"Who was Shakespeare?" 

1) Shakespeare was borne in the year 1564 and died the year 1616. Shakespeare was the son of a merchant. William Shakespeare achieved some success as an actor, poet, and a play-write. His 38 plays he wrote or collaborated have firmly established his reputation as the greatest dramatist who every lived.
(  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/merchant/shakespeare.html  ) I used Duckduckgo.com as my search engine.

Coming into high school I heard about how Shakespeare wrote the infamous Romeo and Juliet. This was the most well known play to me that was by W. Shakespeare. I felt a bit intimidated to read work written by W. Shakespeare. But, now I enjoy reading his work and I find it rather interesting and quiet different. Since Shakespeare was soooo back then in the 1500's and early 1600's, It is kind of mysterious to find out personal information, like exact dates of events he had in his life. I  am pretty many other students feel lost when reading his literature. I am one of them. But as we have broken it down and using other resources to help gives us the better understanding I am gradually learning to understand Shakespeare language. Once you read in between the lines then you can find some things to be quiet humorous. But the name alone is, like I said before intimidating...
His work over the years was split up into four different parts,
1-  Medieval Tragedies (1589-95)
2- "Joyous" Comedies (1595-1600)
3-  Great Tragedies (1600-08)
               - Included  Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth
4-  Romantic Tragedies (1608-1613)
              - Included The Tempest

I understand how Shakespeare's writing expressed a profound understanding of the nature of humanity. Some of the language he uses still confuses me at times and it can get tricky. Since his writing was written in the 1500's, he exclaims about some things that were used back then or relates to things of the time period.