Journal

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Journal

• What I already know about Shakespeare
• (If you dont know anything about him, thats
  FINE! Share your EXPECTATIONS and PREDICTIONS
  about his life and work instead.)

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Meet the Bard William Shakespeare

• Ms. Gellers Sensational Sophomores
• Fall 2013

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Shakespeares Life

• Born April 23, 1564, Stratford-on-Avon, England
• Died on his birthday in 1616
• Little is known about his early life
• Father was a merchant and served one term as
  mayor
• Attended Stratford Grammar School until age 14
• Studied Latin and Greek, as well as British
  History and World History

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Shakespeares House in Stratford-on-Avon
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Shakespeares Life, continued

• Married Anne Hathaway at age 18
• Three children Susanna, Judith and Hamnet
• Left for London around 1592

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Shakespeare and His Theatre

• Quickly developed a reputation as an actor and
  playwright wrote a total of 37 plays
• Principal playwright of the Lord Chamberlains
  Men
• Built the Globe Theatre in 1599
• Began writing poetry when theatres closed due to
  plague
• Theatre company renamed the Kings Men when James
  I became king in 1603
• Retired to Stratford in 1610

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Shakespeares Theatre

• No one knows exactly when each play was written
• Plays consisted of five acts and were
  approximately two hours long
• Several distinct sub-genres of drama
• Tragedies
• Comedies
• Romances
• History Plays
• Subject matter based on history and myth already
  well-known to Shakespeares audiences
• Theatre considered an inappropriate vocation for
  women female roles typically played by men and
  boys

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"Pardon, gentles all, the flat unraised spirits
that hath daredOn this unworthy scaffold to
bring forth so great an object.Can this cockpit
hold the vasty fields of France?Or may we cram
Within this Wooden O the very casques that did
affright the air at Agincourt?"
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Shakespeares Theatre, continued

• The Globe consisted of a round or octagonal,
  roofless courtyard with no artificial light
• Plays performed during daylight hours
• No scenery settings were indicated through
  dialogue
• Actors wore luxurious Elizabethan clothing,
  rather than costumes
• Wealthier playgoers watched from three levels of
  benches
• Less wealthy spectators, called groundlings,
  stood and watched from the pit.

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Shakespeares Theatre, continued

• The Globe burned down in 1613
• Foundation of original structure discovered in
  1990
• Re-opened to its first full season in 1997

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The Globe
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Shakespeares Language

• Shakespeares plays were written primarily in
  blank verseunrhymed iambic pentameter.
• Iambic pentameter ten syllables per line, every
  second syllable accented
• Commoners speak in prose

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Shakespeares Language, continued

• Elizabethan English
• Footnotes are your friends!
• Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind
• And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
• Nor hath Loves mind of any judgment taste.65
• Wings, and no eyes, figure66 unheedy haste.
• 65. Norjudgment taste Love, which arises from
  feelings, is without judgment.
• 66. figure Symbolize