what did william shakespeare do for a living?
Poet Playwright Dramatist Lyricist Author
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 Nearly all academic Shakespeareans believe that the author referred to as " Shakespeare " was the same William Shakespeare who was born in Stratford @-@ upon @-@ Avon in 1564 and who died there in 1616 . He became an actor and shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain 's Men ( later the King 's Men ) , the playing company that owned the Globe Theatre , the Blackfriars Theatre , and exclusive rights to produce Shakespeare 's plays from 1594 to 1642 . Shakespeare was also allowed the use of the honorific " gentleman " after 1596 when his father was granted a coat of arms . 

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 After the birth of the twins , Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592 . The exception is the appearance of his name in the " complaints bill " of a law case before the Queen 's Bench court at Westminster dated Michaelmas Term 1588 and 9 October 1589 . Scholars refer to the years between 1585 and 1592 as Shakespeare 's " lost years " . Biographers attempting to account for this period have reported many apocryphal stories . Nicholas Rowe , Shakespeare 's first biographer , recounted a Stratford legend that Shakespeare fled the town for London to escape prosecution for deer poaching in the estate of local squire Thomas Lucy . Shakespeare is also supposed to have taken his revenge on Lucy by writing a scurrilous ballad about him . Another 18th @-@ century story has Shakespeare starting his theatrical career minding the horses of theatre patrons in London . John Aubrey reported that Shakespeare had been a country schoolmaster . Some 20th @-@ century scholars have suggested that Shakespeare may have been employed as a schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton of Lancashire , a Catholic landowner who named a certain " William Shakeshafte " in his will . Little evidence substantiates such stories other than hearsay collected after his death , and Shakeshafte was a common name in the Lancashire area . 

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 After an inauspicious start as an actor , Cibber eventually became a popular comedian , wrote and adapted many plays , and rose to become one of the newly empowered businessmen @-@ managers . He took over the management of Drury Lane in 1710 and took a highly commercial , if not artistically successful , line in the job . In 1730 , he was made Poet Laureate , an appointment which attracted widespread scorn , particularly from Alexander Pope and other Tory satirists . Off @-@ stage , he was a keen gambler , and was one of the investors in the South Sea Company . 

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 It is not known definitively when Shakespeare began writing , but contemporary allusions and records of performances show that several of his plays were on the London stage by 1592 . By then , he was sufficiently known in London to be attacked in print by the playwright Robert Greene in his Groats @-@ Worth of Wit : 

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 The actors in Shakespeare 's company included the famous Richard Burbage , William Kempe , Henry Condell and John Heminges . Burbage played the leading role in the first performances of many of Shakespeare 's plays , including Richard III , Hamlet , Othello , and King Lear . The popular comic actor Will Kempe played the servant Peter in Romeo and Juliet and Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing , among other characters . He was replaced around 1600 by Robert Armin , who played roles such as Touchstone in As You Like It and the fool in King Lear . In 1613 , Sir Henry Wotton recorded that Henry VIII " was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and ceremony " . On 29 June , however , a cannon set fire to the thatch of the Globe and burned the theatre to the ground , an event which pinpoints the date of a Shakespeare play with rare precision . 
