Although Shakespeare is widely regarded as one of the finest playwrights and poets that the world has ever known, his world can seem very foreign to modern readers the first time they encounter his works.  This webquest was designed to help you get a better idea of what life was like in Elizabethan England, and who Shakespeare and his audiences really were.

 

William Shakespeare was born in approximately 1564 in Stratford-Upon-Avon in England.  He lived and wrote most of his plays between the years of 1592-1613 during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.  Elizabeth's reign was a renaissance, or time of cultural growth in England, and there was a tremendous outpouring of creative and artistic achievement.  People were learning, social classes were becoming less rigid, and aside from the threat of deadly diseases like the plague, it was an exciting time to be English. 

 

What would it have been like to live in Shakespeare’s day? How would life have been different?  Who would you have been?  What would you have done for a living?  Let's step back in time to Shakespeare's England and see if we can find the answers to these questions.