Freshman English 101 by Tammy Lawless

1. The Genre of Shakespeare Freshman English 101 by Tammy Lawless

2. Expectations • To remind you what you may have learned previously. • To learn more in-depth information about the history of Shakespeare. • To give you some in-depth knowledge to the genre of Shakespeare’s works. • To be able to create a short play based on a genre and then defend it in a short essay.

3. All you Ever Wanted to Know About Shakespeare

4. Do you really know Shakespeare? • Take some time and answer the questions on the worksheet next to the computer. See how much you really remember about the famous literary genius! Then when you are done check your answers with the presentation.

5. Test Your Answers! • A. 1564--the year Shakespeare was born • B. Stratford-upon-Avon. Stratford was not large, but was an important market center in Warwickshire, about 100 miles northwest of London. • C. Latin grammar and translation were the main subjects of study. • C. A marriage license was issued for Shakespeare and Hathaway on November 28, 1582. • C. In Elizabethan times any infectious disease which was widespread and caused many deaths was called a plague, but the plague responsible for closing the theaters and causing thousands of deaths over these years was the bubonic plague, caused by a bacillus spread of the rat flea. During the 14th century it was called the Black Death, and was responsible for the death of one quarter to one third the population of Europe.

6. Answers Continued... • B. No one knows the exact order of composition. Scholars can make educated guesses, but there is not enough clear evidence to say exactly in what order they were composed. • A. Acting companies sought the protection and preferment of aristocrats. Aristocratic patronage could protect players from the city of London authorities, who were usually eager to curtail their activities. • B. In 1599, it was assembled south of the Thames. It was built from the timbers of the theater where Shakespeare formerly played, called The Theater. • A. These are Shakespeare’s greatest achievement in the genre of tragedy. • B. James Stuart, James VI of Scotland, became James I of England upon the death of Queen Elizabeth. He reined from 1603-1625.

7. Almost Done! • B. These plays share certain romantic elements not typical of the rest of Shakespeare’s works. • B. April 23, 1616. • C. It printed 36 plays, 18 of which had never before been printed. Without it we may never have known of many of Shakespeare’s masterpieces, such as Macbeth, Anthony and Cleopatra, or The Tempest.

8. Shakespeare's Life • As you have learned from the quiz Shakespeare had training in Latin and Roman authors which influenced his work. • There is a period in his time known as the lost years in which there is no documentary record of his activities. There are many speculations but no one knows what happened. • The years 1594-1599 were momentous. He produced a steady stream of plays and the Globe was opened in 1599.

9. The Globe Theater • This was Shakespeare’s theater--built in 1599, Shakespeare owned part of it and even acted there. • September 21, 1599 was the first recorded performance of a play at the Globe. That play was Julius Caesar. Henry V and As You Like It were probably also performed that year. • 1613 is when the Globe burns down accidentally during a performance of Henry VIII. As the story goes it burned after a canon was shot. It was rebuilt immediately on original foundations however.

10. Discussion • Brainstorm with your group on how the Globe might have looked on the inside and what props may have been used based on what you already know. Write down what you come up with and save it for tomorrow’s discussion over the Globe.

11. Parting is such sweet sorrow • Shakespeare died in 1616 without ever seeing a complete publication of his works. • However, seven years after his death, his fellows Heminges and Condell brought forth the first folio: Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories & tragedies. • It published 36 plays, 18 of which were published for the first time. • The first page of the folio contained a dedication by Ben Jonson a fellow actor and writer who was Shakespeare’s rival. In it he asserts the superiority of Shakespeare not only to other English playwrights but to the Greek and Latin masters.

12. A Quick Overview of the Works • Shakespeare’s early works can be divided into four groups: • The Classical plays: his first works, which were heavily influenced by the classical examples he had learned as a student. • The History plays: whereShakespeare took the rough materials he found in early chronicle play, and virtually invented a new genre called the history play. His early works in this genre were the three Henry VI plays and Richard III. • The Narrative Poems and Sonnets: the sonnets were probably composed over a number of years, but were probably completed by 1597. • Experiments in comedy: The Taming of the Shrew, Two Gentlemen of Verona and Love’s Labour’s Lost probably all belong to this period.

