The Magician of Language

1
The Magician of Language

• William Shakespeare

2
Birth 1564

• born in April 1564, Stratford-upon-Avon,
• Warwickshire.
• Actual day is not recorded, but assumed to be
  23rd.
• Baptism was on April the 26th.

3
Early Years

• Parents Family
• John Shakespeare
• His father, the son of Richard Shakespeare
• A glover
• A middle class citizen
• A member of the Council (1557), constable
  (1558), chamberlain (1561), alderman (1565) and
  finally high bailiff (1568)--the equivalent of
  town mayor. 
• Mary Arden
• His mother, the daughter of Robert Arden.
• A Shakespeare Genealogy
• http//shakespeare.palomar.edu/timeline/genea
  logy.htm

4
Early Years

• Education
• Stratford grammar school the kings new
  school. Provided intense education in Latin
  grammar and the classics.
• Mandatory attendance at church significant
  educational opportunity. They were exposed to
  either the Geneva Bible (translated 1560) or the
  Bishops' Bible (translated 1568). Church
  attendance also brought them under the influence
  of The Book of Common Prayer (composed 1549),
  Foxe's Acts and Monuments (1563),  homilies and
  preaching.
• the Warwickshire countryside The plays and
  poetry are full of images taken from nature,
  gardening, agricultural pursuits, and country
  folklore.

5
Early Years

• Marriage (1582)
• He married to Anne Hathaway at the age 18.
• They married on 27th November at a small
  village named Temple Grafton, a few miles away
  from Stratford.

6
1586-1592 The Lost Years

• Only a few historical traces of him after the
  birth of twins
• Many apocryphal stories about this period
• Nicolas Rowe Shakespeares first biographer,
  recounted a Stratford legend that Shakespeare
  fled the town for London to escape prosecution
  for deer poaching.
• John Aubrey Shakespeare had been a country
  schoolmaster.
• Some 20C century scholars Shakespeare may
  have been employed as a schoolmaster by Alexander
  Hoghton of Lancashire, a Catholic landowner who
  named a certain "William Shakeshafte" in his
  will.
• No evidence for such stories!!!

7
London and Theatrical Career

• 1592 Upstart Crow
• Being attacked by Robert Greene
• there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our
  feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in
  a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to
  bombast out a blank verse as the best of you and
  being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his
  own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.
• it  verifies several facts about
  Shakespeare's career as it had developed by 1592
• He had become successful enough to rankle
  Greene's jealousy.
• He had become well known among in the London
  professional theater world.
• He was known as a man of various abilities
  ("Johannes fac totem" or Jack-of-all-trades, as
  we would say), actor, playwright, play mender
  ("beautified with our feathers").
• He was well known as a poet ("bombast out a
  blanke verse").
• His Henry VI Part 3 had become famous enough to
  be recognize by one of its famous lines ("O,
  tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide").

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London and Theatrical Career

• 1594 Lord Chamberlain's Men
• William Shakespeare was a founder member
• the most important company of players in
  Elizabethan England
• An Actor
• Title role in Edward I (a play by Edward
  Peele) in 1593
• As You Like It (Adam)
• Macbeth (King Duncan)
• Henry IV (King Henry)
• Hamlet (Hamlet's father)
• The Ghost in his own Hamlet

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London and Theatrical Career

• A Playwright
• 1591-1593(Experiment Period)
• Titus Andronicus, Love's Labour's Lost, The
  Two Gentlemen of Verona, The
• Comedy of Errors ,The Taming of the Shrew
• 1594-1601
• Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, A
  Midsummer-Night's Dream,
• Much Ado about Nothing, The Merry Wives of
  Windsor and the history plays,
• Henry IV, Parts I and II, Henry V, Richard II,
  King John, Julius Caesar.
• 1602-1610
• Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear but also
  comedies such as Twelfth Night,
• All's Well that Ends Well and the epic
  history play, Antony and Cleopatra.
• 1611
• Cymbeline, Henry VIII and romances such as
  The Tempest and The Winter's
• Tale

