Shakespeare

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Shakespeares Effect on the English Language

• 12,000 words entered the language between 1500
  and 1650 (about ½ of them still in use today)
• Shakespeare coined 2,035 words (Hamlet alone has
  600 new words). A small sampling
• Bloody, hurry, generous, impartial, road,
  critical, frugal, dwindle, extract, horrid, vast,
  excellent, eventful, assassination, lonely,
  suspicious, indistinguishable, well-read, zany,
  countless

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Language

• Shakespeares phrases are now our clichés
• into thin air, in a pickle, budge an inch, cold
  comfort, flesh and blood, foul play, cruel to be
  kind, pomp and circumstance, catch a cold, heart
  of gold, method in his madness, too much of a
  good thing, break the ice, dead as a doornail,
  good riddance, love is blind, wear my heart upon
  my sleeve, wild-goose chase, the world's my
  oyster, for goodness' sake

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Shakespeares Writing Style

• Poetry vs. Prose
• Prose -form of language which applies ordinary
  grammatical structure and natural flow of speech
  rather than rhythmic structure
• See letter to Lady Macbeth (I.v)
• Shakespeare uses prose for 2 reasons
• Lower status
• Familiar relationship

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Iambic Pentameter

• The poetic form used by Shakespeare is
• Iambic Pentameter rhythmical pattern of
  syllables
• Iambic rhythm goes from unstressed syllable to a
  stressed one. Rhythmic examples divine
  caress bizarre
• Like a heartbeat daDUM daDUM
• Each iamb is called a foot
• There are other rhythms. I.e., trochaic DUMda
• Pentameter the rhythm is repeated 5 times
  each line is 10 syllables
• daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM
• The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step
• On which I must fall down, or else oer-leap,
• For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires!
• Let not light see my black and deep desires.
• Shakespeare, will sometimes end iambic pentameter
  on an unstressed syllable, so that the last foot
  sounds like this daDUMda.
• To be, or not to be, that is the question.
• Is this a dagger which I see before me

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Blank Verse

• Blank Verse unrhymed iambic pentameter
• Used with noble characters
• Macbeths soliloquy
• Exceptions
• Rhyming couplets often at the end of
  monologues/scenes, used for emphasis

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Verse/Prose

• Averaging out all of Shakespeares plays, they
  were made up of about 70 blank verse, 5 rhymed
  verse, and 25 prose.
• Try this THE WEIRD SISters, HAND in HAND,
• POSters OF the SEA and LAND,
• THUS do GO, aBOUT, aBOUT,
• THRICE to THINE, and THRICE to MINE,
• And THRICE aGAIN, to MAKE up NINE.
• PEACE! the CHARM'S WOUND UP (Act 1 Scene 3)
• Why would Shakespeare used a different meter for
  supernatural characters. Is the rhythm more
  chant-like? More spooky?

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Elizabethan Age Jacobean Age

• Shakespeare gains his notoriety during a time
  when theatre is flourishing the Elizabethan
  Age.
• Named after Queen Elizabeth I, who reigns until
  1603.
• King James I reigns during the rest of
  Shakespeares life. Shakespeare writes Macbeth in
  1606 to honor the King.

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Elizabethan Age Jacobean Age

• Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603) Daughter of Henry
  VIII and Anne Boleyn. Protestant. The Virgin
  Queen.
• Takes throne from Mary I (aka Bloody Mary), a
  Catholic who executed Protestants in large
  numbers.
• Elizabeth I firmly establishes the Church of
  England (begun by her father)-Protestant
• England emerges as the leading naval and
  commercial power of the Western world. Elizabeth
  I's England consolidates its position with the
  defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.
• Elizabeth names James VI of Scotland to take the
  throne.
• Takes the crown as James I, and rules from
  1603-1625.

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Elizabethan Age

• At this time, London was the heart of England,
  reflecting all the vibrant qualities of the
  Elizabethan Age. London became a leading center
  of culture as well as commerce. Its dramatists
  and poets were among the leading literary artists
  of the day.
• London in the 16th century underwent a
  transformation. Its population grew 400 from
  1500 to 1600, swelling to nearly two hundred
  thousand people in the city proper and outlying
  region by the time an immigrant from Stratford
  came to town. A rising merchant middle class was
  carving out a productive livelihood, and the
  economy was booming.

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Elizabethan Theatres

• Flowering of theatre. The Renaissance (rebirth)
  grew from Englands medieval theatre of mystery
  and morality plays with some stylistic infusion
  from educated mens common reading of the Roman
  playwrights
• City authorities would often ban theatrical
  productions gatherings encouraged crime.
• Theatres The Theatre and The Curtain in North
  London The Rose, the Swan, and The Globe (1599)
  in South London.
• Shakespeare (1564-1616)

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Elizabethan Theatres

• Actors
• Only men- crude atmosphere in the theatre(lots of
  drunks)
• Young kids played women roles
• They travelled around to perform
• In 6 Month, one company might give 150
  performances with 25-30 different plays/ one week
  to learn their text (about 800 Lines a day for
  leading roles!)
• The Building
• There was a dressing room, full of funny
  costumes.
• props werent used until the 1600s
• round, (Wooden O)
• There were hardly any toilettes
• no or less roof, it could rain into the theatre
• 3000 people could fit
• The Stage
• trapdoor, they used it as a grave
• The stage consisted of 3 tears, Heaven
  (Balcony), Earth (Stage) and Hell (The place
  where the crowd was standing).
• When the play started there was a flag above the
  theatre Black Tragedy White- Comedy. Red
  History.

