Shakespeare Introduction
English I
English I Hon
English II
Mrs. Holt
2014
Elizabethan England
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Queen Elizabeth I - born September 7, 1533 in
Greenwich
Died March 24, 1603 in Richmond, Surrey
Daughter of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn
(beheaded by Henry for not bearing a son)
Coronated January 15, 1559
Spoke Greek, French, Italian, Latin, and, of course, English.
Never married and was nicknamed, "The Virgin Queen.”
Elizabethan age was a time of peace and the height of the
English Renaissance in music, literature, military strength – built
Navy
Also saw the birth and rise of William Shakespeare, the Bard,
and possibly most famous English play write of all time
Shakespeare…the facts
• Spelling not yet standardized, thus
name spelled in different ways
• Shakespeare, Shakspere, Shackspere,
Shaxper, Shagspere, Shaxberd, etc.
William Shakespeare
Born April 23rd, 1564 in Stratford upon Avon, Warwickshire,
England
William Shakespeare
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Died 1616
Wrote 37 plays
Wrote over 150 sonnets
Actor, poet, playwright
(playwright: a person who writes plays.)
Shakespeare
• Father - John Shakespeare glovemaker and wool
merchant
• Mother - Mary Arden, daughter of well-to-do local
landowner
Shakespeare’s house
• Shakespeare had
7 brothers and sisters
King’s New School – Shakespeare’s school
Married Life
• Married Anne Hathaway in 1582.
• She was 12 years older and four months
pregnant at the wedding
• Children - Susanna (1583 - 1539), twins
Judith (1585 - 1592) Hamnet (1585 - 1596)
• No documentary evidence between 15851592
• Sometime in this period, he moved to
London and began working in the theatre.
• Family lived in Stratford, Shakespeare
lived in London except for last five years
of his life when they were together
Anne Hathaway’s Cottage
Elizabethan Playwrights
• Throughout the middle ages plays were
performed by workers in towns and were
religious based, often retelling stories
from the Bible.
Elizabethan writers introduced theatre
audiences to horror, the supernatural
and GORE…
Elizabethan Playwrights
The most well known playwright of
Elizabethan times is Shakespeare. But
there were also other writers who in
their time were just as, or even more
famous than the Bard.
Types of Plays
• Shakespeare wrote:
– Comedies - light and amusing,
usually with a happy ending
– Tragedies –serious dramas with
disastrous endings
– Histories – involve events or persons
from history
The Plays
• plays firmly attributed to Shakespeare
• 14 COMEDIES – ends in marriage
– Midsummer Night’s Dream, Merchant of Venice,
Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Much Ado about
Nothing…
• 10 HISTORIES – based on historic events
– Richard III, Richard II, Henry IV…
• 10 TRAGEDIES – ends in death
– Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Othello…
• 4 romances
– Pericles, Cymbeline, Winter’s Tale, Tempest
The Poetry
• Two major poems
• Venus and Adonis
• Rape of Lucrece
• 154 Sonnets
• Numerous other poems
• Poetry usually dedicated to a patron
Theater Career
• Member and later partowner of the Lord
Chamberlain’s Men
• He acted with and wrote for
the troupe The Lord
Chamberlain’s Men
• He and members of The
Lord Chamberlain’s Men
built the Globe Theater in
1599
• Theaters in London closed
from 1593-1594 due to the
plague
The Globe Theatre
• Built in 1598 in
London’s Bankside area
• Lot’s of controversy and
law suits in the
building/ownership
• Open ceiling
• Three stories high
• No artificial lighting
• Plays were shown
during daylight
hours only
The Globe Theatre
• Burned down in 1613
during a production of
Shakespeare’s Henry VIII
when a cannon misfired
and a spark landed on the
thatched roof
• Remains found in 1989
and a new theater based
on the Globe was built
beginning in 1993
The Globe Theater
Elements of Drama
• Drama – story that is written to be acted for
an audience on stage
• Stage/platform – the arena or area on which
a play is preformed and its various
components
• Props – articles used in a theatrical production
• Apron – the part of the stage in a theater
extending in front of the curtain
Elements of Drama
• Prologue – opening lines of a play, often
foreshadow what’s to come (exposition)
• Chorus – in Shakespearean drama, the chorus
is one man who introduces the acts of a play;
an individually spoken line that introduces or
can introduce each set/scene
Elements of Drama
• Comic relief – comic scene or event that
breaks up a serious play
• Foil – character who is used as a contrast to
another character
Setting the Stage
• The theatres often had mechanisms that allowed “angels”
and “gods” to be lowered down onto the stage. Stages
were also equipped with a trapdoor leading to a “Hell”
beneath the stage. The trapdoor was also used as a grave
in theatrical funerals.
