• Background
• Lived 1564-1616
• wrote 37 plays
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Guess which one is the
movie version!?!?
Romeo and Juliet
Julius Caesar
Hamlet
Othello
King Lear
Macbeth
• about 154 sonnets
• Started out
performing with
“The Lord
Chamberlain’s
Men”
• Background
Information
• Born Stratford-on-Avon
• Well-to-do, affluent
while alive
• Most quoted, other than
the Bible
• Types of Plays
– Comedies: light
and amusing,
usually with a
happy ending
– Tragedies: serious
dramas with
disastrous endings
– Histories: involve
events or persons
from history
• The Globe
• Many playwrights with
nowhere to “play”
• Barn turned into
theatre
• Original Globe was 3
stories and held about
3000 people.
• Although most of
Shakespeare’s plays
were held there, he
only owned 12% of the
theatre.
• The Globe
• All classes of people
attended plays there.
• No roof so that they had
sunlight.
• Thus, plays had to be
during the day.
• People often skipped
work to go.
• Was not allowed to be
built in the city of
London because
crowds often became
rowdy.
• The Elements of the
Theatre and Plays
– Costumes
• Costumes were often
the company’s most
valuable asset
• Costumes were made
by the company,
bought in London, or
donated by courtiers
• Acting
• Only men were
permitted to perform
• Boys or effeminate
men were used to play
the women
• It would have been
indecent for a
woman to appear on
stage
The Double Switch! Girl is
Boy and Boy is Girl!
– Spectators
•
Will Ferrell is the most
famous alumnus of the
comedy improvisational
group called “The
Groundling” based in Los
Angeles
• Wealthy people got
to sit on benches
• Groundlings, poor
people, had to
stand and watch
from the courtyard
– Women not allowed
(had to dress up as
men to attend)
– Threw rotten
vegetables at bad
performance
• There was much
more audience
participation than
today
• London During
Elizabethan Era
– Personal
hygiene/health
• Poor Sewer System
• Bathing considered
dangerous
• Body odor strong
Queen
Elizabeth
London During Elizabethan Era
– Diseases
• Childhood diseases
• Children often died
before 5 years
• Small Pox
• Bubonic Plague
London During Elizabethan Era
– Entertainment
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Bear-baiting
Races
Gambling
Music
Drinking/socializing
Prostitution
London During Elizabethan Era
– Clothing
• One set used all
year long, rarely
washed
• Underclothing slept
in, infrequently
changed
• Clothes handed
down from rich to
poor
• Foreshadowing
• is the use of hints or
clues to suggest what
will happen later in
literature.
Friar Lawrence warns Romeo
that his romance with Juliet is
rash and hurried.
His warnings are an example of
Foreshadowing.
• Imagery
Queen Mab is described in great
detail—she’ll visit you while you
dream!
• is language that
evokes one or all of
the five senses:
seeing, hearing,
tasting, smelling,
touching.
• Irony
– Dramatic Irony
• is when an audience
perceives something that
a character in the
literature does not know.
For example, the audience knows that
Juliet took a sleeping potion and isn't
really dead. Romeo's suicide affects the
audience even more because of this
knowledge.
• Irony
– Verbal Irony
• is when an author
says one thing and
means something
else.
"Two households, both alike in dignity.” When you first read this, you
may think that the two families are pretty dignified or honorable. As
the play goes on, however, you realize that each family is violently
competitive. They are similarly undignified.
• Situational Irony
• is a discrepancy
between the expected
result and actual
results.
Shakespeare's play, the young
lovers do end up spending
eternity together, but not in the
way the audience had hoped.
• Monologue
• A long speech made
by one person.
• Soliloquy
• A dramatic or literary form of
discourse in which a character
talks to himself or herself or
reveals his or her thoughts
without addressing a listener.
Juliet speaks to the audience
about her love of Romeo
from outside of her balcony ;
she doesn’t know that he is
listening in!
• Aside
• A piece of dialogue
intended for the
audience and
supposedly not heard
by the other actors on
stage.
Romeo listens in on Juliet while she
talks on the balcony and talks to the
audience (or himself) about whether
he should reveal himself to her or
continue to eavesdrop!
• Stage Action
• the stage direction is
entered into the
dialogue.
Rapper’s Delight: hip
hop a hippie a hippie
To the hip hip
• Sonnet
• a poem, properly expressive of
a single, complete thought,
idea, or sentiment, of 14 lines,
usually in iambic pentameter,
with rhymes arranged
according to one of certain
definite schemes.
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 untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Show me your GRILLE,
Shakespeare!!!!!
• Rhyme Scheme
• is rhymed words at
the ends of lines.
My name is Jay-Z
And now you can see
How I rhyme like a bee!
Zoom, Zoom, STING!
• Quatrain
• is a stanza or poem of
four lines, usually with
alternate rhymes.
