William Shakespeare

1
William Shakespeare
1564-1616 Stratford-on-Avon - England
2
Who was he?

• Widely regarded as the greatest writer in English
  Literature
• Poet and dramatist
• Wrote 37 plays comedies, histories, tragedies
• Composed about 154 sonnets and a few poems
• Started out as an actor

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Life (pg. 6-9)

• Born around April 23, 1564 3rd of 8 children
  Family lived in Stratford-on-Avon, a market town
  about 100 miles NW of London
• Father (John) a shopkeeper. A man of considerable
  standing in Stratford. Served as Justice of the
  Peace and High Bailiff (mayor)
• Attended grammar school, where he studied Latin,
  grammar and literature, Rhetoric (the use of
  language). No further formal education known
• Marriage to Anne Hathaway, 8 years older than
  he, 3 children Susanna (1583), Judith and
  Hamnet (twins, 1585)

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Stratford-upon-Avon (pg. 6-9)
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Later life

• 1594 - became shareholder in a company of actors
  called Lord Chamberlains Men
• 1599 - Lord Chamberlains Co. Built Globe
  Theater where most of S. Plays were performed
• 1599 - Actor for Lord Chamberlains Men and
  principal playwright for them
• 1603 James I became king of England acting
  company renamed Kings Men
• 1610 Shakespeare retired to Stratford-on-Avon
  April 2
• 1616 died at the age of 52

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Works
Editions of works First Quarto (1603), Second
Quarto (1604), Folio (1623)
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Comedy (pg. 46-47)

• A Midsummer Night's Dream
• All's Well That Ends Well
• As You Like It
• Cymbeline
• Loves Labours Lost
• Measure for Measure
• Much Ado About Nothing
• Pericles, Prince of Tyre
• The Comedy of Errors

• The Merchant of Venice
• The Merry Wives of Windsor
• The Taming of the Shrew
• The Tempest
• Troilus and Cressida
• Twelfth Night
• Two Gentlemen of Verona
• Winter's Tale

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Tragedy (pg. 50-51)

• Antony and Cleopatra
• Coriolanus
• Hamlet
• Julius Caesar
• King Lear

• Macbeth
• Othello
• Romeo and Juliet
• Timon of Athens
• Titus Andronicus

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History

• Henry IV, part 1
• Henry IV, part 2
• Henry V
• Henry VI, part 1
• Henry VI, part 2

• Henry VI, part 3
• Henry VIII
• King John
• Richard II
• Richard III

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Poetry

• A Lover's Complaint
• Sonnets (about 154)
• The Passionate Pilgrim
• The Phoenix and the turtle
• The Rape of Lucrece
• Venus and Adonis

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Why is he still so famous?

• His plays portray recognizable people in
  situations we experience in our lives love,
  marriage, death, mourning, guilt, the need to
  make difficult choices, separation, reunion and
  reconciliation
• They do so with great humanity, tolerance, and
  wisdom
• The plays are constantly fresh and can be adapted
  to the place and time they are performed
• Their language is wonderfully expressive and
  powerful
• The plays help us to understand what it is to be
  human, and see the tragic or humorous
  consequences when Shakespeares characters
  encounter these problems.

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Language

• Used over 20,000 words in his works
• The average writer uses 7,500
• The English Dictionary of his time only had 500
  words.
• Hes credited with creating 3,000 words in the
  English Oxford Dictionary
• He was by far the most important individual
  influence on the development of the modern
  English
• He invented lots of words that we use in our
  daily speech

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Words invented by the Bard

• accommodation
• amazement
• assassination
• baseless
• bloody
• bump
• castigate
• changeful
• control (noun)
• countless
• courtship
• critic

• eventful
• exposure
• frugal
• generous
• gloomy
• hurry
• impartial
• indistinguishable
• invulnerable
• laughable
• lonely
• majestic

misplaced monumental obscene pious
premeditated radiance reliance road sportive
submerge suspicious
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Elements of drama

• 5-part dramatic structure corresponds to a plays
• 5 acts
• Exposition (introduction)
• Establishes tone, setting, main characters, main
  conflict
• Fills in events previous to play
• Rising action
• Series of complications for the protagonist (main
  character)
• flowing from the main conflict

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Elements of drama

• Crisis or Climax
• Turning point in story
• Moment of choice for protagonist
• Forces of conflict come together
• Falling action
• Results of protagonists decision
• Maintains suspense
• Resolution or Denouement
• Conclusion of play
• Unraveling of plot
• May include characters deaths

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Dramatic technique

• Pun play on words involving
• Word with more than one meaning
• Words with similar sounds
• Soliloquy
• Speech of moderate to long length
• Spoken by one actor alone on stage (or not heard
  by other actors)
• Aside
• Direct address by actor to audience
• Not supposed to be overheard by other characters

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Typical 16th century theatre (pg. 34-35)

• Building
• 3 stories Levels 1 2,
• Backstage dressing and storage areas Level 3,
  Upper Stage could represent balcony, walls of a
  castle, bridge of a ship
• Resembled courtyard of an inn

The Globe Theatre
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Elizabethan Theatre
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The Globe Theatre
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• Proscenium stage
• A large platform without a curtain or a stage
  setting
• 2 ornate pillars supported canopy
• Stage roof (underpart of canopy)
• called the heavens
• elaborately painted to depict the sun, moon,
  stars, planets

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• Trap doors entrances and exits of ghosts area
  under stage called Hell
• 2 large doors at back actors made entrances and
  exits in full view of audience
• Inner stage a recess with balcony area above
• Floor ash mixed with hazelnut shells from snacks
  audience ate during performance
• Effect on performance plays held in afternoon
• No roof
• No artificial lighting
• No scenery

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Acting companies (pg. 42-43)

• Developed from the medieval trade guilds
• Were composed of
• Only boys and men
• Young boys performed female roles

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Audience (pg.44-45)

• 2000-3000 people from all walks of life
• Well-to-do spectators sat in covered galleries
  around stage
• Most stood in yard around platform stage
  groundlings

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Sonnet 18

• Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou
  art more lovely and more temperateRough winds
  do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's
  lease hath all too short a dateSometime too hot
  the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold
  complexion dimm'd And every fair from fair
  sometime declines, By chance, or nature's
  changing course un-trimm'dBut thy eternal
  summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of
  that fair thou ow'st, Nor shall death brag thou
  wander'st in his shade,When in eternal lines to
  time thou grow'st So long as men can breathe,
  or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this
  gives life to thee