Shakespeare%20(1564-1616)

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Shakespeare (1564-1616)

• Born in Stratford-on-Avon
• Married, 2 daughters
• Moved to London
• The Chamberlain's Men

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Shakespeares Major Plays
1599 - Julius Caesar1599-1600 - As You Like
It1600-02 - Twelfth Night1600-O1 -
Hamlet1597-1601 - The Merry Wives of
Windsor1600-O1 - "The Phoenix and the
Turtle"1601-02 - Troilus and Cressida1602-04
- All's Well That Ends Well1603-04 -
Othello1604 - Measure for Measure1604-09 -
Timon of Athens1605-06 - King Lear1605-06 -
Macbeth1606-07 - Antony and Cleopatra1607-09 -
Coriolanus1608-09 - Pericles1609-1O -
Cymbeline161O-1I - The Winter's Tale161I - The
Tempest1612-13 - Henry VIII1613 - The Two Noble
Kinsmen

• 1588-93 - The Comedy of Errors1588-92 - Henry
  VI (three parts)1592-93 - Richard III1592-94 -
  Titus Andronicus1593-94 - The Taming of the
  Shrew1593-94 - The Two Gentlemen of
  Verona1593-94 - "The Rape of
  Lucrece"1593-1600 - "Sonnets"1588-95 - Love's
  Labor's Lost1594-96 - Romeo and Juliet1595 -
  Richard II1594-96 - A Midsummer Night's
  Dream1590-97 - King John1592 - "Venus and
  Adonis"1596-97 - The Merchant of Venice1597 -
  Henry IV (Part I)1597-98 - Henry IV (Part
  II)1598-1600 - Much Ado About Nothing1598-99
  - Henry V

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Globe Playhouse, London
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Staging Areas

• Stage platform that extended into the pit
• Dressing storage rooms in galleries behind
  above stage
• second-level gallery upper stage famous
  balcony scene in R J
• Trap door - ghosts
• Heavens - angelic beings

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• Many playwrights with nowhere to play
• Barn turned into theatre (Yeah!)
• Puritans burn it down (Evil theatre! Boo!)
• Globe built! (Yeah!)
• Globe burns (sniff, darn cannon!)
• Globe rebuilt! (Yeah!)
• Globe burns (Dang that Fire of London!)

The Globe
Reconstructed in the 1990s
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The Theater

• Plays produced for the general public
• Roofless open air
• No artificial lighting
• Courtyard surrounded by 3 levels of galleries

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• Aristocrats
• The Queen/King
• The Groundlings!

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Spectators

• Wealthy got benches
• Groundlings poorer people stood and watched
  from the courtyard (pit)
• All but wealthy were uneducated/illiterate
• Much more interaction than today

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When in a play...

• Only men were permitted to perform
• Boys or effeminate men were used to play the
  women
• Costumes were often the companys most valuable
  asset
• Costumes were made by the company, bought in
  London, or donated by courtiers

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Differences

• No scenery
• Settings - references in dialogue
• Elaborate costumes
• Plenty of props
• Fast-paced, colorful-2 hours!

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The Cost of a Show

• 1 shilling to stand
• 2 shillings to sit in the balcony
• 1 shilling was 10 of their weekly income
• Broadway Today
• 85 Orchestra
• 60 Balcony
• 10 of a teachers weekly salary

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Shakespeare

• Wrote 37 plays between 1588 and 1613
• About 1.5 per year
• Directed and starred in the plays
• Wrote 154 sonnets

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New Words

• Solidified the English language
• Dante did the same for Italian
• Luther and Goethe did the same for German
• Used nouns as verbs
• Over 2000 new words
• critical, aggravate, assassination
• monumental, castigate, countless
• Obscene, forefathers, frugal, hurry
• Majestic, homicide, summit, reliance
• Coined Phrases

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• "Shakespeare had a huge vocabulary. In the
  collected editions of his works--the first folio
  that was published seven years after his
  death--there are 27,000 different, individual
  words. In the King James translation of the
  Bible, which was published twelve years earlier,
  there are 7,000 words."
• --Excerpt from Professor Peter Saccio's course
  "Shakespeare The Word and The Action"

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Shakespeares Phrases

• Its Greek to me
• Vanished into thin air
• Refused to budge an inch
• Green-eyed jealousy
• Played fast and loose
• Tongue-tied
• Hoodwinked
• In a pickle
• Fair play
• Slept not one wink
• Stood on ceremony
• Laughed yourself into stitches
• Too much of a good thing

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Shakespeares Phrases

• If you have seen better days
• High time
• The long and short of it
• Lie low
• Have your teeth set on edge
• Without rhyme or reason
• To give the devil his due
• If you bid me good riddance and send me packing
• Dead as a door-nail
• An eyesore
• A laughing stock
• By Jove!

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Blank Verse

• Most of Shakespeares works are written in it
• unrhymed verse
• iambic (unstressed, stressed)
• pentameter( 5 feet to a line)
• ends up to be 10 syllable lines

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Prose

• Ordinary writing that is not poetry, drama, or
  song
• Only characters in the lower social classes speak
  this way in Shakespeares plays
• Why do you suppose that is?

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Macbeth
The tragedy of

• Set in Scotland
• Written for King James I (formerly of Scotland,
  now England)
• Queen of Denmark (Jamess sister) was visiting
• Shakespeare researched The Chronicles - Banquo is
  an ancestor of King James I

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• King Duncan of Scotland
• Murdered by cousin Macbeth
• Honest and good
• Malcolm Donalbain
• Sons of the King
• Malcolm is the eldest son
• Macbeth
• Duncans most courageous general
• Ambition to become king corrupts him causing him
  to murder Duncan

The Characters
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• Banquo
• General and Macbeths best friend
• Suspects Macbeth in Duncans murder
• An actual ancestor of King James I
• Lady Macbeth
• As ambitious as her husband
• A dark force behind his evil deeds
• Macduff
• Scottish general, suspects Macbeth of murdering
  the king
• Macbeth has his family murdered
• Swears vengeance

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The Curse!
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The Scottish Play

• It is believed to be bad luck to even squeak the
  word Macbeth in a theatre
• Legend has it you will lose all your friends
  involved in the production--horribly
• MORE ON THAT LATER...

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The Tragic Hero
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• Def. Man of high standard who falls from that
  high because of a flaw that has affected many -
  Aristotle
• Macbeth is one of the most famous examples of the
  tragic hero.

However, how could John Proctor also be one?
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So what really happens?

• Good guy goes bad
• Guy wants power
• Married to a pushy control freak
• She wants power
• Kills people- LOTS of people
• Gets power
• Gets paranoid (a.k.a. goes crazy)
• Ticks off a lot of people
• Want more power! Kill! Kill!
• Gets whats coming to him in the end

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Best Line!
Lifes but a walking shadow a poor player, That
struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And is
heard of no more it is a tale Told by an idiot,
full of sound and fury, Signifying
nothing. - Act V s.5