Shakespeare’s Writing Style

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William Shakespeare His poetry, world, and life
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• Shakespeares genius had to do not really with
  facts, but with ambition, intrigue, love,
  suffering - things that arent taught in school
  (Bryson 109).

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From Hamlet

• the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the
  first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere,
  the mirror up to nature to show virtue her own
  feature, scorn her own image, and the very age
  and body of the time his form and pressure
  (III.ii.21-25).

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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, obsene,
  magestic, 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
• One fell swoop, into thin air, fast and loose, in
  a pickle, budge an inch, cold comfort, flesh and
  blood, foul play, tower of strength, cruel to be
  kind, bated breath, pomp and circumstance, catch
  a cold, heart of gold, live long day, method in
  his madness, strange bedfellows, too much of a
  good thing, foregone conclusion

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Shakespeares Writing Style

• Averaging out all of Shakespeares plays, they
  were made up of about 70 blank verse, 5 rhymed
  verse, and 25 prose.
• Blank Verse unrhymed iambic pentameter
• Rhymed Verse couplets of iambic pentameter
• Prose NO POETIC STRUCTURE

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Shakespeares Writing Style

• Poetry vs. Prose
• Prose - Ordinary speech or writing, without
  metrical structure
• Hamlet displaying madness
• Hamlet talking to the Players
• Hamlets letter to Horatio
• Prose used for several reasons
• To demonstrate a familiar relationship (often for
  relaxed or informal conversation)
• To signify a characters status
• When the rational is contrasted with the
  emotional
• The character of Hamlet tends to use prose both
  when he is being very rational and when he is
  very irrational (but the passionate Hamlet speaks
  in verse)

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Iambic Pentameter

• The poetic form used by Shakespeare is Iambic
  Pentameter
• Iambic Pentameter is a 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

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Iambic Pentameter

• Pentameter the rhythm is repeated 5 times
• 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

Macbeth
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Rhyming Verse

• Rhyming couplets often at the end of
  monologues/scenes.
• A cue to the actors backstage
• Some scenes in Shakespeares plays (typically
  comedies) will be entirely in couplets.
• Banter, to lighten the tone, to show a
  characters wit, to quicken the pace of a scene

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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.

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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)
• 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 be the
  heir to the throne.
• Takes the crown as James I, and rules from
  1603-1625. The Jacobean Age.

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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 educate mens common reading of the Roman
  playwrights (Terence, Plautus, Seneca).
• 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.
• Christopher Marlow (1564-1593) Tamburlane the
  Great, Faustus, Edward II
• Ben Jonson (1572-1637) Volpone, The Fox
• Shakespeare (1564-1616)

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Elizabethan Theatres

• Wooden, circular structure, open to the sun
• The pit (groundlings) vs. the galleries
• Audience close to the actors
• Women not allowed on stage (teenage boys)
• No scenery, few props, but elaborate costumes

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The Globe Theatre
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Origins of Theatrical Career

• 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 Chamberlain's 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 Globe they had the best
  dramatist, Shakespeare.

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Stratford to London
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Theatre in Shakespeares Time

• The Lord Chamberlains Men and The Globe Theatre
• Sharers (6-10) owners, best actors/directors/
  writers (Richard Burbage, Hemming Condell, Will
  Kemp, Shakespeare)
• Journeymen (10-15) adult men
• Apprentices (3) young boys
• Average play
• 10 performances
• 200 a year
• 2 weeks to prepare
• Types of performance Public, Court Provinces

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Shakespeares Plays

• 37 plays
• Comedies
• Tragedies
• Histories
• Romances
• In comedy, the parade of human folly is
  presented through the wrong end of the binoculars
  from a perspective of detached amusement. But
  with tragedy, the binoculars are turned the other
  way everything is up close, intense, and
  immediate (Epstein 303).

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• Tragedies
• Solitary men struggling with human existence
• We feel for the characters, learn through their
  mistakes
• What is the title characters tragedy?
• What when is the catharsis?
• The violence of tragedy this strange beauty is
  given to the most horrific suffering.

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• Comedies
• Make light of our faults, bring joy
• Examine the madness and delusions of love even as
  they celebrate its enchantment
• Each comedy teaches us something different about
  love

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• Histories
• Help us view who we once were
• Celebrate Tudor line examines the question of
  dynamic succession

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• Romances
• (aka Problem Plays, Tragicomedies)
• Theatrical illusion and its relation to life
  appearance reality
• The capacity of art to transform terror into
  beauty
• And the power of love to heal

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Chronology of Plays

• 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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The Four Humours

• A traditional theory of physiology in which the
  state of health - and by extension the state of
  mind, or character - depended upon a balance
  among the four elemental fluids blood, yellow
  bile, phlegm, and black bile.
• These were closely allied with the four elements
  (air, fire, water, and earth). Their
  correspondence is described as follows

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The Humours

• SANGUINE Blood
• Hot and moist (Air)
• Amorous, happy, generous
• MELANCHOLIC Black Bile
• Cold and dry (Earth)
• Gluttonous, lazy, sentimental

• PHLEGMATIC Phlegm
• Cold and moist (Water )
• Dull, pale, cowardly
• CHOLERIC Yellow Bile
• Hot and dry (Fire)
• Violent, vengeful

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The Humours

• The "humours" gave off vapors which ascended to
  the brain an individual's personal
  characteristics (physical, mental, moral) were
  explained by his or her "temperament," or the
  state of that person's "humours."
• The perfect temperament resulted when no one of
  these humours dominated.
• By 1600 it was common to use "humour" as a means
  of classifying characters knowledge of the
  humours is not only important to understanding
  later medieval work, but essential to
  interpreting Elizabethan drama.