Who is William Shakespeare?
The Globe Theater
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Who is William Shakespeare?
• Born in 1564 to John and Mary Arden
Shakespeare
• 1582: Married to Anne
• 1583: Birth of Daughter Susanna
• 1585: Birth of twins: Judith and Hamnet
• 1587-1592: Established in London as
actor/playwright; first work Comedy of
Errors
Who is William Shakespeare?
• 1593: Begins writing sonnets (until 1597-ish)
• 1594-1596: Some more famous plays
Romeo and Juliet and Midsummer Night’s
Dream
• 1597-1608: Best known plays including the
rest of the tragedies
• 1599: The Globe Theatre built
• 1609: Publication of the Sonnets
• April 23, 1616: Shakespeare dies
His Works
• Poetry
o
o
The Sonnets
The Rape of Lucrece
• Plays
 Tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth
 Comedies: Much Ado About Nothing
 Histories: Richard III, Henry V
The Time Period
• Elizabethan Era
• The Renaissance
• Actors were men only
o
Men even played female
roles!
• Plays were one of the main source of
entertainment
Three Classifications of
Shakespearean Drama:
• COMEDY
• HISTORY
• TRAGEDY
Romeo and Juliet is a…
Tragedy
TRAGIC HERO
Qualities of a Tragic Hero:
• Possesses high importance or rank
• Exhibits extraordinary talents
• Displays a tragic flaw—an error in
judgment or defect in character—that
leads to downfall
• Faces downfall with courage and dignity
BLANK VERSE
• Written like poetry
• But tells a story
• More free-flowing rules
o
doesn’t have a rhyme scheme or set number
of lines, etc.
• Iambic Pentameter
Iambic Pentameter
• Lines have a rhythm to them
• 10 syllables
• Pattern of stressed and unstressed
syllables
He JESTS at SCARS that NEV er FELT a WOUND
But SOFT! what LIGHT through YON der WIN dow BREAKS?
SOLILOQUY AND ASIDE
• Soliloquy - Long speech given by a
character while alone on stage to reveal
his or her private thoughts or intentions
• Aside - Character’s quiet remark to the
audience or another character that no one
else on stage is supposed to hear
DRAMATIC IRONY
• Irony—contrast between appearance and
reality
• Dramatic Irony—the audience or reader
knows something the character(s) does
not know
Foil
• A character with qualities that are in sharp
contrast to another character, thus
emphasizing the qualities of each
• How is Mercutio a foil to Romeo?
Journal Entry
Write about a time when you've done
something wrong
and it's affected others around you.
• What did you do?
• How did it affect others?
• What consequences did you face?
• Did you resolve it?