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Shakespeares Comedies

• Well That Ends Well
• As You Like It
• The Comedy of Errors
• Cymbeline
• Love's Labours Lost
• Measure for Measure
• The Merry Wives of Windsor
• The Merchant of Venice
• A Midsummer Night's Dream

• Much Ado About
• Nothing
• Pericles, Prince of Tyre
• Taming of the Shrew
• The Tempest
• Troilus and Cressida
• Twelfth Night
• Two Gentlemen of Verona
• Winter's Tale

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Shakespeares Histories

• Henry IV, Part I
• Henry IV, Part II
• Henry V
• Henry VI, Part I
• Henry VI, Part II

• Henry VI, Part III
• Henry VIII
• King John
• Richard II
• Richard III

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Shakespeares tragedies

• Antony and Cleopatra
• Coriolanus
• Hamlet
• Julius Caesar
• King Lear

• Macbeth
• Othello
• Romeo and Juliet
• Timon of Athens
• Titus Andronicus

13
Shakespeares Poetry

• A Lover's Complaint
• Sonnets 1-30
• Sonnets 121-154
• Sonnets 31-60
• Sonnets 61-90
• Sonnets 91-120
• The Passionate Pilgrim
• The Phoenix and the Turtle
• The Rape of Lucrece
• Venus and Adonis

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The Most Famous Play Hamlet

• One of the most quoted works in English Language.
  worlds greatest literature.
• Religious
• Protestantism- There's a predestinate
  providence In the fall of a sparrow."
• Philosophical
• a relativistic idea- there is nothing
  either good or bad, but thinking makes it so".
• existentialism- to be, or not to be
• skepticism- What a piece of work is a man
• Political
• Corambis", (Polonius's name in Q1)
  resonates with the Latin for "double-hearted,
  which may satirize Lord Burghley's Latin motto
  Cor unum, via una ("One heart, one way").
• Psychoanalytic
• Oedipal desire for his mother
• distaste for sexuality

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The Most Famous Sonnet

• Sonnet 138 (1599)
• First poem in the Passionate Pilgrim
  (Anthology of Poems)
• Use of frequent puns-"lie" and "lie
• An understanding of the nature of truth and
  flattery in romantic relationships.

• When my love swears that she is made of
  truthI do believe her, though I know she
  lies,That she might think me some untutor'd
  youth,Unlearned in the world's false
  subtleties.Thus vainly thinking that she thinks
  me young.Although she knows my days are past the
  best,Simply I credit her false speaking
  tongueOn both side thus is simple truth
  suppressedBut wherefore says she not she is
  unjust?And wherefore say not I that I am old?O!
  love's best habit is in seeming trust,And age in
  love loves not to have years toldTherefore I
  lie with her and she with me,And in our faults
  by lies we flattered be.

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The Famous Quotes

• The course of true love never did run smooth
  -A Midsummer Night's Dream
• Action is eloquence -Coriolanus
• There is nothing either good or bad, but
  thinking makes it so -Hamlet
• Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!
  -Richard II
• Conscience doth make cowards of us all
• -Hamlet

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Later Years

• 1603 Kings Man
• The Chamberlain's Men became the King's Men,
  receiving royal patronage.
• 1608 Romance
• A change in tone in Shakespeare's work from the
  dark mood of the tragedies to reconciliation and
  romance.
• 1611 Final years
• Final three plays Henry VIII (1613), Two
  Noble,
• Kinsmen (1613,or 1614), Cardenio (lost)
• 1611 Death

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Great Influence on the English Language

• Introduced over 8000 words.
• Coined nearly 10,000 words
• Introduced new poetic and grammatical structures.
• Used around 20,138 new words.

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Citations

• http//absoluteshakespeare.com/william_shakespeare
  .htm
• http//www.buzzle.com/articles/timeline-of-william-
  shakespeare.html
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet_138Themes_and
  _Motifs
• http//www.notable-quotes.com/s/shakespeare_willia
  m_quotes.html
• http//shakespeare.palomar.edu/timeline/timeline.h
  tm

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Photo Credits

• http//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2
  /Shakespeare.jpg
• http//www.saburchill.com/history/images01/1111070
  38.jpg