Tales of The Bard

Shakespeare: 10 facts you didn't know about the world's most famous poet

How much do we really know about Shakespeare? Thirty-nine plays, over a hundred sonnets, and more words invented than any writer in history; we even believe that his life was so tidy that he was born and died on the exact same date. But most of these facts are mere myths: historians now assure us that we do not know his date of birth, we cannot confirm he came up with those 1,700 words, and we don’t really know how to properly spell his surname. Read on to learn 10 decoded facts about The Bard.

Only six authenticated signatures of William Shakespeare survive. And they weren’t the closing etches in manuscripts or letters: they were scrawled onto legal documents.

All six date from the final four years of his life. But the strangest detail is that no two of them spell his name the same way: variations include "Willm Shakp," "William Shakspē," and "Shakspere." Not one matches the spelling we use today.

It might perplex modern readers, but this was common practice among Elizabethan clerks and writers, who treated spelling as a loose suggestion rather than a fixed rule.

Etymology fans have probably read endless lists of words allegedly invented by Shakespeare. "Upstairs," "bedroom," and "assassination" are among those. As many as 1,700 are attributed to him, but this seems to be, mostly, a myth.

The number comes from the Oxford English Dictionary, which credited him with the earliest known written use of many words, not their invention. Many of these terms were likely becoming orally popular, and what Shakespeare did was use them in his works, effectively documenting those new terms for future generations. None of this makes him less remarkable, though: he used roughly 20,000 different words across his plays and poems.

William Shakespeare's grave carries a warning: "Blessed be the man who spares these stones, and cursed be he who moves my bones." His wishes were respected for hundreds of years. While other tombstones in Holy Trinity Church were shuffled and covered to make room for new burials, his stayed untouched.

Then in 2016, researchers scanned the grave with ground-penetrating radar for a documentary marking 400 years since his death. The results were very strange: his skull appeared to be missing. Even more mysteriously, it lined up with an old, long-dismissed magazine story from 1879 about a trophy hunter stealing it.

The Globe Theatre was built in 1599 by Shakespeare’s playing company. It soon became London’s premier and most famous playhouse, drawing up to 3,000 spectators per show. One day in the summer of 1613, the venue was packed for a performance of Shakespeare's historical play Henry VIII. During a dramatic entrance, a stage cannon fired as planned, but a spark from its wadding landed in the thatched roof.

Within an hour, the entire theater, timber, thatch, and all, had burned to the ground, but despite being studded with attendees, there were no casualties. Legend has it that only one injury was recorded: a man whose breeches caught fire, which he doused with a bottle of ale. Two separate ballads about the fire were printed by the very next day. The Globe was rebuilt within a year, this time with a safer tiled roof.

In August 1596, William Shakespeare buried his only son. Hamnet was eleven, and the burial register at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford records his death with no details. We do know that four years later, Shakespeare wrote the story of a grieving prince obsessed with death and his father's ghost: Hamlet.

Historians never confirmed the connection, and found no proof of Shakespeare explaining it, but many 21st-century cultural works have speculated about this interpretation, such as novels or films that explore the writer’s grief.

Every April 23, tributes note that Shakespeare died precisely on his birthday. There's just one problem: nobody actually knows when he was born.

No birth certificate survives from 1564. Historians have only found a baptism record dated April 26, which could possibly suggest that he was born on the days prior, because, at the time, babies were typically baptized a few days after birth. We do know, however, the date of his death: April 23, 1616. He was 52 years old.

Another myth has been circulating for centuries about his death: that Shakespeare and the Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes died on the exact same day, April 23, 1616. Even UNESCO used this seemingly chilling fact to create World Book Day on that date.

But there’s a disappointing catch: in 1616, England was still using the old Julian calendar, while Spain had switched to the newer Gregorian one. The two "April 23rds" were actually ten days apart. To complicate things further, some historians now believe Cervantes died April 22, not April 23, and that the 23rd was actually his burial. Again, the two dates are close enough, but may have been slightly edited for drama.

Scholars have always been puzzled by a strange 7-year-gap of information about his life. Between 1585 and 1592, William Shakespeare simply vanishes from the historical record. The last mention of him before this gap is the baptism of his twins, Hamnet and Judith, in Stratford.

Then, in 1592, he is referenced in a text by a rival London playwright calling him an "upstart crow," which proves that by 1592 he had already made it as an actor and writer in the city. What happened in between is anyone's guess: being a schoolteacher, writing plays, spending time with his family, even working as a secret tutor for families in Lancashire have all been proposed. But there still is no evidence to support any of it.

