Verily, here lieth the Completely Idiotic Guide to Shakespeare

You might as well face it: Sooner or later, you’re going to have to know something about Shakespeare.

Maybe it’s just a question on Jeopardy! Or maybe you’ll find yourself unable to avoid attending one of his plays. Either way, it would be helpful to know a thing or two about Bill Shakespeare, known to his friends as The Great Bard-Upon-Avon.

William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564, and died on April 23, 1616. The coincidence of being born and dying on the same day of the month is what’s known among English majors as “dramatic irony.”

Popular songs at the time of Shakespeare’s birth include Let’s Get Bent at the Council of Trent and Fetch the Jester, it’s the Earl of Leicester.

Times were tough in England in the 1600s. It would be more than 240 years before Charles Dickens would write the comedy Bleak House, and the people were restless and disappointed with having nothing to read until then. To fill the time, they attended the theatre.

Shakespeare’s theatre, The Globe, featured an open courtyard and three levels of covered seating. Audience members with the least amount of money stood in front of the stage. This contrasts with today at concerts where audience members with the most amount of money stand in front of the stage. In Shakespeare’s age, the so-called “groundlings” were often unruly, shouting out “Othello, Othello, wherefore art thou Othello?” and other witty corruptions of Shakespeare’s lines.

The exact order of Shakespeare’s plays is the subject of much conjecture among scholars who have no lives. But it’s safe to say that Henry VI, Part I, II and II were his earliest efforts. These so-called “history” plays are believed to be about conflict in English-held territory in France, although no one has actually read the plays to verify that theory. Indeed, many experts have simply died on the spot trying to get through a plot summary.

Shakespeare wrote a handful of history plays before anyone could stop him. Eventually, he also wrote good plays like Midsummer Night’s Dream, set at night during the middle of summer, and Merchant of Venice, set in Venice and involving a merchant of some sort.

In Elizabethan times, women weren’t allowed to be actors. This contrasts with today when women would like to be actors but can’t because there aren’t any roles for them. In place of women, acting companies like Shakespeare’s Lord Chamberlain’s Men used boys for female parts, adding much needed comic relief to characters such as Ophelia in Hamlet, who drowns herself because there are only two women in the entire play.

Shakespeare’s artistry stems from his unparalleled use of metaphor. In Macbeth, he vividly describes futility of life, comparing it to “a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.” Psychically, it’s believed, he was anticipating Vin Diesel’s career.

Shakespeare wrote primarily in blank verse using iambic pentameter. “Penta” comes from the word “five” and “meter” comes from the word “meter.” Therefore, there are usually five things going on at once in each line of Shakespeare. Blank verse, of course, refers to the painful silence in the theatre when actors forget their lines.

The language of theatre is rich and colourful. An actor is said to “tread the boards,” the boards being the stage floor where many directors force their actors to lie down so that no one behind the first row can see them. In some plays, there are trap doors. As a device, the famous gravedigger scene in Hamlet often employs a trap door, or “Yorick.”

Shakespeare’s wife was Anne Hathaway, who is not believed to be the same person as Anne Hathaway who starred in The Princess Diaries. When he died, Shakespeare bequeathed his “second best bed” to his wife. As The Bard himself said in Love Labour’s Lost, “Where there’s Will’s will, there’s a way.”

And that’s all. There are no other known facts regarding William Shakespeare or any of his plays, so it’s a good thing you came to me first. Now away, you starvelling, you elf-skin, or I shall be forced to quote extensively from Titus Andronicus.