• There was very little scenery available for theatres, so the
writers often used to dialogue to explain to the audience
where the scene was taking place.
• The Elizabethan theatre also used a variety of sound
effects. Music played an important role in the setting the
mood of the plays. Other sounds created were thunder,
running horses, falling rain, and cannon blasts.
The Stage
In Shakespeare’s Time
• A show lasted about 2 ½ hours, usually in open
air theatres during the afternoon.
• There were no acts, but frequent intermissions.
• There were no programs.
• The closeness of stage to the audience led to use
of "asides" and "soliloquies“.
Costumes
• Costume was very important in Elizabethan
theatre. Actors wore colourful and elaborate
costumes that would tell the audience the
characters status, family ties or profession.
• The emphasis that was given to a character’s
clothing made the theme of disguise a
common convention of Elizabethan theatre.
In order to exchange places with another
character or conceal his identity, all an actor
needed to do was to change his costume.
Costumes
Actors
• Only men and boys
• Young boys whose
voices had not changed
played the women’s roles
• It would have been
indecent for a woman to
appear on stage
Spectators
• Wealthy people got to sit on benches
• Much of the audience watched from the ‘pit’ as
groundlings - poor workers who went for the
entertainment of alcohol, fights, prostitution, and
lewd subject matter of the plays.
Often threw food
at the actors
onstage.
• There was much more
audience participation
than today
Performing a Shakespearean Play
• Protestant Church, City officials
opposed theaters due to crime, bawdy
subject matter, fighting, drinking, and up
to 3,000 people in one place to spread
Bubonic Plague
• Theaters also used for bear-baiting and
gambling
How to Read the Plays
• Do not pause at the end of a line unless the
punctuation calls for it
• Read it like prose
• Many of these plays have numerous references
to people, places, events, myths, etc., that you
might not be familiar with
Periods in History of English
Old English: 449-1066
Middle English: 1100-1500
Modern English: 1500 -present
Shakespeare’s Language
• Shakespeare did NOT write in “Old English”
• Old English is the language of Beowulf:
– Hwaet! We Gardena in geardagum
– Þeodcyninga Þrym gefrunon
– Hu ða æÞelingas ellen fremedon!
• Hey! We have heard of the glory of the Spear-Danes
in the old days, the kings of tribes, how noble princes
showed great courage!
Old English (1000)
Fæder ure þuþe eart on heofonum si þin nama gehalgod
tobecume þin rice gewurþe þin willa on eorðan swa swa
on heofonum urne
gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us to dæg and forgyf us ure
gyltas swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum
and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge ac alys us of yfele
soþlice.
Shakespeare’s Language
• Shakespeare did not write in “Middle English”
• Middle English is the language of Chaucer, the
Gawain-poet, and Malory:
– We redeth oft and findeth y-write—
– And this clerkes wele it wite—
– Layes that ben in harping
– Ben y-founde of ferli thing… (Sir Orfeo)
– We often read and find written, as known well by scholars, that lays are sung of
marvelous things:
Middle English (1384)
Oure fadir þat art in heuenes halwid be þi name;
þi reume or kyngdom come to be. Be þi wille don in
herþe as it is dounin heuene. yeue to us today oure eche
dayes bred. And foryeue to us oure dettis þat is oure
synnys as we foryeuen to oure dettouris þat is to men þat
han synned in us. And lede us not into temptacion but
delyuere us from euyl.
