Hey Cousin Dale!
Hey there little fella.
How are you?
I am good Cousin Dale.
I just got out of school and today was super
cool.
Well, I am glad to see you enjoyed hanging
out at school.
What did you learn today?
Today we learned about William Shakespeare.
William Shakespeare.
I think I know him.
He played that piano right?
No Cousin Dale.
William Shakespeare was a famous actor and
poet and also wrote plays.
Oh you mean he was like that Tyler Perry fella.
I loves me some Madea.
Something like that Cousin Dale, but William
Shakespeare rocked the stage a long time ago.
He was born in the 1500’s in 1564.
Well what was his birthday?
Well we don’t know his exact birth, but
we do know that he was baptized as a baby
on April 26, 1564, so it is said he was born
before that.
Well that is neat.
Yeah one thing I thought was interesting was
when plays were done back then the women were
not allowed to be in them.
That doesn’t make any sense.
So did all the plays not have women roles
in them?
No Cousin Dale.
What they did was for parts in the plays that
were written for women they would have either
boys or young men dress up and play the part.
Now that is interesting Frankie.
Tell me some more.
Well when it comes to writing plays William
Shakespeare’s plays have been performed
more than any other playwright in history.
Playwright, what is a playwright?
Come on Cousin Dale.
A playwright is someone who writes plays.
Okay I get it.
Another crazy thing about how we spell his
name today is not how he actually wrote it
himself.
There are some documents from when he was
alive that showed he did not spell his name
how we spell it today.
Well I’ll be.
I did not knows that.
I also learned today that William Shakespeare
was responsible for writing some of the greatest
plays in history like Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth,
Othello and more.
So how long did he live?
William Shakespeare lived to be 52 and died
on April 23, 1616.
Another crazy thing about Shakespeare is on
his tombstone it is written, “Blessed be
the man that spares these stones, / And cursed
be he that moves my bones.”
Well why would they do something like that?
Because they were afraid grave robbers would
steal his body and this was a way to scare
them off.
Shucks.
Little Fella your teacher sure did teach you
some good stuff on William Shakespeare for
kids.
Keep getting that there education, ya hear!
I will Cousin Dale.
I’ll see you later!
