Freshman English 101
by Tammy Lawless
 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.
All you Ever Wanted to Know
About Shakespeare
Basic Shakespeare and More
Shakespeare
His Life
Romantic Comedy
Genre of his plays
Tragedy
Historical
His work
Sonnets
Do you really know
Shakespeare?
4 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.
 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.
 B. No one knows the exact order of composition. Scholars can make
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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.
 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.
 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.
 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.
 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.
 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.
 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: where Shakespeare 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.
 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.
 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.
 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.
 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.
 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.
 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.
 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