Transcript Slide 1

Shakespearean Drama
• What maketh a tragedy fall true?
• Centers around a mighty figure.
• They suffer a reversal of fortune. It’s
the old Wheel of Fortune – not the
game.
• They experience uncommon
suffering.
• They face their suffering with dignity.
Shakespearean Drama
• The suffering of the main characters
ennobles us. It makes us more noble
and able to cope with life’s twists and
turns.
Shakespearean Drama
• Shakespeare’s characters were not
meant to be real people. They were
meant to be symbolic.
This differs completely from the
movies of our day.
• Symbols are meant to display a
particular, often real, object or issue
and have it represent a universal fact
or truth.
Shakespearean Drama
• Shakespeare taught with words.
There weren’t any special effects and
not much in the way of costumes
and scenery.
• We only know about a character in
three ways: what they say, what
they do, and what others say about
them.
• If we try to imagine another facet of
their lives, we are just guessing.
Shakespearean Drama
• There are universal values in drama
and all literature. Among the most
important are:
• Good
• Evil
• Truth
• Justice
• Purity
• Beauty
Shakespearean Drama
• Shakespeare was phenomenally good
at weaving those into the lives of his
characters.
Shakespearean Drama
• What about all those wild, old words
like bodkin, orisons, fardel, quietus
and all that?
• 99% of Shakespeare’s vocabulary is
in use today but he wrote in
Elizabethan times so, we have
dictionaries to look up the words we
don’t use anymore. Besides, it’s not
the unique words that make folks
stumble a bit. It’s the noun / verb
placement and sentence length.
Shakespearean Drama
• Think about Yoda and Luke
discussing daddy Darth. How does
Yoda answer Luke?
“Your father he is.” How would you say
it? “He is your father.” Right?
Well, what have you done? You’ve just
switched a noun and a verb with
Yoda yet you’ve both said the same
thing. Well, Shakespeare does that a
lot.
Shakespearean Drama
• Look at this:
There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?
Shakespearean Drama
• Note the first section is pretty much a list
of life’s woes but at the end he inverts the
nouns and verbs.
There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?
Shakespearean Drama
• By the way, a bodkin was a sharp,
pointed instrument for making a hole
or a dagger. There’s the dictionary
again.
Shakespearean Drama
• So, let’s look at some drama
vocabulary.
Elizabethan Presentations - Review
• The Narrator and the Prince teach us the
lessons we’ve learned from Romeo and
Juliet.
Elizabethan Presentations - Review
• Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whole misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could
remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to
mend.
Elizabethan Presentations - Review
• This letter doth make good the friar's words,
Their course of love, the tidings of her death:
And here he writes that he did buy a poison
Of a poor 'pothecary, and therewithal
Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.
Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!
See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with
love.
And I for winking at your discords too
Have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish'd.
Crime and Punishment
• Nobles were generally punished for political
crimes and witchcraft.
• Imprisonment was less common for severe
crimes than death.
• Executions were sometimes public events
• Punishments for the commoners were related to
property crimes.
• Execution for property crimes was commonplace.
• Commoners were rarely imprisoned.
• Punishments were often cruel and torturous
Shakespeare
• Born in 1564
• Grew up in late Elizabethan England
• His first experiences in the theater were cut short
by an outbreak of the plague.
• His poetry was widely distributed during his
lifetime and afterwards.
• He died without any surviving male children
• He was not educated to the level of the nobility.
• His writing is the greatest of English literature.
Weaponry
• These guys loved to do terrible things to one
another!
• The halberd was an ax with a hook and a spear
point used to tear riders from their horses.
• The caltrop was was a three pointed spike star
designed to lodge in the feet of attackers’
animals and stop their progress.
• The crossbow was much more powerful and
accurate than a long bow. The trigger assembly
was probably invented by Leonardo da Vinci.
• Muskets replaced bows.
Spanish Armada
• The defeat of the Spanish Armada signaled the
beginning of English influences toward the New
World.
• The defeat was not a single event but occurred
over a series of sea battles.
• It occurred in 1588 and 1589.
• James I, came to the throne about 20 years later
tried to make peace with Spain but by then
British expansionism had begun.
Francis Drake
• He was a very capable captain who had learned
about sea combat tactics from pirates – he was
pretty much one himself.
• His voyage around the world took place within 50
years of Magellan’s.
• He knew of the routes around the world.
• He masterminded the defeat of the Spanish
Armada by capitalizing on the attributes of the
smaller British ships.
• He died in Panama in 1596.
• His life shows the rapid expansion of British
influence in the New World after the defeat of the
Armada.
Elizabeth I
• She was the last of the Tudor monarchs.
• She was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne
Boelyn
• She outlived her siblings – by a long way.
• During her reign the English Renaissance
flourished.
• She never married nor had children.
• She embraced Protestantism.
• She was not particularly kind but relished the
artistic community.
• She is often regarded as the greatest Queen of
England.
Bloody Mary
• She was the daughter of Catherine and Henry
VIII – his first marriage.
• She grew up being labeled illegitimate.
• She was a devout Catholic and tried to stop the
Protestants
• She married the King of Spain but they had no
children.
• She had many leaders of the Protestant
movement killed.
• She died at 42.
James I
• He was a second cousin to the Tudor monarchs.
• He is most notable for the King James translation
of the Bible.
• He was originally James VI of Scotland but when
his monarch cousin, Elizabeth, died he became
James I of England.
• He was in office while the English colonization of
America began. – Think of Jamestown, Virginia –
get it?