........Because of the broadness and excellence of their education at the Stratford school, its graduates developed a strong grasp of the liberal arts, perhaps stronger even than that of modern high-school graduates. So it was that the adolescent Shakespeare–if he did indeed attend the Stratford school–arrived at early manhood well grounded in academic learning. What is more, he possessed a goodly headful of bucolic savvy, for his plays testify to his knowledge of hunting, hawking, and the appetite of worms in rural cemeteries. Most important, though, he had a knowledge of people and the everyday life that surrounded him, gleaned no doubt from observing the farmers, butchers, fruit and vegetable vendors, carpenters, shoemakers, candlemakers, tailors, jugglers, barbers, physicians, sorcerers, clergymen, gravediggers, tax collectors, and actors who regularly converged on Stratford to labor for coin of the realm, divine favor, or applause. While Shakespeare was testing his writing talent, it is quite possible that roving actors who performed every year at a Stratford guild hall enkindled in him an enthusiasm for acting and the stage. The actors in the "play within in a play" in Hamlet, Prince of Denmark may have been based on actors who visited Stratford.

.......What Shakespeare did between the middle 1580s and 1592 is unknown because no records of his activities during that period have emerged. It is possible he spent this entire period in London after leaving Stratford to escape a charge of deer poaching in a park belonging to Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote, near Stratford. However, that possibility springs from sheer speculation, because it has never been proven that Shakespeare did, in fact, commit the crime. During these ''lost years," as they have come to be called, Shakespeare might have tended horses for theatergoers or worked as a sailor, a teacher, or a coachman. Or he might have been a soldier, a law clerk, a theater page, or a moneylender. He could have held several of those jobs. He may have held none of them. 
.......Shakespeare may also have spent the time traveling to distant towns or even to foreign countries. His plays suggest that he visited Italy, for more than a dozen of them–including The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, All's Well That Ends Well, Othello, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Winter's Tale all have scenes set in Italy. In addition, plays not set in Italy often star characters with Italian names. For example, although The Comedy of Errors takes place in Ephesus, Turkey, the names of many of the leading characters end with the Italian o or a:–Angelo, Dromio, Adriana, Luciana. In Hamlet's Denmark are characters named Bernardo and Francisco. Most of the characters in Timon of Athens bear the names of ancient Romans with the distintive us ending–Lucullus, Flavius, Flaminius, Lucius, Sempronius, Servillius, Titus, Hortensius, Philotus. Characters in Twelfth Night, set along the Adriatic coast, include Duke Orsino, Malvolio, Curio, Maria, and Antonio. The Tempest, although set on a magical island, has a largely Italian cast, including Prospero, Miranda, Antonio, Alonso, Gonzalo, Trinculo, and Stephano. Of course, it is quite possible that Shakespeare visited Italy only in his imagination, which was boundless. 
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.......In 1592, though, there can be no doubt that he was in London, at age 28, acting and writing. Proof of his presence in London at this time appeared in a 1592 pamphlet written by dramatist Robert Greene on his deathbed. He called Shakespeare "an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers." When the pamphlet was published after Greene died, its preface–written by an acquaintance of Greene–apologized to Shakespeare and acknowledged his growing importance. One person who may have helped Shakespeare gain entry to literary and social London was Henry Wriothesley, the Third Earl of Southampton, to whom Shakespeare dedicated his poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece.  
.......While in London, Shakespeare lived alone in rented accommodations while his wife and children remained in Stratford. Why his family did not move to London with him is unknown. There has been speculation that it was Anne's wish to live apart from her husband because of her Puritan leanings. The Puritans, dour and severely rigid in their moral outlook, regarded stage plays as a corrupting influence. Most Londoners, however, had no such scruples and exhibited avid interest in stage productions. Queen Elizabeth herself was a playgoer. Entrepreneurs built theatres and competed for audiences with the best writers of the age, including not only Shakepseare but also Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson. Marlowe and Jonson were worthy rivals who remain today among the giants of English literature.  
.......When an epidemic of plague closed the theatres in 1592, the resourceful Shakespeare wrote sonnets and other poetry until the theatres reopened in 1594. In that year, he joined a newly formed drama group called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, serving as writer and actor. During this time, England prospered under the reign of Elizabeth, and most of the citizens had good food, good clothes and good housing. Women as well as men could speak their minds on important issues of the day, perhaps in imitation of  their outspoken queen, and many of Shakespeare's female characters are patterned after the strong women of the day.  

