William Shakespeare is widely considered the most influential playwright writing in the English language, with his works still being studied and performed centuries after his death. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

Despite his fame then and now, there are plenty of things which we don't know of his life and eventual death in 1616. A month before he died, for instance, he wrote a will in which he claimed he was "in perfect health & memorie, god be praysed". We do not know the cause of his death, though 50 years after his death a vicar in Stratford wrote that “Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting, and it seems drank too hard; for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted.”

Though plausible, the

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