William Shakespeare
1564-1616 Stratford-on-Avon - England
Overview
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Who was he?
Why is he so famous?
Life
Works
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Tragedy
Comedy
History
Poetry
Chronology
Elements of drama
Dramatic technique
Poetic technique
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Elizabethan theatre
Sonnet XVIII
Macbeth
Hamlet
Julius Caesar
Romeo and Juliet
Much ado about nothing
The Merchant of Venice
Links
Who was he?
 Widely regarded as the greatest writer in
English Literature
 Poet and dramatist
 Wrote 37 plays: comedies, histories,
tragedies
 Composed about 154 sonnets and a few
poems
 Started out as an actor
Life
 Born around April 23, 1564; 3rd of 8 children Family
lived in Stratford-on-Avon, a market town about 100
miles NW of London
 Father (John) a shopkeeper. A man of considerable
standing in Stratford. Served as Justice of the Peace
and High Bailiff (mayor)
 Attended grammar school, where he studied Latin,
grammar and literature, Rhetoric (the use of
language). No further formal education known
 Marriage to Anne Hathaway, 8 years older than he,
3 children: Susanna (1583), Judith and Hamnet
(twins, 1585)
Later life
 1594 - became shareholder in a company of actors
called Lord Chamberlain’s Men
 1599 - Lord Chamberlain’s Co. Built Globe Theater
where most of S. Play’s were performed
 1599 - Actor for Lord Chamberlain’s Men and
principal playwright for them
 1603 – James I became king of England; acting
company renamed King’s Men
 1610 – Shakespeare retired to Stratford-on-Avon
April 2
 1616 – died at the age of 52
Works
Editions of works: First Quarto (1603),
Second Quarto (1604), Folio (1623)
Comedy
 A Midsummer Night's
Dream
 All's Well That Ends
Well
 As You Like It
 Cymbeline
 Loves Labours Lost
 Measure for Measure
 Much Ado About
Nothing
 Pericles, Prince of Tyre
 The Comedy of Errors
 The Merchant of
Venice
 The Merry Wives of
Windsor
 The Taming of the
Shrew
 The Tempest
 Troilus and Cressida
 Twelfth Night
 Two Gentlemen of
Verona
 Winter's Tale
Tragedy
Antony and
Cleopatra
Coriolanus
Hamlet
Julius Caesar
King Lear
Macbeth
Othello
Romeo and Juliet
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
History
Henry
Henry
Henry
Henry
Henry
IV,
IV,
V
VI,
VI,
part 1
part 2
part 1
part 2
Henry VI, part 3
Henry VIII
King John
Richard II
Richard III
Poetry
A Lover's Complaint
Sonnets (about 154)
The Passionate Pilgrim
The Phoenix and the turtle
The Rape of Lucrece
Venus and Adonis
Why is he still so famous?
 His plays portray recognizable people in situations we
experience in our lives: love, marriage, death,
mourning, guilt, the need to make difficult
choices, separation, reunion and reconciliation
 They do so with great humanity, tolerance, and
wisdom
 They are constantly fresh and can be adapted to the
place and time they are performed
 Their language is wonderfully expressive and
powerful
 They help us to understand what it is to be human,
and to cope with the problems of being so
Chronology
The problem with any timeline of
Shakespeare's works is that most dates
are subject to interpretation. While it is
easy to say that The Comedy of Errors is
an early work and The Tempest is quite
later, exact dates are not - and may not
ever be -proved.
Date
Written
Date
Range
First
Published
The Comedy of Errors
1590
? - 1594
1623
Titus Andronicus
1590
? - 1594
1594
The Taming of the Shrew
1591
? - 1594
1623
2 Henry VI
1591
? - 1592
1594
3 Henry VI
1591
? - 1592
1595
1 Henry VI
1592
? - 1592
1623
Richard III
1592
1592 - 1597
1597
Love's Labor's Lost
1593
? - 1597
1598
Title
Two Gentlemen of Verona
1593
? - 1598
1623
A Midsummer Night's Dream
1594
1594 - 1598
1600
Romeo and Juliet
1595
? - 1597
1597
Richard II
1595
1595 - 1597
1597
King John
1596
? - 1598
1623
The Merchant of Venice
1596
1594 - 1598
1600
Henry IV Part 1
1596
1595 - 1598
1598
Henry IV Part 2
1597
1596 - 1598
1600
The Merry Wives of Windsor
1597
1597 - 1602
1602
As You Like It
1598
1598 - 1600
1623
Much Ado About Nothing
1598
1598 - 1600
1600
Henry V
1599
1599
1600
Julius Caesar
1599
1598 - 1599
1623
Twelfth Night
1600
1600 - 1602
1623
Hamlet
1601
1599 - 1601
1603
Troilus and Cressida
1602
1601 - 1603
1609
All's Well That Ends Well
1603
1598 - ?
