What do you know about William Shakespeare?
What do you know about William Shakespeare?
Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, in April
1564 and died on 23rd April 1616. We know that he was
baptised on 26th April 1564 and scholars now believe that he
was born on April 23rd. He therefore died on his fifty-second
birthday.
During his life, Shakespeare wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets.
This means an average 1.5 plays a year since he first started
writing in 1589. His last play The Two Noble Kinsmen is reckoned
to have been written in 1613 when he was 49 years old. While
he was writing the plays at such a pace he was also conducting a
family life, a social life and a full business life, running an acting
company and a theatre.
What do you know about William Shakespeare?
Few people realise that apart from writing his numerous plays
and sonnets, Shakespeare was also an actor who performed
many of his own plays as well as those of other
playwrights. During his life Shakespeare performed before
Queen Elizabeth I and, later, before James I who was an
enthusiastic patron of his work.
Some scholars have maintained that Shakespeare did not write
the Shakespeare plays, with at least fifty writers having been
suggested as the “real” author. However, the evidence for
Shakespeare’s having written the plays is very strong.
What do you know about William Shakespeare?
An outbreak of the plague in Europe resulted in all London
theatres being closed between 1592 and 1594. As there was no
demand for plays during this time, Shakespeare began to write
poetry, completing his first batch of sonnets in 1593, aged 29.
Shakespeare has been credited by the Oxford English Dictionary
with introducing almost 3,000 words to the English
language. Estimations of his vocabulary range from 17,000 to a
dizzying 29,000 words – at least double the number of words
used by the average conversationalist.
What do you know about William Shakespeare?
According to Shakespeare professor Louis Marder, “Shakespeare
was so facile in employing words that he was able to use over
7,000 of them – more than occur in the whole King James
Version of the Bible – only once and never again.”
We’re going to look at one of Shakespeare’s love
sonnets, before looking at a modern sonnet
about Shakespeare’s wife.
Shakespearean Sonnets - Structure
• There are fourteen lines in a Shakespearean sonnet.
• The first twelve lines are divided into three
quatrains with four lines each.
• In the three quatrains the poet establishes a theme
or problem and then resolves it in the final two
lines, called the couplet.
• The rhyme scheme of the quatrains is abab cdcd
efef. The couplet has the rhyme scheme gg.
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:
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And too often is his gold complexion dimm'd:
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance or natures changing course untrimm'd;
By 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.”
Quatrain 1
Quatrain 2
Quatrain 3
Couplet
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:
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And too often is his gold complexion dimm'd:
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance or natures changing course untrimm'd;
By 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.”
establishes
a theme or
problem
Resolution
Rhyme Scheme
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:
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And too often is his gold complexion dimm'd:
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance or natures changing course untrimm'd;
By 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.”
A
B
A
B
C
D
C
D
E
F
E
F
G
G
Now that you know more about the structure of a
Shakespearean sonnet, you are going to work in groups
to work out the correct structure of the muddled up
sonnet which you have been given.
Remember the rhyme scheme:
abab cdcd efef gg.
Here’s a clue to start you off: the first line is
“My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;”
Rhyme Scheme
SONNET 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
A
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
B
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
A
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
B
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
C
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
D
And in some perfumes is there more delight
C
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
D
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
E
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
F
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
E
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: F
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
G
As any she belied with false compare.
G
Now can you match up the muddled modern
version with the correct lines of the sonnet?
My mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips;
If snow is white, then her breasts are a brownish gray;
If hairs are like wires, hers are black and not golden.
I have seen damask roses, red and white [streaked],
But I do not see such colours in her cheeks;
And some perfumes give more delight
Than the horrid breath of my mistress.
I love to hear her speak, but I know
That music has a more pleasing sound.
I've never seen 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 been misrepresented by ridiculous
comparisons.
So, what is Shakespeare saying in this sonnet?
This sonnet is generally considered a humorous parody
of the typical love sonnet and plays an elaborate joke
on the conventions of love poetry common to
Shakespeare’s day.
The sonnet compares the speaker’s lover to a number
of other beauties—and never in the lover’s favour. Its
message is simple: the dark lady's beauty cannot be
compared to the beauty of a goddess or to that found
in nature, for she is but a mortal human being.
Shakespeare says that she is not a goddess and is not as
beautiful as things found in nature, another typical
source of inspiration for the average sonneteer.
Yet the narrator loves her nonetheless, and in the
closing couplet says that in fact she is just as
extraordinary ("rare") as any woman described with
such exaggerated or false comparisons; he insists that
love does not need these conceits in order to be real;
and women do not need to look like flowers or the sun
in order to be beautiful.
It is this blunt but charming sincerity that has made
sonnet 130 one of the most famous in the sequence.
