Most quoted writer in English-speaking and world history,
according to Oxford English Dictionary survey.
Sometimes referred to as the "Bard of Avon"
(or simply "The Bard")
Words on gravestone: "Good friend, for Jesus' sake
forbear / To dig the dust enclosed here / Blest be the
man that spares these stones, / And curst be he that moves
my bones."
Patron Henry Wriothesley, 4th Earl of Southampton, believed
by many to be the male subject of Shakespeare's love sonnets.
Ben Jonson, contemporary dramatist, dismissed Shakespeare's
style and learning as, 'small Latin and less Greek'