Shakespeares World

1
Shakespeares World

• English II
• DCHS
• Mr. Meyer

2
Shakespeares England

• Lived in England during Renaissance
• Renaissance a blossoming of European learning
  following the Middle Ages
• Middle Ages focused on God and afterlife
• Renaissance focused on individual human
  achievement and life here on earth
• Science, Geography, Commerce, Philosophy, the
  Arts
• By 1564 (the year Shakespeare was born), England
  embraced the spirit of the Renaissance

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Shakespeares England

• 1558-1603 The Elizabethan Age
• Queen Elizabeth I was the queen of England
• Elizabeth was a supporter of the arts
  literature, painting , sculpture, music, theater.
• Brought stability and prosperity to England
• London a great commercial center
• Englands capital
• Hub of overseas empire
• Hub for the arts
• More theaters than any other European city

4
Shakespeares Theater

• 1590s Shakespeare was associated with Lord
  Chamberlains Men
• Man and son who were patrons to the theater
• Shakespeare was shareholder in this acting
  company
• Wrote and, in the beginning, performed in its
  plays
• 1599 Shakespeare and other shareholders became
  owners of the Globe Theatre
• 1603 Elizabeth I dies King James I ascends
  throne
• Becomes Shakespeares new patron
• Lord Chamberlains Men become The Kings Men

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Shakespeares Theater

• The Globe Theatre
• Located on banks of River Thames in central
  London
• Three stories
• Three thousand seat capacity
• Open-air courtyard
• Platform stage

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Shakespeares Theater

• Groundling stood in pit
• Pricier seat in galleries
• Take a tour of the new Globe Theater
• Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

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Shakespeares Theater

• Shakespeares plays offered something for
  everyone
• Powerful speeches
• Fancy sword fights
• Humor
• Eerie supernatural events
• Insightful observations about human nature

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Shakespeares Theater

• Shakespeare was both artist and businessman
• As playwright, he was interested in exploring the
  human condition
• As businessman, he had to sell tickets
• Plays had to have enough action and excitement to
  keep everyone interested

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Shakespeares Theater

• Seeing a performance
• No artificial lighting
• No scenery
• Ornate costumes
• Props employed swords, banners, shields
• Sound effects

10
Shakespeares Legacy

• Some of the most familiar lines in the English
  language come from Shakespeare

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Shakespeares Legacy

• Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!
  (Julius Caesar)

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Shakespeares Legacy

• O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
  (Romeo and Juliet)

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Shakespeares Legacy

• To be, or not to be. That is the question.
  (Hamlet)

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Shakespeares Legacy

• Why do we still read Shakespeares works 400
  years later?
• He knew what he was doing
• How to move an audience
• How to create an exciting scene
• How to sketch out a setting using only the spoken
  word

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Shakespeares Legacy

• Why do we still read Shakespeares works 400
  years later?
• Shakespeares language
• Beautiful lines and phrases
• No other writer has developed the potential of
  the English language like he
• Shakespeares understanding of the human
  condition
• We still relate to his characters
• To understand his plays is to understand what is
  most important about human beings and life

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Shakespearian Drama

• Tragedy a play that traces the main characters
  downfall
• Comedy a play that ends happily and that
  usually contains humorous elements
• History a play that chronicles the life of an
  English monarch.
• All three share the following
• Written in blank verse
• Contain soliloquies, asides, rhetorical devices,
  and dramatic irony

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Shakespearian Drama

• Tragedy A work in which a series of actions
  leads to the downfall of the main character, or
  tragic hero.
• Qualities of the tragic hero
• Possess importance or high rank
• Exhibits extraordinary talents
• Displays a tragic flaw an error in judgment or
  defect in character that leads to downfall
• Faces downfall with courage and dignity

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Shakespearian Drama

• All of Shakespeares plays are verse dramas
  plays in which the dialogue consists almost
  entirely of poetry.
• Shakespeare wrote these verse dramas37 of them
  totalin blank verse unrhymed iambic
  pentameter.
• Iambic pentameter is a pattern of rhythm (meter)
  of five stressed and five unstressed syllables

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Iambic Pentameter

• Let me have men about me that are fat,
• Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o nights.
• Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look
• He thinks too much, such men are dangerous.
• (I. ii. Lines 192-195)

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Shakespearian Drama

• Even though plays are an attempt to recreate real
  life, there are some devices used that arent all
  that real
• A Soliloquy is a long speech given by a character
  alone on stage to reveal his or her private
  thoughts.
• An Aside is a quiet remark to the audience or
  another character that no one else on stage is
  supposed to hear.

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Shakespearian Drama

• Rhetorical Devices are used to make speech appeal
  to a persons emotions and to make speech more
  convincing and memorable
• Repetition the repeated use of words and sounds
• Parallelism repeated grammatical stuctures
  (pharses, clauses, compound parts)
• Rhetorical Questions questions that need no
  answer.

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Shakespearian Drama

• Irony is a contrast between appearance and
  reality. Dramatic Irony is a contrast between
  what the audience knows and what the characters
  know. We the audience have a better
  understanding of the action than do the
  characters in the play.

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Background to Julius Caesar

• Julius Caesar
• Grew up in a powerful political family
• Father was governor of Asia Minor
• Caius Marius, an earlier leader of Rome, was his
  uncle

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Background to Julius Caesar

• Became successful political figure
• Elected aedile (responsible for entertainment of
  Roman citizens)
• This made him popular with the common man
• Used illegal and dishonest means to rise to power
• Elected to the highest office in the Roman
  Republic.

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Background to Julius Caesar

• Formed the Triumvirate
• Caesar, Crassius, Pompey
• Wars strengthened Caesars power
• Crassius dies
• Senate asks Pompey and Caesar to resign
• Caesar refuses leads rebellion becomes
  Dictator of Rome

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Background to Julius Caesar

• Became too powerful
• Sixty senators conspired to kill Caesar
• Conspiracy led by Marcus Junius Brutus and Caius
  Cassius
• March 15, 44BC Caesar enters the senate, sits
  at his throne, and is stabbed 23 times

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Julius Caesar

• Play adapted from Plutarchs Lives of the Noble
  Greeks and Romans, written in the first century
  a.d. Plutarch
• Probably first performed in 1599
• First published in 1623.

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Julius Caesar

• By the end of the play. . .
• one man is assassinated
• one man is torn to pieces by angry mob.
• a woman kills herself by swallowing hot coals
• thousands lie dead on battlefields
• the government has changed hands.
• several of Romes most respected citizens have
  committed suicide rather than face dishonor