1623
Measure For Measure
1604
1598 - 1604
1623
Othello
1604
1598 - 1604
1622
King Lear
1605
1598 - 1606
1608
Macbeth
1606
1603 - 1611
1623
Antony and Cleopatra
1606
1598 - 1608
1623
Timon of Athens
1606
1598 - ?
1623
Pericles Prince of Tyre
1607
1598 - 1608
1609
Coriolanus
1608
1598 - ?
1623
Cymbeline
1609
1598 - 1611
1623
A Winter's Tale
1610
1598 - 1611
1623
The Tempest
1611
1610 - 1611
1623
Henry VIII
1613
1612 - 1613
1623
Language
 Used over 20,000 words in his works
 The average writer uses 7,500
 The English Dictionary of his time only had
500 words.
 He’s credited with creating 3,000 words in the
English Oxford Dictionary
 He was by far the most important individual
influence on the development of the modern
English
 He invented lots of words that we use in our
daily speech
Words invented by the Bard
accommodation
amazement
assassination
baseless
bloody
bump
castigate
changeful
control (noun)
countless
courtship
critic
eventful
exposure
frugal
generous
gloomy
hurry
impartial
indistinguishable
invulnerable
laughable
lonely
majestic
misplaced
monumental
obscene
pious
premeditated
radiance
reliance
road
sportive
submerge
suspicious
Stratford-upon-Avon
Elements of drama
5-part dramatic structure corresponds to a play’s
5 acts
 Exposition (introduction)
 Establishes tone, setting, main characters, main
conflict
 Fills in events previous to play
 Rising action
 Series of complications for the protagonist (main
character)
 flowing from the main conflict
Elements of drama
 Crisis or Climax
Turning point in story
Moment of choice for protagonist
Forces of conflict come together
 Falling action
Results of protagonist’s decision
Maintains suspense
 Resolution or Denouement
Conclusion of play
Unraveling of plot
May include characters’ deaths
Dramatic technique
Pun: play on words involving
 Word with more than one meaning
 Words with similar sounds
Soliloquy
 Speech of moderate to long length
 Spoken by one actor alone on stage (or not heard by
other actors)
Aside
 Direct address by actor to audience
– Not supposed to be overheard by other characters
Poetic technique
Blank verse: unrhymed iambic
pentameter
Iambic pentameter
5 units of rhythm per line
primary rhythm is iambic ( U / )
“Shal Ì compàre Thée to a sùmmer’s dày”
Typical 16th century theatre
Building:
3 stories Levels 1 & 2,
Backstage: dressing and storage areas
Level 3, Upper Stage: could represent
balcony, walls of a castle, bridge of a ship
Resembled courtyard of an inn
The Globe Theatre
Elizabethan Theatre
The Globe Theatre
Proscenium stage
A large platform without a curtain or a
stage setting
2 ornate pillars supported canopy
 Stage roof (underpart of canopy)
called “the heavens”
elaborately painted to depict the sun,
moon, stars, planets
 Trap doors: entrances and exits of ghosts;
area under stage called Hell
 2 large doors at back: actors made entrances
and exits in full view of audience
 Inner stage: a recess with balcony area
above
 Floor: ash mixed with hazelnut shells from
snacks audience ate during performance
 Effect on performance: plays held in afternoon
 No roof
 No artificial lighting
 No scenery
Acting companies
Developed from the medieval trade guilds
Were composed of
Only boys and men
Young boys performed female roles
Audience
2000-3000 people from all walks of life
 Well-to-do spectators sat in covered
galleries around stage
Most stood in yard around platform
stage – “groundlings”
Key Vocabulary
• Pun: Play on Words
• Alliteration: use of similar consonants:
example: …"Whither wilt thou wander,
wayfarer?"
• Oxymoron: “Expression with contradictory
words; a phrase in which two words of
contradictory meaning are used together for
special effect”
• Allusion
• Allusion: “Indirect reference: an indirect
reference to somebody or something”
• Metaphor: “a figure of speech in which a
term or phrase is applied to something to
which it is not literally applicable in order
to suggest a resemblance”
• Hyperbole: “obvious and intentional
exaggeration”
• Irony: “Literature. a. a technique of
indicating, as through character or plot
development, an intention or attitude
opposite to that which is actually or
ostensibly stated”
• Comic relief: “…an amusing scene,
incident, or speech introduced into serious
or tragic elements, as in a play, in order to
provide temporary relief from tension, or to
intensify the dramatic action”.
• Foreshadow: “To show or indicate
beforehand”
• Aside: “on or to one side; to or at a short
distance apart; away from some position or
direction”