The Man, The Myth, The Legend

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The Man, The Myth, The Legend

• The Torture-er of Freshmen Everywhere

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William Shakespeare
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Well-known Facts about Will

• Great writer of England
• Plays translated into all languages, musicals,
  ballets
• Born Stratford-upon-Avon
• Well-to-do, affluent while alive
• Most quoted, other than the Bible

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Lesser-known Facts

• Teen father married pregnant 26 year old Anne
  Hathaway when he was 18
• Deadbeat dad Left wife and children for London
  stage career
• Father of twins
• Elizabethan rapper uses rhythm and rhyme
• Plagiarism?

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The Competition

• Bear-baiting
• Races
• Gambling
• Music
• Drinking/Socializing
• Public executions

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Conditions in London-NOT Pretty!

• Thames River polluted with raw sewage
• Trees used up for fuel
• Poverty

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Personal hygiene/health

• Bathing considered dangerous
• Body odor!!
• Children often died before 5 years
• Small pox
• Bubonic Plague
• Ugly!

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Living Conditions

• No running water
• Chamber pots
• Open sewers
• Crowded

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Clothes

• One set used all year long, rarely washed
• Underclothing slept in, infrequently changed
• Clothes handed down from rich to poor

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Theater in London

• Performed in courtyards of inns
• Daytime/open air
• Limited set design
• Relied on music, sound, costumes, props and great
  description

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The Globe

• Built in 1599
• Across the Thames- Wrong side of town
• Kings Players- Shakespeares company
• Penny admission

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Actors

• All men
• Female parts played by young boys
• No actual hugging or kissing on stage
• Viewers threw rotten fruit if unpleased.

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Romeo and Juliet

• Tragedy
• Written in 1595
• Set in Verona, Italy
• Themes parental control vs. rebellious teens
  fate vs. free will impulsive behavior vs.
  self-control

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Plays source

• Borrowed from a poem by Brooke-1562
• Poem found in French translation by Brooke
• Shakespeare gave the story new life and beauty

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Tragedy

• Focuses on an individual, concentrating on the
  suffering of a single, remarkable hero- leading
  to individual torment, waste and death
• Will not have a happy ending

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Terms

• Prose- language without metrical structure
• Verse-poetic language and style
• Verse will correspond with station rich ppl
  speak rhyme. Poor ppl dont.
• Look out for Similes, metaphors,
  personification, foresadowing, irony, puns,
  odymorons. --its ALL deliberate!

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Understanding the Bard

• Unusual Word Order
• I ate the banana.
• Ate the banana I.
• The banana I ate.
• I the banana ate.
• Ate I the banana.
• The banana ate I.
• Uses this to emphasize an action, a word, an
  emotion or just to create a rhythm.

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Sonnet

• Poem form consisting of 14 lines
• Each line has ten stressed and unstressed
  syllables known as iambic pentameter
• Rhyme scheme- ear rhyme (increase/decrease) or
  eye rhyme (compare/are)
• If its squareits a sonnet

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Sonnet

• a b a b c d c d e f e f g g scheme
• Three quatrains (sets of four lines) followed by
  a couplet (set of two lines)
• Generally deal with Love, Chastity, Death, Fame,
  Time and Eternity
• VIP to notice when Shakespeare uses sonnets in
  the play.

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Questions to Ponder

• 1. Is the play truly a tragedy?
• 2. How powerful is the role of fate?
• 3. How much of your destiny can you control?
• 4. Does love really conquer all? Is love enough?
• 5. How do my decisions affect others and am I
  responsible for that?

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Whats Next

• Homework
• Read through Act I scene I in your text book.
• Fill in timeline and character chart
• In class PROLOGUE