William Shakespeare

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William Shakespeare
1564-1616 Stratford-on-Avon - England
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Overview

• Who was he?
• Why is he so famous?
• Life
• Works
• Tragedy
• Comedy
• History
• Poetry
• Chronology
• Elements of drama
• Dramatic technique
• Poetic technique

• Elizabethan theatre
• Sonnet XVIII
• Macbeth
• Hamlet
• Julius Caesar
• Romeo and Juliet
• Much ado about nothing
• The Merchant of Venice
• Links

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Who was he?

• Widely regarded as the greatest writer in English
  Literature
• Poet and dramatist
• Wrote 37 plays comedies, histories, tragedies
• Composed about 154 sonnets and a few poems
• Started out as an actor

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Life

• Born around April 23, 1564 3rd of 8 children
  Family lived in Stratford-on-Avon, a market town
  about 100 miles NW of London
• Father (John) a shopkeeper. A man of considerable
  standing in Stratford. Served as Justice of the
  Peace and High Bailiff (mayor)
• Attended grammar school, where he studied Latin,
  grammar and literature, Rhetoric (the use of
  language). No further formal education known
• Marriage to Anne Hathaway, 8 years older than
  he, 3 children Susanna (1583), Judith and
  Hamnet (twins, 1585)

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Later life

• 1594 - became shareholder in a company of actors
  called Lord Chamberlains Men
• 1599 - Lord Chamberlains Co. Built Globe
  Theater where most of S. Plays were performed
• 1599 - Actor for Lord Chamberlains Men and
  principal playwright for them
• 1603 James I became king of England acting
  company renamed Kings Men
• 1610 Shakespeare retired to Stratford-on-Avon
  April 2
• 1616 died at the age of 52

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Works
Editions of works First Quarto (1603), Second
Quarto (1604), Folio (1623)
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Comedy

• A Midsummer Night's Dream
• All's Well That Ends Well
• As You Like It
• Cymbeline
• Loves Labours Lost
• Measure for Measure
• Much Ado About Nothing
• Pericles, Prince of Tyre
• The Comedy of Errors

• The Merchant of Venice
• The Merry Wives of Windsor
• The Taming of the Shrew
• The Tempest
• Troilus and Cressida
• Twelfth Night
• Two Gentlemen of Verona
• Winter's Tale

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Tragedy

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

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

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History

• 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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Poetry

• A Lover's Complaint
• Sonnets (about 154)
• The Passionate Pilgrim
• The Phoenix and the turtle
• The Rape of Lucrece
• Venus and Adonis

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Why is he still so famous?

• His plays portray recognizable people in
  situations we experience in our lives love,
  marriage, death, mourning, guilt, the need to
  make difficult choices, separation, reunion and
  reconciliation
• They do so with great humanity, tolerance, and
  wisdom
• They are constantly fresh and can be adapted to
  the place and time they are performed
• Their language is wonderfully expressive and
  powerful
• They help us to understand what it is to be
  human, and to cope with the problems of being so

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Chronology

• The problem with any timeline of Shakespeare's
  works is that most dates are subject to
  interpretation. While it is easy to say that The
  Comedy of Errors is an early work and The Tempest
  is quite later, exact dates are not - and may not
  ever be -proved.

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Title Date Written Date Range First Published
The Comedy of Errors 1590 ? - 1594 1623
Titus Andronicus 1590 ? - 1594 1594
The Taming of the Shrew 1591 ? - 1594 1623
2 Henry VI 1591 ? - 1592 1594
3 Henry VI 1591 ? - 1592 1595
1 Henry VI 1592 ? - 1592 1623
Richard III 1592 1592 - 1597 1597
Love's Labor's Lost 1593 ? - 1597 1598
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Two Gentlemen of Verona 1593 ? - 1598 1623
A Midsummer Night's Dream 1594 1594 - 1598 1600
Romeo and Juliet 1595 ? - 1597 1597
Richard II 1595 1595 - 1597 1597
King John 1596 ? - 1598 1623
The Merchant of Venice 1596 1594 - 1598 1600
Henry IV Part 1 1596 1595 - 1598 1598
Henry IV Part 2 1597 1596 - 1598 1600
The Merry Wives of Windsor 1597 1597 - 1602 1602
As You Like It 1598 1598 - 1600 1623
Much Ado About Nothing 1598 1598 - 1600 1600
Henry V 1599 1599 1600
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Julius Caesar 1599 1598 - 1599 1623
Twelfth Night 1600 1600 - 1602 1623
Hamlet 1601 1599 - 1601 1603
Troilus and Cressida 1602 1601 - 1603 1609
All's Well That Ends Well 1603 1598 - ? 1623
Measure For Measure 1604 1598 - 1604 1623
Othello 1604 1598 - 1604 1622
King Lear 1605 1598 - 1606 1608
Macbeth 1606 1603 - 1611 1623
Antony and Cleopatra 1606 1598 - 1608 1623
Timon of Athens 1606 1598 - ? 1623
Pericles Prince of Tyre 1607 1598 - 1608 1609
Coriolanus 1608 1598 - ? 1623
Cymbeline 1609 1598 - 1611 1623
A Winter's Tale 1610 1598 - 1611 1623
The Tempest 1611 1610 - 1611 1623
Henry VIII 1613 1612 - 1613 1623
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Language

