Shakespeare

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William Shakespeare
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ENGLAND
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London
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Boyhood in Stratford-Upon-Avon

• Born April 23, 1564 in Stratford-Upon-Avon
• Parents John and Mary Arden Shakespeare
• Seven brothers and sisters
• Grammar School from age 7 to 13

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Stratford-Upon-Avon
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William Shakespeares Home
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Marriage and Life in London

• 1582 at age 18 married Anne Hathaway
• 1583-1592 ???
• 1592 (28 years old) went to London
• actor and playwright
• first accused of borrowing from other playwrights
• 1592-1594 Plague

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Shakespeare Prospers

• 1598 built Globe Theatre
• Owned shares in it
• Father granted a coat-of-arms
• Gentlemen
• Recognized as a genius in his own time

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Globe Theatre
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Honored as Actor and Playwright

• Queen Elizabeth dies in 1603
• King James I takes the throne
• Shakespeares Theatre company becomes the Kings
  Company
• Member of famous writers group (Mermaid Tavern)

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Death and Burial at Stratford

• 1610 retired from theatre
• 1613 Globe theatre burns down
• lost much money but still wealthy
• helps rebuild Globe theatre
• Dies on April 23, 1616 at age 52

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Shakespeares Grave
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Secrets of the Sonnets

• 154 Sonnets, 60 songs
• Love, broken trust of friend, loss of love,
  forgiveness
• friend, dark lady, rival poet

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Shakespeare as an Elizabethan

• Queen Elizabeth reigned (1558-1603)
• Emerging from the Middle Ages into the
  Renaissance
• Age was extravagant and brutal
• elaborate, ornate clothing, language and manners
• language was growing fast
• middle class (stern, moral, and independent)

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Elizabeth I Symbolizes the Age

• Queen Elizabeth Glory of England
• To people, she represented beauty and greatness
• one of the most powerful countries in the world

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Queen Elizabeth 1558-1603
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Drama in the Elizabethan Age

• After defeating the Spanish Armada, England
  became intensely interested in the past.
  (Patriotic) Historical plays thrived.
• Playwrights were practical men, bent on making a
  living
• Plays were written to be acted, not read.
• Once a playwright sold his manuscript, he had no
  personal right to it.

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The Elizabethian Theater

• Round, wooden, roofless building
• Three galleries of seats
• Pit (no seats) cost a penny groundlings
• Main stage
• 40 feet wide
• 27 feet projection into the pit
• Recessed inner stage (curtains and balcony)
• Music Room
• Heaven and a Hell

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The Stage Influences on Shakespeares Methods

• Open, free stagequick changes, rapid action
• Encourages speechmaking, passionate soliloquies
• No women actors
• Only day time light speeches about time, season
  and weather
• (Macbeth40 such speeches
• Closeness of different classes

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Shakespeare as a Dramatist

• Objective of Plays give pleasure
• Fanciful, imaginative plays
• Audience everyday people, uneducated, wanted to
  escape
• Wrote in versefree use of words

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His Poetic Greatness

• Most quoted writer in the world
• diversity of speech from common men to
  philosophers
• Examples of his Poetry

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Critics Rank the Plays

• Tragedies-Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello
• Comedies- The Tempest, As You Like It, The
  Winters Tale, The Merchants of Venice, Much Ado
  About Nothing, A Midsummer Nights Dream
• Histories- Henry IV, Henry V, Richard II,
  Richard III, Henry VIII