 first uses of words in the English language. In other words, he invented and\/or popularized a literal ton of words, such as swagger, lonely, unaware, excellent, assassination, and countless. He even created the name Jessica for The Merchant of Venice <\/i>(1596).<\/span><\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Innovations and Inspirations<\/strong><\/h5>\n

While Shakespeare was a wildly inventive writer, many of his non-historical plays are based on pre-existing works by other, famous playwrights of the day\u2026but the Bard\u2019s were so good they overshadowed those inspirations. Ancient Greek historian Plutarch wrote Life of Mark Antony, <\/i>Shakespeare\u2019s main source for Antony and Cleopatra, <\/i>and Romeo and Juliet <\/i>owe a lot to the 1562 narrative poem The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet <\/i>by Arthur Brooke.<\/span><\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Lost in Translation<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Shakespeare\u2019s works speak so universally to the human condition that those plays have been translated to dozens of languages\u2026including Klingon, the fictional alien language from Star Trek. <\/i>Not all of the meter and wordplay quite translates, but it is neat to hear the frill romantic talk of Much Ado About Nothing <\/i>rendered in the angry, throaty language of a violent alien culture.<\/span><\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Out of This World<\/strong><\/h5>\n

There are 27 moons that orbit the planet Uranus, and 25 of them have names that reference Shakespeare. For example, Titania, Oberon, and Puck are also all characters in A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream, <\/i>and Miranda, caliban, Prospero, Trinculo, and Francisco can be found in space as well as in The Tempest.<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Double-Life<\/strong><\/h5>\n

While he entertained scores of Londoners with his troupe, the King\u2019s Men, and his theater, the Globe, Shakespeare frequently traveled back and forth to his home in Stratford-upon-Avon, a distance of about 100 miles. There, he led a completely separate and equally successful life as a landlord.<\/span><\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Birdman<\/strong><\/h5>\n

In 1890, an American Shakespeare super-fan named Eugene Schiffelin set out to import into the U.S. every species of bird mentioned in a Shakespeare play. Indeed, he released two flocks totaling 60 starlings into New York\u2019s Central Park. All 200 million starlings flying in American skies today\u2014and which are considered an invasive species\u2014descend from the birds that came over in that ill-advised Shakespearean tribute.<\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Wild Bios:\u00a0William Sheepspeare<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/h5>\n

Meet one of history\u2019s greatest figures in this adorable board book with an animal twist! Dive into the life of the eloquent Baa-rd of Avon and the plays that shaped our language today. William Sheepspeare<\/a>\u2019<\/em>s human themes have resonated with every generation. With hilarious puns and colorful illustrations, this book brings his legacy to life for babies and parents alike!<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Want to learn more about our Wild Bios<\/em><\/a> series?<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>
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It\u2019s never too early to share the great works with your kids. Silver Dolphin\u2019s new series, Wild Bios,\u00a0are board books for pre-readers all about history and art\u2019s luminaries, reimagined as cute and furry animals. In honor of one of our subjects, William Sheepspeare, here are some fascinating facts about the inspiration, master playwright William Shakespeare!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":14763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,1265],"tags":[1149,783,1148,776,553,99,912,1152,1153,883,842,811,662,1150,1154,796,465,1147,1146,797,1145,471,1151,474,795,1143,1144],"class_list":["post-14743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-history","tag-anne-hathaway","tag-baby-book","tag-bard-of-avon","tag-biography","tag-board-book","tag-early-learning","tag-fun-facts","tag-globe-theater","tag-hamlet","tag-historic-figures-as-cute-animals","tag-historical-figure","tag-history","tag-humor","tag-london","tag-macbeth","tag-non-fiction","tag-plays","tag-poetry","tag-punny","tag-puns","tag-romeo-and-juliet","tag-shakespeare","tag-the-globe","tag-theater","tag-wild-bios","tag-william-shakespeare","tag-william-sheepspeare"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n10 Things You Didn't Know About William Shakespeare - Silver Dolphin Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It\u2019s never too early to share the great works with your kids. Silver Dolphin\u2019s new series, Wild Bios,\u00a0are board books for pre-readers all about history\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.silverdolphinbooks.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-william-shakespeare\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"10 Things You Didn't Know About William Shakespeare - Silver Dolphin Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It\u2019s never too early to share the great works with your kids. 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