Anne Hathaway
Carol Anne Duffy
Background and Narrative Voice:
Anne Hathaway was William Shakespeare's wife.
Background and Narrative Voice:
She was seven years his senior and already pregnant when
the 18-year-old Shakespeare married her.
Shakespeare left for her their second best bed in his will.
While a lot of Shakespeare scholars assume that this was a
sign that Shakespeare didn't love her, Duffy interprets the will
differently in the poem.
The second best bed in "Anne Hathaway" is a symbol of love
and devotion.
'Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed ...'
(from Shakespeare's will)
The bed we loved in was a spinning world
of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas
where we would dive for pearls. My lover's words
were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses
on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme
to his, now echo, assonance; his touch
a verb dancing in the centre of a noun.
Some nights, I dreamed he'd written me, the bed
a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance
and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.
In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,
dribbling their prose. My living laughing love I hold him in the casket of my widow's head
as he held me upon that next best bed.
Form and Structure:
Duffy's Anne Hathaway is a sonnet spoken in the voice of
Anne Hathaway.
Because Duffy imagines the speaker as one distinct character,
we can call this poem a dramatic monologue.
It follows the most basic sonnet rule in that it has fourteen
lines.
However, it breaks a lot of rules.
It has no formal rhyme scheme and its meter isn’t always
exactly iambic pentameter.
Form and Structure:
Fittingly, Duffy employs the sonnet form so adored by
Shakespeare.
This 14-line structure is often associated with love poetry, and
is highly appropriate given the subject matter of the poem.
Shakespearean sonnets contain three quatrains and a
couplet. (A quatrain is a stanza of exactly four lines, often
with an alternating rhyme pattern.)
The rhyme scheme is ABABCDCDEFEFGG.
The quatrains usually present the key ideas explored by the
poet with the resolution or 'volta' (an Italian term which
literally translates as: the turn) arriving in the couplet.
Form and Structure:
In the poem, Duffy quite literally employs a softer rhyme with
a much more relaxed, less restrictive rhyme scheme,
combined with overtly sensual, erotic language and imagery.
She uses a regular meter but her deliberate choices of
assonance and alliteration are designed to imitate the
random touching made during love making, so that it is
almost as though the words themselves are grazing each
other.
Form and Structure:
Duffy makes frequent use of enjambment in the poem to
show how freely and without obstruction love flowed
between the couple, as well as to place emphasis on
important words or phrases.
The entire poem is a metaphor comparing the couple’s love
making to the process of artistic and poetic creativity.
Comparing Sonnet 130 and ‘Anne Hathaway’
In Sonnet 130 Shakespeare compares his mistress to the standards
normally required of women in poetry, and concludes that even
though she is not the divine goddess other poets write about, to him
she is just as beautiful in spite of, or maybe even because of, her
human imperfections.
Anne Hathaway is about a marriage where the couple create their
own romance, one that does not involve conforming to other
people’s expectations. The poem allows the reader an insight into a
relationship of mutual love and respect, where the couple create a
retreat from the rest of the world through poetry, a world which is
symbolised by the second best bed. The power of literature and the
imagination is hence a central idea in the poem. The poem creates
significance around the bed which can only be truly understood by
the couple themselves. The poem is hence in one sense about
reinventing material objects.
Comparing Sonnet 130 and Anne Hathaway
Another theme that runs through the poem is Anne’s loss of her
husband and her genuine grief. A reader might perhaps expect Anne
Hathaway to be angry and resentful, permanently overshadowed
and side-lined by her husband, but Duffy’s Anne is only full of
admiration and love for her husband, cherishing her precious
memories that nobody else can share. Although Duffy gives Anne a
voice, she actually subverts the reader’s expectations through the
emotions expressed by the character.
Now you are going to annotate your copy of the
poem.
Make sure you take detailed notes to help you
with revision.
'Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed ...'
(from Shakespeare's will)
The bed we loved in was a spinning world
of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas
where we would dive for pearls. My lover's words
were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses
on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme
to his, now echo, assonance; his touch
a verb dancing in the centre of a noun.
Some nights, I dreamed he'd written me, the bed
a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance
and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.
In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,
dribbling their prose. My living laughing love I hold him in the casket of my widow's head
as he held me upon that next best bed.
'Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed ...'
(from Shakespeare's will)
The poem begins with an
epigraph taken directly from
Shakespeare’s will.
Despite being a man of
some considerable
property, he leaves his wife
only his “second best bed”.
An epigraph is a short
quotation or saying at the
beginning of a book or chapter,
intended to suggest its theme.
'Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed ...'
(from Shakespeare's will)
While some critics have viewed this as an insult,
Duffy presents a new perspective, using the bed
as a metaphor for the intense passion and
romance shared by the couple.