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The Globe Theatre
The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London
associated with William Shakespeare. It was built
in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, the
Lord Chamberlain's Men, and was destroyed by fire
on June 29th 1613
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Shakespeares Life

• Baptized on April 26, 1564.
• Died April 23, 1616
• Married at the age of 18 to Anne Hathaway.
• A daughter, named Susanna, was baptized on May
  26, 1583.
• On February 2, 1585, twins were baptized, Hamnet
  and Judith. (The boy Hamnet, Shakespeare's only
  son, died 11 years later.)
• Shakespeare leaves (around 1590?)
• family in Stratford to pursue acting in
• London.

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Origins of Theatrical Career

• Between 1585 and 1593not much known
• It is not clear how his career in the theatre
  began but from about 1594 onward he was an
  important member of the company of players known
  as the Lord Chamberlains Men(called the King's
  Men after the accession of James I in 1603). They
  had the best actor, Richard Burbage they had the
  best theatre, the Glode they had the best
  dramatist, Shakespeare.

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37playsComedies Tragedies Histories Romances

• 1589-92 Henry VI, Part 1 Henry VI, Part 2
  Henry VI, Part 3
• 1592-93 Richard III, The Comedy of Errors
• 1593-94 Titus Andronicus, The Taming of the
  Shrew
• 1594-95 The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love's
  Labour's Lost, Romeo and Juliet
• 1595-96 Richard II, A Midsummer Night's Dream
• 1596-97 King John, The Merchant of Venice
• 1597-98 Henry IV, Part 1 Henry IV, Part 2
• 1598-99 Much Ado About Nothing
• c. 1599 Henry V
• 1599-1600 Julius Caesar, As You Like It
• 1600-01 Hamlet, The Merry Wives of Windsor
• 1601-02 Twelfth Night, Troilus and Cressida
• 1602-03 All's Well That Ends Well
• 1604-05 Measure For Measure, Othello
• 1605-06 King Lear, Macbeth
• 1606-07 Antony and Cleopatra
• 1607-08 Coriolanus, Timon of Athens
• 1608-09 Pericles
• 1609-10 Cymbeline

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Origins of the Play

• Witches
• In 1591, 3 women from Forres were on trial in
  Scotland for using witchcraft in order to
  assassinate the King of Scotland James. Court
  records show that James actually presided over
  the case.
• James wrote a book about witches in 1597 entitled
  Daemonologie, which discusses how witches operate
  and the extent of their power.
• The Gunpowder Plot
• An attempt to assassinate King James in 1605
  officials found a large amount of gunpowder in a
  basement below Parliament the day before he was
  to be there.
• Arrested for treason, Henry Garnet, a Jesuit,
  wrote A Treatise of Equivocation, which provided
  a justification for lying (a statement is not a
  lie if it could possibly be true from another
  perspective).

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Motifs any aspect of literature which recurs
frequently(theme, image, character etc)

• Paradox
• fair is foul, lost/won happy/not happy not
  great/greater father/fatherless
• Clothing metaphors
• borrowed robes, strange garments, lest our
  old robes sit easier than our new
• Hiding true thoughts (deceit)
• Traitors, Theres no art in finding the minds
  construction in the face. False face must hide
  what the false heart doth know. Look like the
  innocent flower but be the serpent underneath.
• Nocturnal/dark animals
• Ravens, owls, snakes, wolf, scorpions, crickets,
• Child-bearing
• Blood
• Weather
• Sleeplessness
• Masculinity what it means to be a man.

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The Curse of Macbeth

• The story goes that the spells Shakespeare
  included in Macbeth were lifted from an authentic
  black-magic ritual and that their public display
  did not please the folks for whom these
  incantations were sacred. Therefore, they
  retaliated with a curse on the show and all its
  productions.
• ill luck set in with its very first performance.
  John Aubrey, left us with the report that a boy
  was to play Lady Macbeth at the play's opening on
  August 7, 1606 but died of a fever.
• In 1672, the actor in the title role used a real
  dagger for the scene in which he murders Duncan
  and done the deed for real.
• In 1942, three deaths in the cast -- the actor
  playing Duncan and two of the actresses playing
  the Weird Sisters -- and the suicide of the
  costume and set designer.
• In 1947, actor stabbed in the swordfight that
  ends the play and died as a result of his wounds.
  His ghost is said to haunt the Colliseum Theatre
  in Oldham, where the fatal blow was struck.
  Supposedly, his spirit appears on Thursdays, the
  day he was killed.
• In a production in St. Paul, Minnesota, the actor
  playing Macbeth dropped dead of heart failure
  during the first scene of Act III.
• In 1988, the Broadway production went through
  three directors, five Macduffs, six cast changes,
  six stage managers, two set designers, two
  lighting designers, 26 bouts of flu, torn
  ligaments, and groin injuries.
• In 1998, in the Off-Broadway production starring
  Alec Baldwin and Angela Bassett, Baldwin somehow
  sliced open the hand of his Macduff.

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The Curse of Macbeth

• To many theatre people, the curse extends beyond
  productions of the play itself. Simply saying the
  name of the play in a theatre invites disaster.
  (You're free to say it all you want outside
  theatres the curse doesn't apply.) The
  traditional way around this is to refer to the
  play by its nickname "the Scottish Play.
• To dispel the curse, the person who spoke the
  offending word must leave the room, turn around
  three times to the right, spit on the ground,
  then knock on the door of the room and ask for
  permission to re-enter it.