Warm up!

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Warm up!

• Write down 3 facts you know about Shakespeare on
  a separate sheet of paper. DO NOT USE YOUR NOTES!

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• Things we know about Shakespeare
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vy6FW_JzmU_Mfeature
  related

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Shakespeare His Life and Times
Adapted from http//www.public.asu.edu/muckerrm/E
nglish_321_S2005/Introduction.ppt
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Early Life

• Born April 23, 1564died 1616
• In Stratford-upon-Avon
• Parents John and Mary Arden Shakespeare
• Marydaughter of wealthy landowner
• Johnglovemaker, local politician

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Location of Stratford-upon-Avon
From http//www.where-can-i-find.com/tourist-maps
.html
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Shakespeares Birthplace
From http//perso.wanadoo.fr/danielle.esposito/
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Education

• Probably attended Kings New School in Stratford
• (Little known about his childhood)

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Kings New School
From http//perso.wanadoo.fr/danielle.esposito/
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Married Life

• Married in 1582 to Anne Hathaway (26), who was
  pregnant at the time with their first daughter
  (Susanna)
• He was 18!
• Had twins in 1585 (Hamnet Judith)
• Sometime between 1585-1592, he moved to London
  and began working in theatre.

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Not this one
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Anne Hathaways Cottage
From http//perso.wanadoo.fr/danielle.esposito/
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Conditions in London-BAD!

• Thames River polluted with raw sewage
• Trees used up for fuel
• Poverty

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Personal Hygiene/Disease

• Bathing considered dangerous
• Body odor strong
• Childhood diseases
• Children often died before 5 years
• Small Pox
• Bubonic Plague

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Living Conditions

• No running water
• Chamber Pots
• Open Sewers
• Crowded

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Clothes

• One set used all year long, rarely washed
• Underclothing slept in, infrequently changed

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Theater Career

• Performed in courtyards of inns
• The Theater-first public theater-1576
• Daytime/open air
• Limited set design
• Relied on music, sound, costumes, props and great
  description

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Theatre

• Member and later part-owner of the Lord
  Chamberlains Men, later called the Kings Men
• Globe Theater built in 1599 by L.C.M. with
  Shakespeare as primary investor
• was three-stories high and had no roof.\
• could together hold more than 1,500 people.
• In 1613, during a performance of Henry VIII, a
  misfired canon ball set the Globe's thatched roof
  on fire and the whole theatre was consumed.

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The Globe Theater
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The Rebuilt Globe Theater, London
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The Globe Theater
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Actors

• All men
• Female parts played by young boys
• No actual kissing or hugging on stage

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Groundlings

• Poor audience member
• Stood around stage in the pit
• Threw rotten vegetables at bad performances

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The cost of attending a show

• 1 shilling to stand
• 2 shillings to sit in the balcony

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The Plays

• 38 plays firmly attributed to Shakespeare
• comedies
• histories
• Tragedies
• romances
• Collaborated on several others

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The Poetry

• Numerous poems
• 154 Sonnets

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Shakespeares death

• The cause of Shakespeare's death is a mystery,
  but an entry in the diary of John Ward, the vicar
  of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford (where
  Shakespeare is buried), tells us that
  "Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry
  meeting and it seems drank too hard, for
  Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted."
• He was 52.
• He is buried at Holy Trinity Church in his
  birthplace of Stratford.

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Shakespeares epitaph

• An epitaph is an inscription on or at a tomb or
  a grave in memory of the one buried there.
• Shakespeare also wrote his own epitaph because
  during his time, when the graveyard was full,
  people would dig up someone's corpse and burn it
  so that another could be buried in that person's
  place. This disgusted Shakespeare, and he didn't
  want this type of disrespect after his death. His
  epitaph reads as follows
• Good Friends, for Jesus' sake forbear,To dig the
  bones enclosed here!Blest be the man that spares
  these stones,And curst be he that moves my
  bones."

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Journal2Use 5 of the following phrases to
create a story.

• - one fell swoop
• flesh and blood
• vanish into thin air
• pomp and circumstance
• seen better days
• a sorry sight
• neither rhyme nor reason
• full circle
• dead as a doornail
• for goodness sake
• green-eyed monster

• Not a mouse was stirring
• In a pickle
• Not slept one wink
• Too much of a good thing
• Foul play

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Theatrical Conventions of Shakespeare's Theatre

• Use of disguises/
• mistaken identity

• Last speakerhighest in
• rank (in tragedies)

• Multiple murders
• (in tragedies)

• Multiple marriages
• (in comedies)

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What is the English that Shakespeare used?? It
makes no sense
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Shakespeares Language

• Shakespeare did NOT write in Old English.
• Old English is the language of Beowulf
• Hwaet! We Gardena in geardagum
• Þeodcyninga Þrym gefrunon
• Hu ða æÞelingas ellen fremedon!
• (Hey! We have heard of the glory of the
  Spear-Danes in the old days, the kings of tribes,
  how noble princes showed great courage!)

