Apr. 26: William Shakespeare, English playwright and poet

BAPTIZED APRIL 26:

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) pre-eminent English playwright and poet. He was baptized on this day, and may have been born three days earlier, according to some calculations. Modern scholarship suggests that, including collaborations, he is responsible for all or part of 39 plays, in addition to his 154 sonnets, four narrative poems, and a few other verses. Outstanding among his plays (there are so many!) are The Tempest; Hamlet; King Lear; Macbeth; Othello; Romeo and Juliet; A Midsummer Night's Dream; and more. The long poems are Venus and Adonis; The Rape of Lucrece; A Lover's Complaint; and--I'm not kidding--The Phoenix and the Turtle. Several of the Sonnets stand out, notably

• #18 "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"
• #29 "When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes"
• #116 "Let me not to the marriage of true minds" and 
• #130 "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun"

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