WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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WILLIAM SHAKESPEAREThe Bard
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SHAKESPEARES LIFE

• William Shakespeare (1564-1616) lived during the
  Elizabethan age, during the reign of Queen
  Elizabeth I in England.
• He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire,
  a town in the heart of England.
• Though the exact date of his birth is unknown,
  William was baptized April 26, 1564. Infants were
  usually baptized a few days after their birth, so
  the date April 23 was chosen for his birth.
• William was the third of eight children of John
  Shakespeare, a well-to-do butcher and whittawer
  (maker, worker, seller of leather goods), and
  Mary Arden.

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• Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway
  when he was 18 years old (1582).
• They had 3 children together ? Susanna and twins
  Judith and Hamnet.
• In 1587, he left Stratford to go to London
  (population 200,000), where he performed small
  parts in plays and did odd jobs.
• In 1610, Shakespeare returned to Stratford and by
  1612, he had retired from writing.
• Shakespeare died at age 52 on April 23, 1616. He
  was buried inside Stratfords parish church.

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• Shakespeare wrote
• 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and 3 long poems.

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• None of the hand-written manuscripts of
  Shakespeares plays still exist.
• After his death, Shakespeares colleagues
  compiled all of the manuscripts they could find
  into one volume.
• The first major collection of Shakespeares
  plays, titled The First Folio, was published in
  1623.

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COMEDIES

• All's 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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COMEDIES

• Made up of 5 Acts
• Usually involve some kind of confusion someone
  is either disguised as another person or is
  mistaken for someone else
• Always end with a wedding

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TRAGEDIES

• Antony and Cleopatra Coriolanus Hamlet Julius
  Caesar King Lear Macbeth Othello Romeo and
  Juliet Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus

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TRAGEDIES

• Made up of 5 Acts
• Usually involve some or all of the following
  lying, cheating, deception, adultery, murder, war
  
• Usually end in disaster death with powerful men
  and women being destroyed by their own ambitions
  and weaknesses.
• Usually end with the death of the title character

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HISTORIES

• Henry IV, part 1 Henry IV, part 2 Henry V
  Henry VI, part 1 Henry VI, part 2 Henry VI,
  part 3 Henry VIII King John Richard II
  Richard III

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THE GLOBE THEATER

• Built by Shakespeare, the Burbage family, and the
  Chamberlains Men (an actors group) in 1599.
• Built in the London suburb of Southwark on the
  Thames River.
• Globe was destroyed by a fire in 1613, was
  rebuilt, and was demolished in 1644.
• Shakespeare referred to the theater as
  this wooden O.

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• The theater was a 3-storied building, which had a
  hut on the roof.
• There was an open courtyard in the
  middle, called the pit.
  This was where the
  groundlings (people who paid the lowest ticket
  prices) stood.
• Surrounding the pit were 3 galleries.
  This was where people sat who paid higher ticket
  prices.

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ACTORS PLAYS

• Men played all the roles, including the female
  roles.
• Acting was not considered to be a respectable
  occupation.
• Plays were written in verse.
• Queen Elizabeth made it illegal to include the
  topic of religion in the theater.

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• During the 1590s up to 15,000 people visited
  playhouses every week.
• Other famous playwrights were Christopher
  Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Fletcher, and Francis
  Beaumont.
• 2 famous acting companies were Shakespeares
  company, the Lord Chamberlains Men (later known
  as the Kings Men) and their rivals, the Lord
  Admirals Men.
• During the fall season, Shakespeares company
  performed 6 days a week and performed as many as
  6 different plays per week.

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SONNETS

• Sonnet a poem of 14 iambic pentameter lines.
• They present a poets feelings and thoughts about
  subjects like love, grief, success, and failure.
• Sonnets follow a very strict format.
• There are 3 types of sonnet Petrarchian or
  Italian, Shakespearean or English, and Spenserian
• foot the combination of a strong stress and the
  associated weak stress or stresses.
• iambic pentameter a foot with one unstressed
  syllable (U) followed by a stresses syllable (I).

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Shakespearean Sonnet

• Consists of 3 four-line quatrains
• Each quatrain presents a question or a problem.
• Ends with a couplet (2 lines)
• The couplet usually offers a solution to a
  question or problem that is posed in the
  preceding quatrains.
• Rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg

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• O, beware my lord, of jealousy. It is the
  green-eyed monster
  --Othello
• If music be the food of love, play on
  --Twelfth Night
• Lord, what fools these mortals be
  A Midsummer Nights Dream
  
• To be or not to be that is the question
  --Hamlet

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• O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
  --Romeo and Juliet
• The course of true love never did run smooth
  --A Midsummer Nights Dream
• Out, out damn spot
  --Macbeth
• Double, double, toil and trouble,
  fire burn and cauldron bubble
  --Macbeth