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Shakespeares Language

• Shakespeare did not write in Middle English.
• Middle English is the language of Chaucer, the
• author of The Canterbury Tales
• Whan that Aprill, with his shoures sooteThe
  droghte of March hath perced to the rooteAnd
  bathed every veyne in swich licour,Of which
  vertu engendred is the flour

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The General Prologue

• Original Middle English
• Whan that Aprill, with his shoures sooteThe
  droghte of March hath perced to the rooteAnd
  bathed every veyne in swich licour,Of which
  vertu engendred is the flour

• Modern Translation
• When fair April with his showers sweet,Has
  pierced the drought of March to the root's
  feetAnd bathed each vein in liquid of such
  power,Its strength creates the newly springing
  flower

http//www.breme.demon.co.uk/chaucer.htm
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Shakespeares Language

• Shakespeare wrote in Early Modern
  English.
• EME was not very different from Modern
  English, except that it had some old holdovers.
• The Shakespeare Glossary
• http//www.bardweb.net/grammar/04gloss.html

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• OmissionsAgain, for the sake of his poetry,
  Shakespeare often left out letters, syllables,
  and whole words.  These omissions really aren't
  that much different from the way we speak today. 
  We say
• "Been to class yet?""No.  Heard Miss Ts givin'
  a test.""Wha'sup wi'that?
• We leave out words and parts of words to speed
  up our speech.  If we were speaking in complete
  sentences, we would say
• "Have you been to class yet?""No, I have not
  been to class.  I heard that Ms. Torresani is
  giving a test today.""What is up with that?"

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• A few examples of Shakespearean
  omissions/contractions follow
• 'tis it is ope open o'er over gi'
  give ne'er never
• i' in e'er ever oft often e'en even

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• Shakespeares Poetry
• We speak in prose (language without metrical
  structure). 
• Shakespeare wrote both prose and poetry (verse). 
• To understand his poetry , we need to understand
  these terms
• Blank Verse  unrhymed iambic pentameter.
• Iambic Pentameter  five beats of alternating
  unstressed and stressed syllables ten syllables
  per line.

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Shakespeares Language

• Shakespeare coined many words we still use
  today
• Critical
• Majestic
• Dwindle
• Fashionable
• Embrace (as a noun)
• Vulnerable

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Shakespeares Language

• one fell swoop
• flesh and blood
• vanish into thin air
• pomp and circumstance
• seen better days
• a sorry sight
• neither rhyme nor reason
• full circle
• dead as a doornail
• for goodness sake
• green-eyed monster

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Shakespeares Language

• A mix of old and very new
• Rural and urban words/images
• Understandable by the lowest peasant and the
  highest noble

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Elizabethan Theatrical Conventions
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Theatrical Conventions of Shakespeare's Theatre

• A theatrical convention is a
• suspension of reality.
• No electricity
• Women forbidden
• to act on stage
• Minimal, contemporary
• costumes
• Minimal scenery

These control the dialogue. Good dialogue is key!
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Theatrical Conventions of Shakespeare's Theatre
Types of speech

• Soliloquy- an extended speech, directed to the
  audience rather than to other characters, in
  which the speaker explores their thoughts and
  feelings.
• Aside- Words an actor speaks to the audience
  which other actors on the stage cannot hear.
  Sometimes the actor cups his mouth toward the
  audience or turns away from the other actors. An
  aside serves to reveal a character's thoughts or
  concerns to the audience without revealing them
  to other characters in a play.

Audience loves to be scared.

• Blood and gore
• Use of supernatural

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Reading Shakespeare A Review

• Unlocking Shakespeare's Language, by Randal
  Robinson
• Unusual Word Arrangements
• I ate the sandwich. I the sandwich ate. Ate
  the sandwich I. Ate I the sandwich. The
  sandwich I ate. The sandwich ate I.
• Robinson shows us that these four words can
  create six unique sentences which carry the same
  meaning.  Locate the subject, verb, and the
  object of the sentence.  Notice that the object
  of the sentence is often placed at the beginning
  (the sandwich) in front of the verb (ate) and
  subject (I).  Rearrange the words in the order
  that makes the most sense to you (I ate the
  sandwich).