Shakespeare’s Language
• Shakespeare wrote in “Early Modern English”
• EME was not very different from “Modern
English,” except that it had some old
holdovers.
• Beginning about 200 years before Shakespeare,
and largely complete by his day, long vowel
pronunciation shifted: ex: good, name, life
Archaic English/Elizabethan English
• Characterized by words and phrases that were
used regularly in the English language, but are
now less common or no longer used.
• Examples:
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Against (meaning “for, in preparation for”)
Wherefore (meaning “why”)
Wilt (meaning “will”)
Withal (meaning “in addition, notwithstanding”)
Modern English (1611)
Our father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in
heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debters.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from
evill. Amen.
Unlocking Shakespeare’s Language
• Students often find Shakespeare difficult to read for the following
reasons:
– Unusual sequence of words
• I ate the Big Mac.
– Ate the Big Mac I.
– I the Big Mac ate.
– Ate I the Big Mac.
– The Big Mac I ate.
– The Big Mac ate I.
?
Unlocking Shakespeare’s Language
– Clauses that delay
• On the Channel Nine late show at twelve o’ clock, while eating
pistachio ice cream, before turning to homework, Ralph saw
Martha.
– Separations of Related Parts
• While home from school sadly was my cousin Joan walking, little
children far away happily singing in the afternoon she heard.
Unlocking Shakespeare’s Language
– Troublesome omissions – syllables and parts
of syllables
• I’m goin’ t’ town.
• Tha’s good – lemme go wi, ya.
– Troublesome omissions – words
• If that call’s for me, (say) I’m not home.
• (If you) do that to me again, you’re in deep (trouble).
Practice
• Consider the following sentence:
Until that moment when I heard the price of it, I had
been favoring the green bag over the red.
• Rearrange the words of this sentence. In reshaping,
be sure to change the positions of some of the yellow
words. Do not add or omit any words, and don’t
change any word to another.
Practice
• Try it again:
As the snow fell over the rivers and settled among the
trees, two sparrows sitting on an aspen’s limb
considered the thickening air.
• Rearrange the words of this sentence. In reshaping,
be sure to change the positions of some of the yellow
words. Do not add or omit any words, and don’t
change any word to another.
Points of Shakespeare's Style:
• Metaphors– comparing something in terms of
something else, i.e. "That lowliness is young
ambition’s ladder".
• Asides– when a character says something to the
audience, but the other characters on stage cannot hear
it, e.g. like muttering to himself.
• Dramatic irony – occurs when the audience or the
reader knows something important that a character in a
play or story does not know.
Points of Shakespeare's Style:
• Soliloquy– usually longer speeches given by characters
when alone on stage– e.g. a person talking to himself
out loud.
• Monologue – a long speech made by one character to
another character on the stage
Points of Shakespeare's Style:
Blank Verse
- Poetry with rhythm (usually iambic 5) without a
rhyme scheme.
- Sounds poetic but not corny
- Example:
- “Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,
profaners of this neighbor-stained steel
will they not hear? What, ho! You men, you beasts!
That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
With purple fountains issuing from your veins!”
-from Romeo and Juliet
Points of Shakespeare's Style:
Iambic pentameter
• Type of poetic meter that has five feet per line of
patterned unstressed/stressed syllables.
Example:
“here were servants of your adversary
And yours, close fighting ere I did approach.”
Points of Shakespeare's Style:
• Use of sonnets– a very rigid poetic style of writing.
Fourteen lines consisting of three sets of four line
quatrains and a two line rhyming couplet at the end.
Rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, e.g.
• Use of puns– humorous plays on words indicating
different meanings; play on multiple meanings of a
word or on two words that sound alike but have
different meanings
• i.e. the Cobbler says, "A trade, sir, that I hope I may use with
a safe conscience, which is indeed a mender of bad soles.” A
cobbler is a mender of shoes or a bungler.
