William Shakespeare

1. William Shakespeare While Shakespeare caused much controversy, he also earned lavish praise and has profoundly impacted the world over in areas of literature, culture, art, theatre, and film and is considered one of the best English language writers ever. From the Preface of the First Folio (1623) "To the memory of my beloved, The Author, Mr. William Shakespeare: and what he hath left us"--Ben Jonson;

2. Historians have not found an painting, drawing, sketch or sculpture that they can propose is an accurate portrayal of what Shakespeare looked like. • There are two images, the Chandos portrait (top left) and the engraving by Martin Droeshout (bottom left) that are arguably the closest in likeness to the writer.

3. A Biography • Shakespeare was born in Stratford on Avon, England in 1564 (birthplace on left). • He was a quiet man and made quite a bit of money being a playwright in comparison with his rivals of the time: Marlowe and Jonson. • His father, John, was a glove-maker, more of a craftsman than a gentleman. He appears to have struggled financially as a result of being Catholic. Also, a member of the City Council until he stopped attending meetings. • Shakespeare never attended college and married young at 18 to Anne Hathaway, 26, who he did not seem to like very much. • He had three children by the time he was 21.

4. Seven years after the birth of his children we have documented information about him: “there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his “Tiger’s heart wrapped in a Player’s hide “[sarcastic paraphrase from “Henry VI”], supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes fac totum [Jack-of-all-trades] is in his own conceit the only Skakescene in a country” (from Robert Greene, Greene’s Groats-worth of Wit 1592). • Greene believed that Shakespeare was taking advantage of the public/ripping them off.

5. Despite criticism Shakespeare did become the King’s servants (good references!). • John Davies of Herefordshire in The Scourge of Folly (1610) says of Shakespeare: “To our English Terence, Mr. Will. Shakespeare: Some say (good Will) which I, in sport, do sing, Hadst thou not played some Kingly parts in sport, Thou hadst been a companion for a King, And been a King among the meaner sort [the lower class]”. • Greene argues that Shakespeare could have been a King if he hadn’t played one; the theater ruins your reputation.

6. The Reputation of Shakespeare and His Theater • In The Anatomie of Abuses (1583) Philip Stubbes proposes: “if you learn falsehood, if you will learn cozenage: if you will learn to deceive : if you will learn to play the Hypocrite: to cog, lie, and falsify: if you will learn to jest, laugh and fleer, to grin, to nod, and mow: if you will learn to play the vice, to swear, tear, and blaspheme, both Heaven and Earth: If you will learn to become a bawd, unclean, and to deviriginate Maids, to deflower honest Wives: if you will learn to murder, slay, kill, pick, steal, rob, and rove: If you will learn to rebel against Princes, to commit treasons, to consume treasures, to practice idleness, to sing and talk of bawdy love and venery: if you will learn to deride, scoff, mock & flout, to flatter & smooth: If you will learn to play the whore-master, the glutton, Drunkard, or incestuous person: if you will learn to become proud, haughty & arrogant: and finally, if you will learn to contemn GOD and all his laws, to care neither for heaven nor hell, and to commit all kind of sin and mischief, you need to go to no other school for all these good Examples, may you see painted before your eyes in interludes and plays”.

7. There were not any permanent theaters until two years after Shakespeare’s death. • Five years before Shakespeare’s birth, Queen Elizabeth pronounced Protestantism the official religion of England. • Theaters provided an unprecedented venue for daily gatherings and entertainment, unlike the popular bear and dog fights. • There was potential for great profit from the theater and, therefore, a larger incentive to put more effort/work into the plays. • Shakespeare was unique in his time because he was able to simply write his plays with very little revision and editing, unlike Ben Jonson who had to pain-stakingly think out every word.

8. There was a greater and greater need for more plays because the audience did not want to see the same thing everyday. • The plays were put on by the same company of actors, known as players. • Often times references were made to previous plays and the audience was able to recall the previous role of the players in other performances; this created a sense of unity and fluidity among the players and plays. • All classes of people could attend the plays; the price of admission was a penny! • Even women could attend the plays; this was a source of strangeness for those who could not believe women were allowed to watch.

9. “The sketch (left) is the only surviving contemporary rendering of the interior of an Elizabethan-era public theatre. As such, it's the closest thing historians have to an original picture of what the Globe may have looked like in its heyday”. ** • Shakespeare’s theater, The Globe, was constructed circa 1598. In 1613 the theater burned down when a cannon shot during a performance of Henry VIII ignited the thatched roof of the gallery. • “The foundations of the Globe were rediscovered in 1989, rekindling interest in a fitful attempt to erect a modern version of the amphitheater. Led by the vision of the late Sam Wanamaker, workers began construction in 1993 on the new theatre near the site of the original “.** • http://www.bardweb.net/globe.html

10. The highest seats were the most expensive. • Open-air performances took place during the day, which created more of a sense of mass entertainment. • There were no women actors – to the grief of social and religious commentators because men were kissing boys who were playing the parts of women. • It was surreal that boys were playing the parts of adults and eventually royalty, therefore many of the plays became satirical. The boys companies, therefore, failed around 1606.

11. From Fans to Critics • In The Globe the audience seemed to be in a place where watching drama society was unable to touch them, although in the middle of a city. • In 1614 arena theaters were built – Shakespeare’s prime in the height of public theaters. • For many, however, the question arose: “How can playing be a job?”

12. The theater began to occupy the same social stratum as a whore-house, where lower class could congregate. Theaters sold ale and were similar to taverns in some ways; they provided thieves and prostitutes a larger clientele, collected a mass of people together and riots, therefore, occurred after plays. There was not any police force at the time the plays were produced. • Objections were made that such a large group of people together would cause the spread of disease and infection. • People began to hate that their employees were not working, but watching plays. Theaters also drew people away from church; services began at 2 and the plays started at the same time. • The theater was closed six times in Shakespeare’s lifetime.

13. Players were seen as nothing more than beggars, fancy beggars, but still beggars because they asked for your money and gave you nothing in return. • People argued: “How can they be so good at portraying low-lifes if they aren’t themselves?” • Yet at the same time no one had experienced such fame as the playwrights and players did.

14. Shakespeare’s attitude toward work on the Stage • Life in the public eye brands and stains him - the best way to address it is directly: Sonnet 111 O, for my sake do you [with] Fortune chide, The guitly goddess of my harmful deeds, That did no better for my life provide Than public means which public manners breeds. Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, And almost thence my nature is subdu’d To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand. Pity me then, and wish I were renew’d, Whilst like a willing patient I will drink Potions of eisel ‘gainst my strong infection. No bitterness that I will bitter think, Nor double penance, to correct correction. Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye, Even that your pity is enough to cure me. Sonnet 112 Your love and pity doth th’ impression fill Which vulgar scandal stamp’d upon my brow, For what care I who calls me well or ill, So you o’er-green my bad, and I must strive To know my shames and praises from your tongue; None else to me, nor I to none alive, That my steel’d sense or changes right or wrong. In so profound abysm I throw all care Of others’ voices, that my adder’s sense To critic and to flatterer stopped are. Mark how with my neglect I do dispense: You are so strongly in my purpose bred That all the world besides methinks are dead.