.......Shakespeare presented his plays at inns, courtyards, royal palaces, private residences and playhouses such as Blackfriars (a converted monastery) and the Globe Theatre, built in 1599. Playhouses in Shakespeare's time were wooden structures with tiers of seating galleries in the shape of a horseshoe that could accommodate 2,000 to 3,000 people who paid two or more pennies. It is believed that wealthy Globe patrons could pay extra to sit on the stage. The main floor, which was surrounded by the galleries, had no roof and no seats. But for a penny, a playgoer could stand in this area, called a "pit." Up to 1,000 standees called groundlings or stinklings watched performances in this area under a hot sun or threatening clouds. 

.......William Shakespeare had an enormous vocabulary–far greater than that of the average writer of today. However, in a book entitled The Professor and the Madman, author Simon Winchester points out an intriguing fact: William Shakespeare and other writers of his time had no dictionary to consult. The reason? No one had ever taken the time to compile an a-to-z dictionary of English words. Thus, when Shakespeare happened across a word he did not understand or he needed a word for a particular context, he could not “look it up” because there was no dictionary in which to look it up. 
.......Winchester’s book, a highly entertaining and highly educational account of the origins and development of the Oxford English Dictionary, explains Shakespeare’s predicament as follows: 
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.+.....7Shakespeare retired from the theatre in 1610 and returned to Stratford. Six years later, in 1616, he died on the same date on which he was believed to have been born, April 23. The cause of his death is the subject of conjecture. Ironically, he pronounced himself in good health on March 25, 1616, just a month before he died. Was he a victim of an accident or a murder? Did he have a terminal illness he was hiding from the public? No one can say. According to John Ward, a Stratford vicar in the mid 1600's, Shakespeare came down with a fever after a drinking bout with Ben Jonson and John Drayton, who had come to Stratford from London to visit him. Another story suggests that Thomas Quiney, the husband of Shakespeare's daughter Judith, poisoned Shakespeare. (Shakespeare may have altered his will in 1616 to insert a condition stating that Quiney would not be entitled to Judith's inheritance.) Shakespeare was entombed in the chancel of the same church where he was baptized. His wife died in 1623 at age 67. On his tombstone in Holy Trinity Church are engraved these words which appear to have been written by Shakespeare himself:  

                    Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear  
                    To dig the dust enclosed here. 
                    Blest be the man that spares these stones,  
                    And curst be he that moves my bones.  

.......After Shakespeare's death, his friends and relatives placed a monument on the wall above his tomb. The Latin words inscribed on it (Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem, Terra tegit, Populus mæret, Olympus habet) praised him for having the wisdom of Nestor, the intellect of Socrates, and the writing genius of the Roman poet Publius Vergilius Maro (Vergil). In 1623, Ben Jonson wrote of Shakespeare:  

                    Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show  
                    To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.  
                    He was not of an age, but for all time!  
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Authorship Question 

.......Many scholars have asserted that a man of Shakespeare's ilk–a practical, down-to-earth rustic from the English outback, a businessman who tended closely to his pocketbook–lacked the sophistication, creative eccentricity, and depth of knowledge to produce a great body of brilliant work. (These assertions often fail to take into account the excellent education Shakespeare probably received at the King's New School in Stratford.) Consequently, they have concluded that a writer other than Shakespeare, a Bacon or a Marlowe, wrote Hamlet, King Lear, Othello and other plays. Only by some trick or some whim of history did Shakespeare end up with the credit. This theory gained widespread currency in the 19th Century before scholars began to dismiss it as ludicrous by the 20th Century. And with good reason. Marlowe, for example, died in 1593, years before many of Shakespeare's plays were even written. 
.......As for Francis Bacon (1561-1626)–the great philosopher, politician, scientist, lawyer, and writer in the court of Queen Elizabeth, Bryan Magee writes in the Story of Philosophy (DK Publishing, 1998, Page 74): 
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However, in 1920, an English schoolmaster named J. Thomas Looney published a book claiming that the 17th Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere (1550-1604), was the real author of Shakespeare's works. And a whole army of Looney supporters emerged to crown de Vere as the king of playwrights. One supporter of this theory is the great Shakespearean actor Derek Jacobi. In an article in The Washington Times of April 25, 1997, he was quoted as saying, "I am highly suspicious of that gentleman from Stratford on Avon. I'm pretty convinced our playwright wasn't that fellow. This opinion is very unpopular with the good burghers of Stratford, I realize, but they also make their living on the legend of Shakespeare's local origins. I don't think it was him."