Unit 2 Activity 1 Work in pairs. Read the passage and decide what William Shakespear…

The life of William Shakespeare

威廉o莎士比亚的一生

William Shakespeare was a famous English writer of plays and poems．He wrote about thirty-eight plays，154 short poems and a few long poems in his life．Two of his famous plays are Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet．

威廉o莎士比亚是英国著名的剧作家和诗人。他一生中写了大约38部戏剧、154首短诗和几首长诗。他的两部著名剧作是《哈姆雷特》和《罗密欧与朱丽叶》。

Shakespeare was born in 1564 in Stratford，England．Like many people 400，years ago，Shakespeare's parents didn't learn to read or write． At school he liked plays，so he decided to be an actor when he finished school at fourteen．He married in 1582 and had three children.

莎士比亚1564年出生于荚格兰的斯特拉特福，像400年前的许多人一样，莎士比亚的父母不识字。在学校他喜欢戏剧，所以14岁毕业的时候，他决定当一名演员。他1582年结婚,有三个孩子。

Shakespeare went to London and joined a theatre company in about 1592．He became a successful actor and began to write plays. Queen Elizabeth I enjoyed his work very much.

大约在1592年，莎士比亚去了伦敦，并加入了一个戏剧公司。他成为了一名成功的演员，并开始写戏剧。女王伊丽莎白一世很喜欢他的作品。

In 1599 the company built the Globe Theatre on the River Thames in London．You can visit the theatre today，but it isn't the same building．There was a fire in the old theatre．They built it again in 1614 and In the 1990s．

1599年，那家公司在伦敦泰晤士河畔建起了环球剧院。现在你可以参观这个剧院。不过那已不是当年的建筑了。老剧院发生过一场火灾。人们在1614年和20世纪90年代对它进行了重建。

William Shakespeare died at the age of fifty-two．He was rich and successful．You can still see his plays in English and in many other languages，He's famous around the world.

威廉o莎土比亚在52岁时去世，当时他很富有且成功。你现在依然能看到他的戏剧以英语和其他许多语言在演出。他举世闻名。