The “second best bed” was in fact the
couple’s marital bed, while the best was
reserved for guests. Duffy imagines,
then, that this legacy was the
playwright’s last romantic gesture.
Duffy gets us to
question the
judgements we
make on first
impressions.
The reader is immediately transported to a magical landscape filled with
metaphor, especially appropriate given that Shakespeare himself was
the master of this technique.
Past tense represents Hathaway’s loss
The bed we loved in was a spinning world
Suggests speed,
exhilaration &
excitement.
of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas
where we would dive for pearls. My lover's words
were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses
Interestingly, despite bearing him three
children, the persona of Anne created
by Duffy makes no reference to this
aspect of her marriage. She focuses on
their relationship as lovers rather than
as parents.
Their love made Anne dizzy
and was all encompassing.
‘world’ emphasises the idea
that they meant ‘everything’
to one another.
The “forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas” recalls the setting of
some of Shakespeare’s more famous works such as Macbeth, Hamlet
and The Tempest, suggesting a link between these iconic works of
literature and the poetry which together are echoes of the excitement
that took place in this bed.
The bed we loved in was a spinning world
of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas
where we would dive for pearls. My lover's words
were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses
Suggests
enchantment,
magic.
Suggests
fairy-tale
romance
Suggests a
carnival
atmosphere or
celebration
Suggests extreme
height – almost
dizzying – proximity
to danger,
dominance
Also suggests exotic /unusual
and the excitement and
adventure in their relationship.
Suggests romance as a pearl is an
expensive and rare precious stone,
and it takes a lot of effort to gather
them.
The bed we loved in was a spinning world
of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas
where we would dive for pearls. My lover's words
were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses
It suggests that their
relationship was filled
with treasures.
In their lovemaking, the
couple found something
precious and valuable, as
implied by the “pearls”.
Suggests
brightness,
magic,
specialness
This metaphor
continues the
intimate,
sensual tone
and…
suggests that his
language was heavenly,
otherwordly, celestial,
and beautiful.
The bed we loved in was a spinning world
of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas
Hathaway
admired
and was
seduced by
her lover’s
language
and
poetry…
where we would dive for pearls. My lover's words
were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses
The metaphor
reiterates the
fact that theirs
was a physical
and emotional
relationship.
This suggests
Shakespeare spoke
affectionately /
lovingly to Hathaway
and also the intimate
nature of his poetry.
which literally seems to
fall from the heavens as
though a gift from the
gods before transforming
into the physical touch of
a kiss.
Enjambment draws our
attention to ‘lover’s words’,
emphasising the importance of
Shakespeare’s language
The bed we loved in was a spinning world
of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas
where we would dive for pearls. My lover's words
were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses
Duffy clearly illustrates in this opening
quatrain the intensity of the romantic,
passionate relationship of the two lovers.
This starts an extended language /
literary metaphor- suggests the lovers’
connectedness, their sense of belonging
to one another and fulfilling each other.
Another literary term. It
suggests that they are very
similar, but also have their own
individuality.
on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme
‘verb’ is
personified…
and
describes
a verb dancing in the centre of a noun.
the erotic
Some nights, I dreamed he'd written me, the bed touch of
his hand
It suggests her lover’s
This deliberate
on her body,
ability to create – a verb is comparison elevates
suggesting the
an action word. Taken in
their lovemaking to
energy /
the context of a physical
something poetic and, in
excitement their
relationship, this could
doing so, literary or
intimacy brought
suggest her lover’s ability
linguistic terms become
her.
to bring life.
loaded with sensuality.
to his, now echo, assonance; his touch
Anne imagines too that, like the
characters in his plays, or like
one of his sonnets, Shakespeare
has 'written her’ through their
passionate exchanges.
It is almost as if she is his inspiration.
She doesn’t just inspire him to create
great literature – she actually
becomes part of it.
on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme
to his, now echo, assonance; his touch
a verb dancing in the centre of a noun.
Some nights, I dreamed he'd written me, the bed
She thinks of herself as his
creation; his love made her
a complete person – she
owes everything to him.
She is suggesting that it is only
when she regards herself
through his eyes and
imagination that she feels fully
alive.
The reference again to the bed at
the end of line eight creates a link
to the opening line of the poem
and reinforces the symbolic
significance of the bed as a
representation of their love.
The bed is presented as a
blank page – somewhere to
be imaginative and dream.
…the bed
a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance
and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.
In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,
dribbling their prose. My living laughing love This enjambment continues the extended metaphor
from the previous quatrain as the bed is compared to
the parchment on which the passion and excitement
so associated with the playwright was written.
This suggests
that she is the
recipient of his
creativity.
All the “romance and drama” contained in these
pages was played out or begun on their bed, and
again Duffy implies that the inspiration for his
characters and plots came from their lovemaking.
a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance
and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.
