Who was Shakespeare?

A surprising amount of Shakespeare's life is unknown.  Everything that is known about him is found either through the influences on his writing, or official records from important points of his life.  From these records we know that he was born around April 23, 1564.  Interestingly, there is little record of his education, leading to some wild speculation about the credibility of Shakespeare's authorship.  Shakespeare married, then had a daughter and twins.  After the twins were born, seven years pass with no record of Shakespeare.

Shakespeare is generally received poorly among students.  It is most commonly associated with difficult to understand text.  His reputation is further tarnished by the fact that Romeo and Juliet is used by many to sarcastically describe a cliche romantic situation.  This establishes the idea that Shakespeare's work is outdated, with all its value being academic.

If I'm honest, as far as Shakespearean reading comprehension goes, I've progressed slowly.  I'm certainly better than I was freshman year, but I'm far from seamless understanding of the text.  The biggest part I struggle with is the extended sentences.  The dialogue tends to wander between several different topics in a single sentence, making it difficult at times to relate everything back to the original statement.  However, I definitely get the comical aspect of Shakespeare's work much more.  When it was first explained to me while reading Romeo and Juliet freshman year, part of me guessed that the teacher was making it up the help the play appeal to us as a modern audience.  Doubtlessly that was part of the purpose, but I didn't realize how deliberate the humor was.  Additionally, I'm enjoying the cultural benefits of reading the classic plays.  A lot of previously esoteric references ("Et tu Brute?) make much more sense now.

Source:
http://www.biography.com/people/william-shakespeare-9480323
Found via DuckDuckGo, in accordance to our "filter bubble" discussion.