The Shakespeare we love
T LELE:
The author’s voice
The author playing with language
Theme 1: The author’s voice
The author playing with language
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Doc 1: Shakespeare’s Sonnet XVIII
the Tmblr pop sonnet you have chosen
Comic Relief
Macbeth extract
• References: The Renaissance, Queen Elizabeth
I, immigration and integration US 1950s
Hans Holbein the younger: The Ambassadors
Describe the painting. Why can we say it is representative of the Renaissance?
Shakespeare’s plays
Macbeth, 1606. Prompted by his ambition, his wife and the prophecy of three witches, General
Macbeth kills King Duncan to become king himself, which leads to civil war, social and cosmic
disruption.
Read the introduction, can you see
references to the Elizabethan vision
of the world? The inheritance of the
Middle Ages?
What does Macbeth realize in all this
chaos?
Vocabulary
Visual Arts
Poetry
Anamorphosis : the A sonnet
distorted skull in
Holbein’s The
An iambic
Ambassadors.
pentameter
A vanitas / a
memento mori:
A reminder of
death
Drama
Music
A playwright
A dramatist
(author)
Type of music
A comedian
The rhythm
A historical play
The main theme /
topic of a song
A musical
A verse (a line)
A rhyme
A rhyming couplet
rhythm
A tragedy
A cue = a line
Stage directions
It is a reference to /
it echoes / it is
reminiscent of…
Tumblr upon a pop sonnet
http://popsonnet.tumblr.com/
SUBJECT MATTER
IN POP SONGS
LOVE, courting, unrequited love
Relationships: often difficult
Carpe diem, having fun,
Death
Money and Power
Loneliness and being in need of help
IN SHAKESPEARE
Pop Son(g)net
• Learn who turned your favorite pop songs into
sonnets.
Shall I Compare a Pop Song to a Shakespearean sonnet?
By Eliza Berman
• Shakespeare’s works are frequently cast in modern form, but Erik Didriksen,
the man behind the Tumblr “Pop Sonnets,” has reversed this formula,
rewinding the clock on current pop songs to render them in the form of
Shakespearean sonnets.
• The Shakespearean sonnet form, to which Didriksen meticulously adheres,
consists of three quatrains and a couplet, with the rhyming pattern ABAB
CDCD EFEF GG. Didriksen also recasts modern idioms into Shakespearean
diction: Stacy’s Mom, of Fountains of Wayne fame, doesn’t “got it goin’ on,”
but instead “beckons like a Siren’s song.” But as that example demonstrates,
the subjects of modern pop lyrics are not far from those that interested the
Bard: Is the frustration in Magic’s “Rude” concerning the protestations of a
lover’s father really so different from the yearning of a Montague for his
forbidden Capulet?
• Didriksen explained in an email that he was inspired by a Shakespearean
treatment of Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop.” He admits that properly
conjugating the verbs after “thee” and “thou” required some research, but
his background in music helped him attend to the sonnets’ rhythms.
Shall I compare thee to a rap song?
• Now It’s your turn to transform Shakespeare’s
sonnet into a rap song! Practice reading it!
• Learn the ending by heart for next time.
Recap
• The author’s voice
• The author playing with language
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Password literature p 48: Shakespeare (essential facts to know by heart)
P48:Things we say today (+Jane Austen)
P51 toolbox: vocabulary to know by heart
The iambic pentameter
Medieval settings, Elizabethan visions and modern topics
Final Task
• Write a complimentary letter to Erik Didriksen
explaining how his work helped you get to
grips with Shakespeare’s works.
 You must include a brief definition in your own words of:
The sonnet, the iambic pentameter, thee / thou / thy…
/8
 Mention the Renaissance, the Elizabethan conception of the world. /5
 Say what is modern in Shakespeare and what is not.
/5
 Greetings and layout /2
(bonus if you quote 2lines of the sonnet and underline the stressed syllables)
Prompts
• In class, your work on pop songs helped us
understand the form of the sonnet: …
• It was also very useful to practice reading
iambic pentameters (which are…)
• We now know that “thee” means…. “thou”…
“thy”…
• It ‘s crazy to think that Shakespeare wrote
during the Renaissance (a time when people
thought…) and yet his topics can be very
modern…