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
• Heroic Couplet
• is a stanza consisting
of two rhyming lines
You wait a couple months then you gon' see
You'll never find nobody better than me
• Blank Verse
• is a line of poetry that
doesn’t rhyme.
How could you be so Dr. Evil, you bringin' out a side of me that I dont know...
I decided we weren't gon' speak
• Alliteration
• Assonance
• Consonance
• is the repetition of
initial sounds in
neighboring words.
• is the repetition of
vowel sounds but not
consonant
sounds.
• is the repetition of
consonant sounds,
but not vowels.
I said a hip hop a hippie a hippie
To the hip hip hop, a you don't stop
The rockin' till the bang man woogie say up
jumped the boogie to the rhythm of the
boogity beat
• Pun
Yo, Tiger: When drinking, don't drive.
Don't even putt !!
• is the usually
humorous use of a
word in such a way as
to suggest two or
more of its meanings
or the meaning of
another word similar
in sound.
• Metaphor
• Simile
• is the comparison of two unlike
things using the verb "to be"
and not using like or as.
• is the comparison of two unlike
things using like or as.
All right stop, Collaborate and listen
Ice is back with my brand new invention
Something grabs a hold of me tightly
Flow like a harpoon daily and nightly
Will it ever stop? Yo! I don't know
Turn off the lights and I'll glow
To the extreme I rock a mic like a vandal
Light up a stage and watch me jump like a
candle.
• Personification
• is giving human
qualities to animals or
objects.
My bling was a talkin’
And was a walkin’
My gold was a showin’
And they was a known’
That my moneys be talkin’
• Oxymoron
• is putting two
contradictory words
together.
She was an open secret;
Giving freezer burn to me
I was the living dead underneath
Yo, SHE HURT ME TOO GOOD!!!
Romeo and Juliet
A Brief Introduction
• Romeo and Juliet
• Written by Shakespeare
in 1594 or 1595.
• The play focuses on the
following themes:
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Love and Hate
Age and Maturity
Fate
Dreams,
Omens and forebodings
(foreshadowing)
• The Play is a
Tragedy:
• A narrative about
serious and
important actions
that end unhappily.
• Play ends with the
death of main
characters
• Romeo and Juliet: Act I
– Exposition
• Establishes the
setting
• Introduces the main
characters
• Explains background
• Introduces the
characters’ main
conflict
A Very Brief Plot Summary
• Act I
– Overview
• Act I – Shakespeare
establishes an on-going feud
between two families, the
Montagues and Capulets.
• Juliet’s father decides that
even though Juliet is only 13 it
is time to find her a husband.
• Romeo (a Montague) and
Juliet ( A Capulet) meet and
fall in love.
• The Montagues
– Romeo
• Introspective; upset
over being scorned by
Rosaline
– Lord and Lady
Montague
• Romeo’s parents
– Benvolio
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• Friend of Romeo; acts
as a peacemaker;
level-headed
The Capulets
• Juliet
• Lord and Lady Capulet
• Nurse
• Tybalt
• Innocent; her hand in marriage
is being sought after by Paris
(despite her age only being
13!)
• Juliet’s parents
• Juliet’s attendant; crude and
humorous
• cousin to Juliet; violent and
hot-tempered; looking for
trouble
• Sampson and Gregory
• Servants to the Capulets
– Mercutio
– Paris
– Prince
– Friar Laurence
• Friend of Romeo and relative
of the Prince; funny and
outgoing; loud
• Holds rank of Count; seeks
Juliet’s hand in marriage
• Upset over the behavior of the
two families; vows that death
will be the penalty if his streets
continue to be disturbed
• Doubts whether it is wise for
Romeo to seek out Juliet;
• Helps Romeo in his quest to
marry Juliet, because he
hopes it will bring the two
families together and end the
hate
• Two Households
• Capulets
– Juliet’s House
• Montagues
– Romeo’s House
• Both Alike in Dignity
• Both families are
wealthy and important
• “Dignity,” however,
ends up having a
double meaning: they
are rich, but we learn
they lack dignity in
many respects
• In fair Verona, where
we lay our scene
• Verona is the setting
of the play. It takes
place in Verona, Italy
• From Ancient grudge
break to new mutiny
• The Montagues and
Capulets have
disliked each other
many generations
• The source of this
dislike is unknown
• The two families have
had their “grudge”
renewed and have
been fighting
• Where civil blood
makes civil hands
unclean
• Civilians are being
killed in the crossfire
of the families
• Civilians of Verona
are fighting each
other
• From the fatal loins of
these two foes
• Both families have
children (Romeo and
Juliet) who end up
falling in love with
each other
• The word “fatal”
points to the tragic
ending of the play
• A pair of star cross’d
lovers take their life
• Both Romeo and
Juliet meet a
disasterous end: both
commit suicide