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”
The sonnets
Containing some of the greatest lyric poems in
English literature, Shakespeare’s Sonnets are not just
the easy love sentiments of "Shall I compare thee to
a summer's day." Many of the poems are bleak cries
of emotional torment and spiritual exhaustion. They
tell a story of the struggle of love and forgiveness
against anguish and despair. It is this tragic portrait
of human love that makes the sonnets immortal.
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:
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 un-trimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee
Paraphrase of Sonnet 18
Shall I compare you to a summer's day? You are
more lovely and more moderate: Harsh winds disturb
the delicate buds of May, and summer doesn't last
long enough. Sometimes the sun is too hot, and its
golden face is often dimmed by clouds. All beautiful
things eventually become less beautiful, either by the
experiences of life or by the passing of time. But your
eternal beauty won't fade, nor lose any of its quality.
And you will never die, as you will live on in my
enduring poetry. As long as there are people still
alive to read poems this sonnet will live, and you will
live in it.
Sonnet 18 Commentary
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The gender of the addressee is not explicit
The first two quatrains focus on the fair person’s beauty
The poet attempts to compare it to a summer’s day
The timeless beauty far surpasses that of the fleeting, inconstant
season.
The theme of the ravages of time predominates
The poet is eternalizing the fair person’s beauty in his verse
The poet describes summer as a season of extremes and
disappointments
These imperfections contrast sharply with the poet’s description of
the fair person
In line 12 we find the poet’s solution
The poet plans to capture the fair persons’s beauty in his verse
The poem will withstand the ravages of time
Summer as a metaphor for youth, or perhaps beauty or both
Figures of speeech
 Rhyming scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.
 Anaphora (the repetition of opening words) in
lines 6-7, 10-11, and 13-14.
 Metaphor: summer for youth or beauty or
both
 Initial Rethorical question
 Comparison
 Personification
 Imagery
Sonnet 73
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
Paraphrase of Sonnet 73
In me you can see that time of year
When a few yellow leaves or none at all hang
On the branches, shaking against the cold,
Bare ruins of church choirs where lately the sweet birds sang.
In me you can see only the dim light that remains
After the sun sets in the west,
Which is soon extinguished by black night
The image of death that envelops all in rest.
In me you can see the glowing embers
That lie upon the ashes remaining from the flame of my youth,
As on a death bed where it (youth) must finally die
Consumed by that which once fed it.
This you sense, and it makes your love more determined
To love more deeply that which you must give up before long.
Sonnet 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,
Coral is far more red, than her lips red,
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun:
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head:
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
And in some perfumes is there more delight,
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet by heaven I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.
Paraphrase of Sonnet 130
My mistress's eyes are not at all like the sun;
Coral is much more red than her lips;
If snow is white, then her breasts are certainly not white as snow;
If hairs can be compared to wires, hers are black and not golden
I have seen roses colored a combination of red and white
But I do not see such colors in her cheeks;
And some perfumes give more delight
Than the breath of my mistress.
I love to hear her speak, but I know
That music has a more pleasing sound than her voice;
I also never saw 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 had poetic untruths told about her
Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments, love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come,
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Sonnet 71
No longer mourn for me when I am dead,
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay if you read this line, remember not,
The hand that writ it, for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O if (I say) you look upon this verse,
When I (perhaps) compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;
But let your love even with my life decay.
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.
Links
 Shakespeare Resource centre
 Mr W. Shakespeare and the Internet
 No sweat Shakespeare
 Absolute Shakespeare
 Shakespeare’s Movies
 Works in Italian
 Shakespeare in Modern English
 Study Guides
 Online Guides
 One more guide