William Shakespeare, still a star! 

Elementary / preliminary level English 

 

Shakespeare died over 400 years ago, but he's still popular today.

William Shakespeare is the most famous writer in the English language. He was born over 450 years ago,  in 1564, in Stratford-upon-Avon, a town in the middle of England. Yet today his name is known all over the world!

Shakespeare wrote plays, poems, and stories. He wrote about love, war, family, and friendship. Among his most famous plays are Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He also wrote poems called sonnets, mostly about love.

Shakespeare worked in London as a writer and actor. He was part of a theatre group called the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. They acted in a big theatre beside the river Thames, called the Globe. The Globe was very popular, and lots of people came to watch his plays,  rich and poor, young and old. Even the Queen of England loved watching his plays.

He was a very clever man, who knew a lot about English history, and about European culture and European literature.  He wrote tragedies, comedies, and historical plays; he even gave more than 1,700 new words to the English language, words like “lonely,” “hurry,” and “bedroom.” His characters are not just people, they are humans! They have feelings. They are are happy, sad, angry, or afraid, just like real people.

Today, people all over the world still read and watch Shakespeare's plays, and students study them. His works have been translated into more than 100 different languages. Books, films, and songs still use his stories. This is partly because he wrote about things that do not change –  love, sadness, fear or hope. We feel these today, just as people did in Shakespeare's time.

Although he died in 1616,  William Shakespeare is still seen as one of the greatest writers of all time.

Romeo and Juliet

One of Shakespeare’s most popular works is his play Romeo and Juliet. It's a story about two young people from families who hate each other. Romeo and Juliet fall in love, but their families do not allow them to be together. The story ends in sadness, but it also shows the power of love. People say Shakespeare got the idea from an old story from Italy, but he made it much more emotional and powerful. Even today, people around the world know the names Romeo and Juliet. Their story is used in films, music, and art, and it still touches people’s hearts.

Difficult words:
middle: centre - plays: drama, writings for the theatre - war: fighting, conflict -  poems: poetry, verse -  actor: person who plays in a theatre or a film -  tragedy: something very sad - hurry: go faster - feelings:  emotions, sentiments - afraid: frightened - fear: being afraid - works: stories, things that have been written -  hate: detest, not like - heart: ❤ .





Copyright notice.
This resource is © copyright Linguapress
This text may not be reproduced on other websites nor in printed form without written permission from the publishers. Reproduction is authorised exclusively for personal use by students, or for use by teachers with their classes.

---

 

Student worksheet

Spelling.
Put the missing endings back onto the words in this extract from the article.


Opposites
This article uses several pairs of words with opposite meanings. Find the opposites of the following words.

About Linguapress.  Founded as a print media publisher in 1980, Linguapress is today dedicated to providing free high-quality EFL / ESL resources online for all, anywhere in the world. You are free to use our online resources, within the limits of our copyright policy (basically, don't copy our resources onto any other publicly-accessible platform or website). To help keep these resources free for anyone to use, you can support linguapress.com by sharing with  friends and colleagues, or liking us on social media, or buying our acclaimed books for yourself or your school.

Teachers.  
Spelling : Pay particular attention to  four different ways of spelling the word ending pronounced [ə] used in the exercise. In American English, most British English words that end in -re, such as theatre, end in -er.

Talking: You may like to talk about Shakespeare with your students, either in English or in their own language.


© linguapress.com