Shakespeare: His Life and Times

3 Little Pigs…Shakespeare
Style!!!
Why study Shakespeare?

Chances are, you’ve

quoted Shakespeare
without even knowing
it!
Have you ever said the
following...
“in a pickle”
“It’s Greek to me.”
“Too much of a
good thing.”
“as luck would have it”
“good riddance”

“dead as a door-nail”

“foul play”
“a laughing stock”
“an eyesore”
“send me packing”
“without rhyme or
reason”
Even today, Shakespeare
lives on.

We can relate to his tales of

love, hatred, revenge,
courage, trust and
deception.
So much of our world today
has been influenced by
Shakespeare.
My Early Life- A Mystery?????

 Born April 23 or 26 1564- died April 26,

1616
 Stratford-upon-Avon
 3rd of 8 children
 Parents: John and Mary Arden
Shakespeare
• Mary—daughter of wealthy landowner
• John—glove maker, local politician
Stratford-on-Avon in Shakespeare’s Time
Stratford-upon-Avon Today
Shakespeare’s Birthplace

From: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/danielle.esposito/
Education
• Probably attended King’s New School in
Stratford
• Educated in:
• Rhetoric
• Logic
• History
• Latin

But was he actually

educated????
King’s 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.
• Poet
• Playwright
• Actor
Anne Hathaway’s Cottage

From: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/danielle.esposito/
1590’s
 Queen Elizabeth I
ruled
 English explorers
were crossing the
ocean to the New
World
 And travelers
coming to England
LOVED watching
plays...
The Playwrights...
 Christopher
Marlowe
 Thomas Kyd
 And William
Shakespeare was
the original “New
Kid on the Block”
The Theatres...
 The Theatre,
built in 1576

 The Rose, built in

1587 (London’s first
“Bankside” theatre)

 The Swan, 1595

 The Globe
(Shakespeare helped
construct in 1598-1599)
About the theatres

•Protestants
condemned the plays
•Theatres were on the
outskirts of London--
away from the
-merchants
authorities
-lawyers
•People who attended -laborers
the theatres included: -prostitutes
-visitors from other countries
-nobility & royalty
•No lighting
•No scenery--
Just a curtain
•Could hold
around 2,000
people
•most expensive
seats were directly
behind the stage
•people sitting there
could only see the
actors from behind
 Theatre Career

• Member and later part-owner of the Lord

Chamberlain’s Men under Queen Elizabeth I
• Globe Theater built in 1599 by L.C.M. with
Shakespeare as primary investor
• Later called the King’s Men under King James I
• Burned down in 1613 during one of
Shakespeare’s plays
• What happened between 1593-1594 to theater
companies?
The Rebuilt Globe Theater, London
 The Plays
 38 plays firmly attributed to Shakespeare
 14 comedies
 Ex. Alls Well That Ends Well, As You
Like It, The Taming of the Shrew
 10 histories
 Henry IV, Henry V
 10 tragedies
 Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet
 4 romances
 The Tempest, The Winter’s Tale
 The Poetry

• 154 Sonnets
• Numerous other poems

• Got his ideas from all over!

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!)
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)
Shakespeare’s Language

• Shakespeare wrote in “Early Modern

English.”
• EME was not very different from
“Modern English,”
Shakespeare’s Language
• A mix of old and very new
• Rural and urban words/images
• Understandable by the lowest peasant and
the highest noble

How many words did he use?

30,000
How many words do we use today?
6,000-15,000
Love of the In Shakespeare’s time,
Language everyone loved the English
language.
There were no grammar
rules, punctuation keys, OR
spelling!
The language was evolving
and everyday new words were
being made up.
Shakespeare’s language
reflects this freedom and
experimentation.
Iambic Pentameter
 Is a sound pattern
 IAMB: one unaccented (or
unstressed) syllable with one
accented syllable
 It’s like a heartbeat: ba-bum,
ba-bum, ba-bum
 Five “ba-bum”s in a row
make one line of iambic
pentameter (10-syllable
lines)
 Example: he WENT to
TOWN toDAY to BUY a CAR
 OR: In SOOTH / I KNOW /
not WHY / I AM / so SAD
Why go to all the TROUBLE???
 Using iambic
pentameter kept
things moving in the
play (like a drum
beat)
 It made the words &
play more interesting
 It helped the actors
remember their lines
(like a song)
When Shakespeare set
his words to iambic
pentameter it is
compared to the birth
of
rock-n-roll:
a mixing of old styles
and new sounds.
 •In Shakespeare’s time, you only had one copy of a
play, and after you wrote it for the acting company,
you no longer owned it!
•Scripts were thrown out when they were no longer
wanted or needed.

•NO copies of Shakespeare’s plays in his own

handwriting have survived. The only known
evidence of anything in his handwriting is his
signature (shown above) on the play Sir Thomas
More that Shakespeare might have written.
“Quartos”
 Small books of published
plays were called “quartos.”
 The first published works of
Shakespeare’s vary
considerably
 Scholars believe these are
faulty versions, calling them
“bad quartos.”
 The first full collection of
Shakespeare’s work was
published in 1623, seven
years after his death.
 It was called “First Folio”
 It contained 36 plays
(compiled by John Heminge
and Henry Condell--friends
and fellow actors of
Shakespeare’s)
Elizabethan
Theatrical
Conventions
Acting
 The actors were all men; young boys (age
12-14) played the female parts
 They were considered “shareholders” and
owned stock or shares in the play texts,
costumes, and props
 Their pay depended on admission sales
 Actors only had about 3 weeks to practice
a new play
 In one week, the troupes may perform 6
different plays (as many as 4,000 lines!)
 A theatrical convention is a
suspension of reality.
 No electricity
 Women forbidden
to act on stage These
 Minimal, contemporary control the
costumes dialogue.
 Minimal scenery
 Soliloquy
Types of
 Aside speech

 Blood Audience
 Use of supernatural loves to be
scared.
 Use of disguises/
mistaken identity
 Last speaker—highest in
rank (in tragedies)
 Multiple murders
(in tragedies)
 Multiple marriages
(in comedies)
“All the world 's a stage,
And all the men and women
merely players.”

So…..

Let’s dramatize
Shakespeare!!!
Shakespeare’s Epitaph…

"Good Friends, for

Jesus' sake forbear,
To dig the bones
enclosed here!
Blest be the man
that spares these
stones,
And curst be he that
moves my bones."