William Shakespeare

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William Shakespeare
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The Life and Times of Shakespeare!

• Born April 23, 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon (in
  England), died April 23, 1616
• Never gave a single interview or wrote an
  autobiography
• Father was a prominent mayor
• Joined a famous acting group (Lord Chamberlains
  Men) wrote Romeo and Juliet for this group

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Family Life

• 1582 married Anne Hathaway at age 18 she was
  26!
• 1585 Couple had twins (in addition to older
  sister Susanna), Judith and Hamnet (Hamnet died
  before reaching adulthood
• Between 1585 and 1592, Shakespeare left his
  family and moved to London to become an actor and
  playwright

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Career

• He was not concerned with making books-wanted his
  plays to be performances
• Wrote his plays fast (he wrote 2 plays a year)
• Only got paid once for each play-no royalties
• Queen Elizabeth I loved Shakespeares plays. He
  wrote and performed several just for her.
• Romeo and Juliet was written in the mid-1590s

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Career

• Shakespeare started an acting company called The
  Kings Men, which performed for King James I.
• Unlike many theater people, Shakespeare earned a
  good living by 1599, he owned part of the Globe
  Theatre, one of the newest, trendiest theaters in
  London

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Theatre Life

• Early Theatre
• Being an actor was illegal
• Noble men would employ men to be actors who
  traveled on a wagon
• Could not be arrested because they were servants
  of the noble men

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The Globe

• 1 pennystanding spot slightly below the stage,
  no roof (groundlings)
• 2 penniesgallery seat with a roof
• 3 pennies gets you a seat with a cushion!

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The Globe Actors

• Leading men
• No women
• Boys who did not hit pubertygot fired after
  voice changed
• Women had less lines because the children played
  the roles

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Play types-Comedy

• The thinking persons response to an experience
• About social groups and types-characters should
  not develop
• When the funny runs out, or a character changes,
  he usually dies
• Popular trends-mistaken identity, randomness,
  surprise
• Greek comedies end happily
• English comedies end in marriage

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Play types-Tragedy

• Records the responses of a person with feelings
• Shows great strength, high degree of character
  development
• Focuses on one character, usually named in the
  title
• English tradition says they must end in death

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Play types-Historical

• Contain elements of comedy and tragedy
• 10 total history plays
• Covers English history from the 12th -16th
  centuries
• Each one is named after and focuses on the
  reigning monarch of the time

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Shakespeare today
Twelfth Night
10 Things I Hate about You
The Lion King
Romeo and Juliet
O (Othello)
Gnomeo and Juliet
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Literary Terms

• Allusion
• A reference to another literary work or character
• Aside
• Comments heard by the audience but not by other
  characters on stage. Usually used for the ironic
  effect
• Blank verse
• The form of poetry in unrhyming lines that sounds
  similar to everyday speech
• Couplet
• Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme

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Literary Terms

• Comic relief
• Lighthearted scenes that relieve the overall
  tension in a tragedy
• Foreshadowing
• Literary technique used to give clues that
  usually warn of bad events to come
• Foil
• A character who acts as the opposite to another
  character
• Paradox
• A pair of words that contradict one another
• Jumbo shrimp

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Literary Terms

• Pun
• A joke that makes use of two different meanings
  of a word or of two words that sound alike
  (soles, souls)
• I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger.
  Then it hit me.
• Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side
  was cut off? Hes all right now.
• Soliloquy
• A speech a character gives when he/she is alone
  on stage. Its purpose is to let the audience know
  what the character is thinking

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Shakespeare Plot Diagram
Climax Act III
Rising Action Act II
Falling Action Act IV
Exposition Act I
Resolution Act V