Shakespeare

Shakespeare: some facts

• Baptised 1564 in Stratford upon Avon• First 12 years well to do• Good school

– The Classics (Ovid)– Memorising– Latin

• Father: – a glover and mayor of town– probably a Catholic– brushes with law

Shakespeare: dates (2)

• 1582: Married Anne Hathaway, he was 18 (she was pregnant)

• 1592: Henry IV, part one performed in London• 1597: buys house in Stratford (doing well)• 1599: Globe Theatre• 1613: Globe burns down• 1615: More legal problems• 1616: dies, age 52

Shakespeare’s times

Here are a few themes to explore that will help you understand Shakespeare, his work and his time: • Elizabeth I• Catholic Protestant• Lord Chamberlain’s Men• Mummers’plays and Mystery Plays• Sonnets• Renaissance

Rulers, religion, politics

Shakespeare lived during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I.

What went on before:• Henry VIII, a Tudor is married to Catharine of Aragon, a Catholic,

they have a daughter Mary (no son). • Henry falls in love with Anne Boleyn, wants a divorce because he

loves her and/or hopes for a son. • Henry falls out with the Pope over this and starts his own religion.

He becomes a Protestant, divorces Catharine, marries Anne. They have a daughter Elizabeth.

Rulers, religion and Politics (2)

• Henry later has Anne executed (beheaded and marries a number of other girls). He manages to have one son.

• After Henry dies his son becomes King, but he dies fairly soon.

• Next in line is Mary, the Catholic. She is very fanatic and prosecutes and executes a number of Catholics.

• Mary dies young as well. Elizabeth, a Protestant, is the next Queen. During her reign many Catholics manage to remain faithful by keeping quiet, many others however were prosecuted. Being a Catholic did not help your career (Shakespeare’s father found out apparently).

Rulers, religion and politics

Conclusion: • This division between religions influenced all

aspects of people’s lives in Shakespeare’s time. So, if you were a writer and a Catholic (which Shakespeare probably was according to some), and you wanted to be critical you had to be VERY CAREFUL.

Plays in Shakespeare’s time

• What went before:• No theatres (or royalties) like we know today.• People performed religious plays like the Mummers’

Plays (about St George) and the Mystery Plays (Biblical scenes), in town squares, barns. There were also Morality Plays about good and bad.

• Groups of players travelled the country to perform and had a patron like a lord who supported them. These groups played in inns, castle halls, big rooms etc. Shakespeare himself joined a group called “Lord Chamberlain’s Men”.

Mystery Play

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMAFgSnDlRY&feature=related

Something new: a theatre

• In Shakespeare time, there were for the first time real theatres. These were built specially for groups to perform plays and their architecture was inspired by the architecture of the inns.

• Plays themselves were changing, no longer just about religion, but about action, love, wit and learning.

• The people, the audience loved and wanted more. • Shakespeare was one of the people who could take

care of this!

Medieval Theatre

• Illustrations

Shakespeare’s work

• 154 sonnets• About 30-40 plays:

– Comedy (e.g. Midsummer night’s dream)– History plays (e.g. Henry IV)– Romance (E.g. Romeo and Juliet)– Tragedy (e.g. Hamlet)

A sonnet

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 fadeNor 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.

Sonnets

Shakespeare wrote Italian • 14 lines• Rhyme pattern: abab cdcd efef gg• Rhythmic pattern:

– daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM– 5 times = 5 feet = pentameter– Stress on second syllable = iambic pattern– So: iambic pentameter

• A turn in the third stanza = volta• Last two lines: often summary or surprise ending

About structure

• Shakepeare’s plays mostly in blank verse (= unrhymed).

• Plays in 5 scenes:– Act 1: introduction of characters and setting story. – Act 2: Getting better acquainted with the characters. – Act 3: So called pivotal scene: heroes make mistakes,

decisions have to be made, confusion. – Act 4: Action unfolds. Things go wrong. – Act 5: all the pieces come together. Heroes learn their

lessons.

Shakespeare’s plays

What was new? • The theatre as a building. • Shakespeare didn’t follow the old rules, set up by Aristotle, all the time. •So, not only one story line, one day, one place. • Shakespeare invented many new words and phrases. The

language was changing dramatically at the time, after having been suppressed for about 300 years.

• Themes: not just biblical themes and moralistic tales, but plays for entertainment about love, hate, war etc.

A note on language

• The longest word in Shakespeare’s plays: Honorificabilitudinitatibus (meaning: "the state of being able to achieve honours“). It’s from a dialogue between two pedantic characters.

• “Thee, thy” are the same as “je, jij” in Dutch. These words dropped out of use.

• Shakespeare still uses words like “doth, goeth” etc. This too disappeared from the language. In fact, it was already disappearing in Shakespeare’s time.