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William Shakespeare (baptized April 26, 1564, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England — died April 23, 1616, Stratford-upon-Avon) was an English poet, dramatist, and actor often called the English national poet and considered by many to be the greatest dramatist of all time.
Stratford enjoyed a grammar school of good quality, and the education there was free, the schoolmaster’s salary being paid by the borough. No lists of the pupils who were at the school in the 16th century have survived, but it would be absurd to suppose the bailiff of the town did not send his son there. The boy’s education would consist mostly of Latin studies — learning to read, write, and speak the language fairly well and studying some of the Classical historians, moralists, and poets. Shakespeare did not go on to the university, and indeed it is unlikely that the scholarly round of logic, rhetoric, and other studies then followed there would have interested him.
Terence John Bew Spencer, John Russell Brown, and David Bevington.
William Shakespeare. Encyclopedia Britannica (adapted).