William Shakespeare

All the worlds a stage, And all the men and women merely players.
Prof. Dr. Jos Carlos Aissa Abril/2012

Shakespeare: His Life and Times

Adapted from http://www.public.asu.edu/~muckerrm/English_321_S2005/Introduction.ppt

Early Life
Born 1564died 1616 Stratford-upon-Avon Parents: John and Mary Arden Shakespeare

Marydaughter of wealthy landowner Johnglove maker, local politician

Location of Stratford-upon-Avon

Stratford-on-Avon in Shakespeares Time

As reproduced in William Rolfe, Shakespeare the Boy (1896).

Stratford-upon-Avon Today

From Stratfords web site: http://www.stratford-upon-avon.co.uk/index.htm

Shakespeares Birthplace

From: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/danielle.esposito/

Education

Probably attended Kings New School in Stratford (until the age of 13) Educated in: Rhetoric Logic History Latin

Kings New School

From: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/danielle.esposito/

Married Life

Married in 1582 to Anne Hathaway, who was pregnant at the time with their first daughter Had twins in 1585 Sometime between 1585-1592, he moved to London and began working in theatre.

Anne Hathaways Cottage

From: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/danielle.esposito/

London

Queen Elizabeth

The Elizabethan Age

Theatre Career

Member and later part-owner of the Lord Chamberlains Men, later called the Kings Men Globe Theater built in 1599 by L.C.M. with Shakespeare as primary investor Burned down in 1613 during one of Shakespeares plays

The Globe Theater

The Rebuilt Globe Theater, London

The New Globe Theater 1999

The Plays

38(?) plays attributed to Shakespeare

14 comedies 10 histories 10 tragedies 4 romances

Possibly wrote three others Collaborated on several others

Blank Verse
Much

is written in:

unrhymed

verse iambic (unstressed, stressed) pentameter( 5 feet to a line)

ends

up to be 10 syllable lines

Shakespeares Language
A mix of old and very new Rural and urban words/images Understandable by the lowest peasant and the highest noble

Why is Shakespeares English so weird?

Shakespeare often inverts the syntax of his sentences for poetic reasons, and this sometimes confuses students: Make sure you can tell where the subject and verb of the sentence are. Think about what the pronouns refer to. This will help a bit in understanding the sentence. Shakespeare also uses many, many words, and is credited with creating many that are now in common usage. He is also good at making one word serve two purposes by using more than one meaning of a word at a clip! (Double entendres, or puns.) You will need a good dictionary when reading Shakespeare!

Elizabethan Theatrical Conventions

A theatrical convention is a

suspension of reality.
No electricity Women forbidden to act on stage Minimal, contemporary

costumes
Minimal scenery

These control the dialogue.

 Soliloquy
Aside

Types of speech

Blood

Use of supernatural

Audience loves to be scared.

 Use of disguises/
mistaken identity Last speakerhighest in

rank (in tragedies)

Multiple murders
(in tragedies) Multiple marriages (in comedies)

The Poetry

154 Sonnets Numerous other poems

The Verse
Sonnet

rhyme: a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g iambic (unstressed, stressed) pentameter( 5 feet to a line)
ends

up to be 10 syllable lines

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 untrimm'd; But 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.

Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow (Romeo and Juliet)

THANK YOU!