• Used over 20,000 words in his works
• The average writer uses 7,500
• The English Dictionary of his time only had 500
  words.
• Hes credited with creating 3,000 words in the
  English Oxford Dictionary
• He was by far the most important individual
  influence on the development of the modern
  English
• He invented lots of words that we use in our
  daily speech

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Words invented by the Bard

• accommodation
• amazement
• assassination
• baseless
• bloody
• bump
• castigate
• changeful
• control (noun)
• countless
• courtship
• critic

• eventful
• exposure
• frugal
• generous
• gloomy
• hurry
• impartial
• indistinguishable
• invulnerable
• laughable
• lonely
• majestic

misplaced monumental obscene pious
premeditated radiance reliance road sportive
submerge suspicious
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Stratford-upon-Avon
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Elements of drama

• 5-part dramatic structure corresponds to a plays
• 5 acts
• Exposition (introduction)
• Establishes tone, setting, main characters, main
  conflict
• Fills in events previous to play
• Rising action
• Series of complications for the protagonist (main
  character)
• flowing from the main conflict

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Elements of drama

• Crisis or Climax
• Turning point in story
• Moment of choice for protagonist
• Forces of conflict come together
• Falling action
• Results of protagonists decision
• Maintains suspense
• Resolution or Denouement
• Conclusion of play
• Unraveling of plot
• May include characters deaths

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Dramatic technique

• Pun play on words involving
• Word with more than one meaning
• Words with similar sounds
• Soliloquy
• Speech of moderate to long length
• Spoken by one actor alone on stage (or not heard
  by other actors)
• Aside
• Direct address by actor to audience
• Not supposed to be overheard by other characters

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Poetic technique

• Blank verse unrhymed iambic pentameter
• Iambic pentameter
• 5 units of rhythm per line
• primary rhythm is iambic ( U / )
• Shal Ì compàre Thée to a sùmmers dày

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Typical 16th century theatre

• Building
• 3 stories Levels 1 2,
• Backstage dressing and storage areas Level 3,
  Upper Stage could represent balcony, walls of a
  castle, bridge of a ship
• Resembled courtyard of an inn

The Globe Theatre
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Elizabethan Theatre
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The Globe Theatre
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• Proscenium stage
• A large platform without a curtain or a stage
  setting
• 2 ornate pillars supported canopy
• Stage roof (underpart of canopy)
• called the heavens
• elaborately painted to depict the sun, moon,
  stars, planets

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• Trap doors entrances and exits of ghosts area
  under stage called Hell
• 2 large doors at back actors made entrances and
  exits in full view of audience
• Inner stage a recess with balcony area above
• Floor ash mixed with hazelnut shells from snacks
  audience ate during performance
• Effect on performance plays held in afternoon
• No roof
• No artificial lighting
• No scenery

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Acting companies

• Developed from the medieval trade guilds
• Were composed of
• Only boys and men
• Young boys performed female roles

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Audience

• 2000-3000 people from all walks of life
• Well-to-do spectators sat in covered galleries
  around stage
• Most stood in yard around platform stage
  groundlings

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The sonnets

• Containing some of the greatest lyric poems in
  English literature, Shakespeares Sonnets are not
  just the easy love sentiments of "Shall I compare
  thee to a summer's day." Many of the poems are
  bleak cries of emotional torment and spiritual
  exhaustion. They tell a story of the struggle of
  love and forgiveness against anguish and despair.
  It is this tragic portrait of human love that
  makes the sonnets immortal.

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Sonnet 18

• Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou
  art more lovely and more temperateRough winds
  do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's
  lease hath all too short a dateSometime too hot
  the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold
  complexion dimm'd And every fair from fair
  sometime declines, By chance, or nature's
  changing course un-trimm'dBut thy eternal
  summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of
  that fair thou ow'st, Nor shall death brag thou
  wander'st in his shade,When in eternal lines to
  time thou grow'st So long as men can breathe,
  or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this
  gives life to thee

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Paraphrase of Sonnet 18

• Shall I compare you to a summer's day? You are
  more lovely and more moderate Harsh winds
  disturb the delicate buds of May, and summer
  doesn't last long enough. Sometimes the sun is
  too hot, and its golden face is often dimmed by
  clouds. All beautiful things eventually become
  less beautiful, either by the experiences of life
  or by the passing of time. But your eternal
  beauty won't fade, nor lose any of its quality.
  And you will never die, as you will live on in my
  enduring poetry. As long as there are people
  still alive to read poems this sonnet will live,
  and you will live in it.

