This book is reflections of professor of department of history of foreign literature of МГУ А.Н. Горбунова about work of William Shakespeare, his predecessors and junior contemporaries. Here researches entered about the English theatre of mysteries that was yet put in the days of youth of Shakespeare, about the "Canterbury stories" Джеффри Чосера, to the most famous tragedy of Christopher Марло "Doctor Faust", and also about works Shakespeare - his sonnets, comedies "Empty troubles of love" and "Venetian merchant", and also about tragedies "King of Lyres", "Макбет" and late tragicomedy "Boring". A division completes a book about dramaturgy of junior contemporaries, writing plays up to closing of theatres in 1642. An author aimed to give the own estimation of the taken apart works.