13. More About His Plays • Richard II, Richard III, Henry IV, King John and Romeo and Juliet are tragedies. All of these can be called chronicle history plays, a popular kind of drama based on historical accounts and presents dramatically the world of events in the reigns of various English kings. The great tragedies are Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello and Anthony and Cleopatra. • A Midsummer’s Night Dream, The Merchant of Venice and Love Labour’s Lost are considered comedies. The great romantic comedies are As you Like it and Much Ado About Nothing. • Out of these we will study one tragedy and one comedy: King Lear and Much Ado About Nothing. That way you can see the contrast in writing and style.

14. History Plays In-Depth • History was a morality play, written, staged, and directed by God. It had a pattern and a plot, and there was a reason for everything. By examining history, Elizabethans traced their destiny as it worked itself out through the movements of kings, queens , tyrants and rebels. • Moreover, in the historical contest between the forces of Good and Evil, the good side (I.e., English, Tudor, Protestant) triumphs, while the bad (I.e., French, Italian Roman Catholic) are defeated--if not in this generation, then in the next. The cyclical pattern of the history plays bears this out: both begin in discord and end in peace. • During the Renaissance, Elizabethans began to develop a sense of their own past and this was shown in plays. They looked upon the past as a mirror of their own age that, if studied carefully, could teach them how to avoid the mistakes of their ancestors. History was a warning and a prophecy.

15. Romantic Comedies In-Depth • Shakespeare’s romantic comedies can be summed up in one word: love--its trials, torments, confusions and delights. And it is always love that begins at first sight and ends with marriage. • A comedy is distinguished from a tragedy in that it ends happily and no one dies. Comedies begin as potential tragedies, but through the pluck of the heroine or the grace of the gods, disaster is always averted. Shakespeare’s romantic comedies begin with feuding, misunderstandings and obstacles and end with dancing, music and marriage. To the Elizabethans, song and dance were symbols of cosmic harmony and marriage represented the ideal balance between the sexes. • Comedies thus end with beginnings, and so they express the cycle of life, in which winter represents decay and is immediately followed by spring which is the renewal of life.

16. Tragedy In-Depth • Shakespearean tragedy involves solitary men struggling with the most basic fact of all: human existence. Tragedy is defined not by what it does but by what it does to us. We experience tragedy. • In tragedy we exposed to a world of absolutes--mortality, time, death, decay, good and evil are revealed. It exposes those dark impulses that lie below life’s smooth surfaces. • The heroes are pushed to the greatest limits of human endurance. These tragic heroes are lofty figures, princes or other noblemen who live life to the fullest--and fall. • The tragic hero is a noble man who possesses one fatal flaw. It is this one imperfection in an otherwise perfect nature that leads to his downfall.

17. Sonnets Galore • Although Shakespeare devoted his genius primarily to the stage, he was as well the foremost lyric poet of his age! • His cycle is quite unlike the other sonnet sequences of his day, notably in the idealization of a young man (rather than a young lady) as the object of praise. Nor are the moods confined to what the Renaissance thought were those of the despairing Petrarchan lover: they include delight, pride, melancholy, shame, disgust, and fear. • Although the vocabulary of the sonnets is usually simple the metaphorical style is very rich. The structure of the sonnets also reinforces the power of the metaphors. • We shall study some of these sonnets for metaphors so that you can recognize easily a metaphor in context.

18. Take Home Assignment • Now that you have learned about the genre of Shakespeare’s plays create a play based on one of the genres. It does not have to be long, just a few pages so that one can see what type of play it is. Then write why you did what you did in defense of your play.

19. The Finale • That is the end of the presentation--hope you came away with some good knowledge about Shakespeare and will use it when reading the works! • Don’t forget about your assignment for tonight! Presentation by Tammy Lawless