In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,
dribbling their prose. My living laughing love Again, Duffy combines Shakespeare’s
literature with his relationship with
Hathaway. A sense of excitement and
passion in their relationship is suggested.
The word “romance” is
deliberately placed at the end of
the line to emphasise that this is
what she most associates with
their relationship.
She compares
their relationship
to actors in a
great
performance.
Again this is very
sensual imagery –
all of the senses
are involved in
this poem.
a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance
and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.
In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,
dribbling their prose. My living laughing love Different senses
appealed to indicate
again the passion and
sensual nature of
their relationship.
The senses “touch”, “scent”, and “taste” are
employed to reinforce just how vividly she can
still recall their lovemaking, as though through
immersing herself in these memories she can
experience this passion once more.
Hathaway imagines the guests in the next room, “dribbling their
prose”, whilst herself and her husband create poetry and drama.
There is the sense that others’ relationships lack the passion and
excitement which they have.
a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance
and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.
In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,
dribbling their prose. My living laughing love Sleeping (with a
suggestion of laziness),
while others are more
pleasurably engaged
in sexual intercourse.
In a withering, disparaging
comment she describes others
as only capable of “dribbling
their prose.”
The implication is clear - poetry
symbolises the most skilful and
creative use of language while prose
by comparison is ordinary, utilitarian
and unexceptional.
a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance
and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.
In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,
dribbling their prose. My living laughing love Connotations of old age and
messiness compared with
the S & H’s apparent
creativity and vitality/energy.
Others are dull, clumsy and unattractive
while they enjoy a relationship filled
with ‘drama’ and ‘romance’ and which is
overwhelming in that it gives every
sense pleasure.
Alliteration: Emphasises
her fondness and love
for him. She misses his
energy and the sound of
him.
Reflects the
‘poetic’ beauty
of their
relationship.
Duffy employs elongated
assonance to emphasise
again how vividly and
clearly the speaker can
recall their passion…
a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance
and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.
In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,
dribbling their prose. My living laughing love At the end of this quatrain, the dash
creates a pause to allow us to reflect
on this idea and prepare us for the
resolution and the final couplet.
suggesting that her
lover continues in some
ways to exist and
survive in her memory.
This final couplet ends with
the masculine full rhyme of
“head” and “bed” to
provide a defined
conclusion to the poem.
A casket is generally an empty,
hollow container or a coffin.
This suggests that she is empty / lost
without him, but is trying to hold on
tight to his memory.
I hold him in the casket of my widow's head
as he held me upon that next best bed.
This can be seen as a further tribute
to Shakespeare’s own imagination /
creativity. It also indicates that only
Hathaway ever truly knew her
husband.
Rather than being buried or
cremated, Hathaway keeps
Shakespeare alive in her mind
/ imagination.
The metaphor of holding her lover in the protective
“casket” of her imagination reiterates the idea
presented in the previous line that, in our way, our
memory of a deceased loved one allows their
continued existence.
I hold him in the casket of my widow's head
as he held me upon that next best bed.
By remembering her husband,
and replaying her memories of
their passion, the speaker is really
honouring his true legacy and
repaying him for the way that he
held her in “that next best bed.”
Duffy seems to suggest that this
is much more fitting than an
urn or coffin which, although
they may contain the physical
remnants of a body, can never
capture the energy or vitality of
the person's character.
The simile in these lines compares her
holding on to his memory to him
embracing her in their marriage bed.
I hold him in the casket of my widow's head
as he held me upon that next best bed.
Themes
This poem deals with three main themes:
• passion
• sensual erotic love
• death and remembrance.
In the poem, Duffy really concentrates on conveying that
this was a marriage based on an all-encompassing, deeply
physical relationship. She uses the physical legacy of the
bed left by Shakespeare to his wife to meditate on this
specific aspect of their relationship.
Themes
In doing so, she presents a couple completely in tune with
each other both sexually and emotionally.
Fittingly, in a poem about the world’s greatest ever poet
and wordsmith, she uses language itself as an extended
metaphor to convey the intensity of their passion.
As well as emphasising the profound physical connection of
the lovers, Duffy also considers that the most fitting way to
honour our dead loved ones is by preserving the most
enduring, vivid aspects of their character in our memories,
thus allowing them to continue to survive.
Themes
“Anne Hathaway” allows us a different perspective of
Shakespeare, a man sometimes represented as a philandering
husband who put his writing above all else. We instead
perceive him as a devoted husband, who saw writing not as
something separate to marriage, but as something deeply
embedded within it. Therefore another key theme in the poem
is the true identity of William Shakespeare, a man about
whom scholars still know surprisingly little. By presenting this
poem in the voice of Anne Hathaway, Duffy wants us to
appreciate that Anne was a central part of his life, as well as a
passionate, creative and articulate woman in her own right.