Shakespeare’s Language
• Over 12,000 words entered English between 1500 1650
• Shakespeare’s plays show the first recorded use of
2,035 new English words
• Macbeth, Hamlet, and King Lear have one ‘new’ word
every 2.5 lines
• He created: “antipathy, critical, frugal, dwindle,
extract, horrid, vast, hereditary, critical, excellent,
eventful, assassination, lonely, leapfrog,
indistinguishable, well-read, and countless others
(including countless)” (Bryson loc. 1396-1406).
Shakespeare’s Language
• Shakespeare coined many words we still use
today:
• Critical
• Majestic
• Dwindle
• And quite a few phrases as well:
• One fell swoop
• Flesh and blood
• Vanish into thin air
See http://www.wordorigins.org/histeng.htm
Shakespeare in Language
Elizabethan theatre has had a very important effect on today’s
theatre, and other parts of every day life. For example:
• Shakespeare coined over 1600 words still used today including
countless, critical, excellent, lonely, majestic, obscene and its.
• Names coined by Shakespeare:
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Imogen in the play Cymbaline,
Jessica in the play The Merchant of Venice
Miranda in the play The Tempest
Olivia in the play Twelfth Night
Cordelia in the play King Lear
And lastly…
“If you cannot understand my argument, and declare "It's Greek to
me", if your lost property has vanished into thin air, if you have
ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed
jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been
tongue-tied, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted
your brows, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, laughed
yourself into stitches, if you have too much of a good thing, if
you have seen better days or if you think it is high time and that
that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is
up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and
blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect
foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell
swoop) without rhyme or reason - it is all one to me, for you
are quoting Shakespeare!”
Shakespeare Today
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Elizabethan theatre is still plays a part in our day to day lives, mostly
through the influence of Shakespeare. You can find references to his
work in films, novels, plays, musicals, songs, poetry, artwork,
satire…Even today his characters and storylines continue to inspire…
Shakespeare’s Language
The following phrases were coined by Shakespeare. What do they
mean and how do we use them today. Choose at least four of
them to use in your own 5 paragraph creative story:
A laughing stock (The Merry Wives of Windsor)
A sorry sight (Macbeth)
As dead as a doornail (Henry VI)
Eaten out of house and home (Henry V, Part 2)
Fair play (The Tempest)
I will wear my heart upon my sleeve (Othello)
In a pickle (The Tempest)
In stitches (Twelfth Night)
In the twinkling of an eye (The Merchant Of Venice)
Mum's the word (Henry VI, Part 2)
Neither here nor there (Othello)
Send him packing (Henry IV)
Set your teeth on edge (Henry IV)
There's method in my madness (Hamlet)
Too much of a good thing (As You Like It)
Vanish into thin air (Othello)
Shakespeare in Original Pronunciation
• Shakespeare in OP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s
• Sonnet 116
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K_mZagvy9s
• A Midsummer Nights Dream http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWe1b9mjjkM
• David Crystal Recordings http://www.pronouncingshakespeare.com/op-recordings/
Works Cited
Absolute Shakespeare, Shakespeare Timeline. Absoluteshakespeare.com, 2005. Web. 3 January
2010.
BBC. BBC Historic-Figures, William Shakespeare. BBC, MMX, n.d. Web. 3 January 2010.
Bryson, Bill. Shakespeare, The World as Stage (Kindle Edition). Amazon, 2007. Ebook.
The Elizabethan Era. Elizabethan Era, n.d. Web. 3 January 2010
The Folger Shakespeare Library. The Folger Institute, n.d. Web. 3 January, 2010.
Jamieson, Lee. Common Phrases Invented by Shakespeare. About.com Guide, n.d. Web. 3 January 2010.
Plowright, Teresa. Globe Theater. About.com Gude, n.d. Web. 3 January 2010.
Shakespeare for Children. Squidoo, 2010. Web. 3 January 2010.
Mrs. McDermott, PPT
Mr. Walton, PPT