William Shakespeare

1. William Shakespeare 1564-1616 Stratford-on-Avon - England

2. 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 Overview

3. 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

4. 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)

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

6. Works Editions of works: First Quarto (1603), Second Quarto (1604), Folio (1623)

7. A Midsummer Night's Dream All's Well That Ends Well As You Like It Cymbeline Loves Labours Lost Measure for Measure Much Ado AboutNothing 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 Comedy

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

9. 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 History

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

11. 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 behuman, and to cope with the problems of being so

12. 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.

16. 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. • He’s 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

17. 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 Words invented by the Bard misplaced monumental obscene pious premeditated radiance reliance road sportive submerge suspicious

18. Stratford-upon-Avon

19. Elements of drama 5-part dramatic structure corresponds to a play’s 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

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

21. Dramatic technique • Pun: play on wordsinvolving • 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

22. 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 sùmmer’s dày”

23. 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

24. Elizabethan Theatre

25. The Globe Theatre

26. 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

27. 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

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

29. 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”

30. The sonnets Containing some of the greatest lyric poems in English literature, Shakespeare’s 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.

31. Sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date:Sometime 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'd;But 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

32. ParaphraseofSonnet 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.

33. Sonnet 18 Commentary • The gender of the addressee is not explicit • The first two quatrains focus on the fair person’s beauty • The poet attempts to compare it to a summer’s 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 person’s beauty in his verse • The poet describes summer as a season of extremes and disappointments • These imperfections contrast sharply with the poet’s description of the fair person • In line 12 we find the poet’s solution • The poet plans to capture the fair persons’s beauty in his verse • The poem will withstand the ravages of time • Summer as a metaphor for youth, or perhaps beauty or both

34. 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

35. Sonnet73 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.

36. Paraphraseof 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.

37. 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 dun:If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head:I 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 sound:I 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.

38. 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

39. 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 shaken;It 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 doom:If this be error and upon me proved,I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

40. 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 dwell:Nay 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 rehearse;But 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.

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