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Sonnet 18 Commentary

• The gender of the addressee is not explicit
• The first two quatrains focus on the fair
  persons beauty
• The poet attempts to compare it to a summers day
• The timeless beauty far surpasses that of the
  fleeting, inconstant season.
• The theme of the ravages of time predominates
• The poet is eternalizing the fair persons beauty
  in his verse
• The poet describes summer as a season of extremes
  and disappointments
• These imperfections contrast sharply with the
  poets description of the fair person
• In line 12 we find the poets solution
• The poet plans to capture the fair personss
  beauty in his verse
• The poem will withstand the ravages of time
• Summer as a metaphor for youth, or perhaps beauty
  or both

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Figures of speeech

• Rhyming scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.
• Anaphora (the repetition of opening words) in
  lines 6-7, 10-11, and 13-14.
• Metaphor summer for youth or beauty or both
• Initial Rethorical question
• Comparison
• Personification
• Imagery

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Sonnet 73

• That time of year thou mayst in me beholdWhen
  yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hangUpon
  those boughs which shake against the cold,Bare
  ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds
  sang.In me thou seest the twilight of such
  dayAs after sunset fadeth in the west,Which by
  and by black night doth take away,Death's second
  self, that seals up all in rest.In me thou
  see'st the glowing of such fireThat on the ashes
  of his youth doth lie,As the death-bed whereon
  it must expireConsumed with that which it was
  nourish'd by.This thou perceivest, which makes
  thy love more strong,To love that well which
  thou must leave ere long.

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Paraphrase of Sonnet 73

• In me you can see that time of yearWhen a few
  yellow leaves or none at all hangOn the
  branches, shaking against the cold,Bare ruins of
  church choirs where lately the sweet birds
  sang.In me you can see only the dim light that
  remainsAfter the sun sets in the west,Which is
  soon extinguished by black nightThe image of
  death that envelops all in rest.In me you can
  see the glowing embersThat lie upon the ashes
  remaining from the flame of my youth,As on a
  death bed where it (youth) must finally
  dieConsumed by that which once fed it.This you
  sense, and it makes your love more determinedTo
  love more deeply that which you must give up
  before long.

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Sonnet 130

• My mistress' eyes are nothing like the
  sun,Coral is far more red, than her lips red,If
  snow be white, why then her breasts are dunIf
  hairs be wires, black wires grow on her headI
  have seen roses damasked, red and white,But no
  such roses see I in her cheeks,And in some
  perfumes is there more delight,Than in the
  breath that from my mistress reeks.I love to
  hear her speak, yet well I know,That music hath
  a far more pleasing soundI grant I never saw a
  goddess go,My mistress when she walks treads on
  the ground.And yet by heaven I think my love as
  rare,As any she belied with false compare.

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Paraphrase of Sonnet 130

• My mistress's eyes are not at all like the sun
• Coral is much more red than her lips
• If snow is white, then her breasts are certainly
  not white as snow
• If hairs can be compared to wires, hers are black
  and not golden
• I have seen roses colored a combination of red
  and white
• But I do not see such colors in her cheeks
• And some perfumes give more delight
• Than the breath of my mistress.
• I love to hear her speak, but I know
• That music has a more pleasing sound than her
  voice
• I also never saw a goddess walk
• But I know that my mistress walks only on the
  ground.
• And yet I think my love as rare
• .As any woman who has had poetic untruths told
  about her

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Sonnet 116

• Let me not to the marriage of true mindsAdmit
  impediments, love is not loveWhich alters when
  it alteration finds,Or bends with the remover to
  remove.O no, it is an ever-fixed markThat looks
  on tempests and is never shakenIt is the star
  to every wand'ring bark,Whose worth's unknown,
  although his height be taken.Love's not Time's
  fool, though rosy lips and cheeksWithin his
  bending sickle's compass come,Love alters not
  with his brief hours and weeks,But bears it out
  even to the edge of doomIf this be error and
  upon me proved,I never writ, nor no man ever
  loved.

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Sonnet 71

• No longer mourn for me when I am dead,Than you
  shall hear the surly sullen bellGive warning to
  the world that I am fledFrom this vile world
  with vilest worms to dwellNay if you read this
  line, remember not,The hand that writ it, for I
  love you so,That I in your sweet thoughts would
  be forgot,If thinking on me then should make you
  woe.O if (I say) you look upon this verse,When
  I (perhaps) compounded am with clay,Do not so
  much as my poor name rehearseBut let your love
  even with my life decay.Lest the wise world
  should look into your moan,And mock you with me
  after I am gone.

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Links

• Shakespeare Resource centre
• Mr W. Shakespeare and the Internet
• No sweat Shakespeare
• Absolute Shakespeare
• Shakespeares Movies
• Works in Italian
• Shakespeare in Modern English
• Study Guides
• Online Guides
• One more guide