In 1582, eighteen-year-old William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, who was twenty-six and already pregnant with their firstborn daughter, Susanna. Three years later, she also gave birth to twins Judith and Hamnet.

When William died in 1616, his will left his wife one specific item that has always confounded scholars: his "second-best bed." For centuries this was read as a final insult. But historians now argue the best bed was reserved for guests, while the second-best was the actual marriage bed the couple shared for decades.

If two of Shakespeare's actor friends hadn't decided, seven years after his death, to compile his work into one enormous book, half of his plays might not exist today.

Published in 1623, the First Folio contained 36 plays, and eighteen of them, including Macbeth, Twelfth Night, and The Tempest, had never been printed anywhere before. John Heminges and Henry Condell, who had worked alongside Shakespeare for decades, gathered scripts, prompt books, and old drafts to put it together. Shakespeare himself never published a collected edition of his own plays; he likely saw them as scripts for performance, not literature meant to last.

Nothing is set in stone

Less a rule, more a suggestion: Grammar rules that are not mandatory

Unlike languages like French or Spanish, the English language does not have an official academy that registers the use of the language and determines which rules still apply and which are obsolete. While institutions such as the Oxford Dictionary help with standardizing and registering the language, English evolves through the daily use of its speakers, and its rules evolve with it.

As a consequence, some rules are more fixed than others, and many of them are not so much rules as they are stylistic choices. Does this mean we can write however we please? Not exactly, but it means that many "rules" are not set in stone. Let’s see some language mandates that are more of a guideline.

As evidenced by daily language, it is perfectly acceptable to end a sentence with a preposition, no matter the context or the formality. In fact, it’s something that speakers tend to do naturally. The idea that ending sentences with a preposition is incorrect is a myth left over by 17th-century grammarians trying to impose Latin grammar on the English language.

‘To run quietly’ or ‘To quietly run’, which one is correct? The answer is both. The choice to place an adverb after the infinitive or in the middle of it has nothing to do with proper grammar, but with emphasis and sounding more natural. Again, this "rule" is a leftover from Latin grammar.

Not so long ago, this rule was set in stone, and saying "to who?" instead of "to whom" would get you a few stares. However, rules change as people change, and the use of ‘who’ to refer to the object has become increasingly more common. However, this only applies to informal contexts. In a more formal setting, it is recommended to still use ‘whom’.

Much like prepositions at the end of sentences, conjunctions —such as and, but, so, or, nor, for, and yet— can go at the beginning of a sentence. This helps with emphasis, breaks up long sentences, and provides flexibility, although it is recommended to use them sparingly in this way.

The first issue here is that the serial comma, better known as the Oxford comma, is a punctuation issue, not a grammar rule. That aside, although it is recommended to avoid confusion caused by lengthy enumerations, in the end, it is a stylistic choice, and it is only considered mandatory in contexts that follow a certain style guide.

Just because in most cases the adjective goes before the noun, it does not mean it should always do so. English speakers tend to naturally put the adjective first when talking about qualities and characteristics, but in many cases, putting the noun first will sound better. Again, it depends on your preferences and the flow of the sentence.

While this is technically correct and subjunctive has been used this way for centuries, this rule mainly applies to written language and formal contexts. In colloquial English, speakers tend to use both the indicative and the subjunctive for uncertain or contrary-to-fact scenarios, such as saying "If I was you" and "If I were you". The choice almost always boils down to what sounds more natural.

Once an unbreakable rule, the use of ‘they’, ‘their’, and ‘them’ for a singular antecedent is widely accepted nowadays, even in the most formal contexts, to fill the gap left by the lack of gender neutral pronouns. In fact, many style guides recommend using these words as singular to avoid awkwardness and assuming someone’s gender.

"Two negatives make a positive", a rule you must have heard about in school. While this is a fact in math, it is not always true in grammar. In more standard English variants, the rule applies, especially in academic writing and formal contexts. However, informal dialects and vernaculars follow the ‘negative concord’: here, the second negative intensifies the first one instead of cancelling it.

This is a myth made popular by old grammar books. ‘None’ can be used with both singular and plural verbs, depending on the meaning. When ‘none’ is used to mean ‘not any’, it is more natural to use a plural verb. When it means ‘not one’ or ‘not any of it’, the verb should be in the singular form. If you are unsure, pick the choice that sounds clearer and more natural.