Transcript Lecture Two - كلية الاداب جامعة الكوفة

William Shakespeare
(1564-1616)
Outline of the lecture
1. William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
1)Life Story
2)Literary periods
3)Major works
2. Close readings: sonnet 18 and Hamlet (soliloquy, excerpt)
1)sonnet 18
2)Soliloquy
3. Summary of selected readings and the expression of
Humanistic ideas
4. Question discussion: why English Renaissance was much
later than the Italian Renaissance?
5. Assignment for next lecture
Facts about Shakespeare?
Born in Stratford
 The 3rd of 8 kids
 Married at age 18(his wife was 26)
 Worked as an actor at first.
 wrote 37 plays
 about 154 sonnets

Life Story of William Shakespeare
Father: a merchant
7, excellent local
grammar school
14, into debt,
left, work
Mother: a daughter of
a well-to-do farmer
for 6 years,
Latin and a little Greek
18, married Anne Hathaway,
8 years senior, 3 children
Life Story of W. Shakespeare
22(about 1586),
 London;
for
odd jobs
in a theater;
actor,
write for the stage;
revised old plays,
so gained a practical knowledge
of the technique of dramatic art;
the closing years of 16th century,
popularity of a successful writer;
retired
in 1611,
died in
1616.
The Plays
 Comedy
 Tragedy
 Historical
Major comedies
 The
Taming of the Shrew
 Much Ado About Nothing
 As You Like I
 Twelfth Night
 Midsummer Night’s Dream
 Merchant of Venice
Major
tragedies
 Hamlet
 Romeo
and Juliet
 Othello
 King
Lear
 Macbeth
Shakespeare’s Literary Career
The first period of early apprenticeship:
Love’s Labor’s Lost
《爱的徒劳》
1.
Shakespeare’s Literary Career
2. the second period of rapid growth and
maturity:
(1) A Midsummer Night’s Dream
《仲夏夜之梦》
(2) The Merchant of Venice
《威尼斯商人》
Shakespeare’s Literary Career
 (3)
As You Like It
 《皆大欢喜》
 (4) Henry IV
 《亨利四世》
 (5) Julius Caesar
 《凯撒大帝》
Shakespeare’s Literary Career
 (6)
Richard II
 《里查德二世》
 (7) Romeo and Juliet
 《罗密欧与朱丽叶》
Shakespeare’s Literary Career
 3.
the third period of Gloom and Sadness:
 (1) King Lear《李尔王》
 (2) Macbeth《麦克白》《麦克佩斯》
 (3)
Othello《奥塞罗》
 (4) Hamlet《哈姆雷特》
Shakespeare’s Literary Career
 4.
the fourth period of calm after storm:
 (1) The Winter’s Tales
 《冬天的故事》
 (2) The Tempest
 《暴风雨》
Posters for some Shakespeare’s plays
Antonio
Bassanio
Shylock
Portia
Hamlet
Sonnet 18
 Why
does the persona “I” compare his
lover to a summer’s day?
Mild, gentle and lovely as a lovely summer’s
day in England
 Why is the lover more lovely and more
temperate than a summer’s day?
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
 What
is the persona’s opinion of beauty,
immortal or temporary? How can youth and
beauty ever last?
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or natures’ changing course
untrimmed:
But “When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st”.

What’s the theme of the sonnet?
Power of art, power of man
Beauty and youth can be everlasting with the
help of literature, which is eventually created by
human being.
The sonnet begins with a comparison between
the lover and summer day to celebrate lover’s
beauty, which will unavoidably decline some day.
But in the last couplet, the poet glorifies the
power of artistic creation---literature to give life to
man and finally, essentially a glorification of the
power of man.

Why the poem is called sonnet in terms of poetic
form?
The sonnet, an exact form of poetry in 14 lines of iambic
pentameter intricately rhymed
origin: Italy in the 14th century;
aim: for love lyric;
Italian sonnet: two parts
1) first eight lines (octove) ---to raise a question, develop
a narrative, or delineate an idea;
2) the second six lines (sestet)---to answer the question,
comment on the story
rhyme scheme: abba abba cde cde.
Italian sonnet was first introduced to England by English
Thomas Wyatt.

What is Shakespearian sonnet?
Four-part sonnet: beginning; development; transition;
conclusion (couplet)
Rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef dd, in according with the
four divided part in structure
Shakespearian sonnet consists of 14 iambic pentameter
lines, divided into 3 quatrains followed by a couplet. The
rhyme is abab cdcd efef gg. In a Shakespearian sonnet,
each quatrain deals with a different aspect of the subject
and the couplet either summarizes the theme or makes a
final, sometimes contradictory comment.
 How
many sonnets did Shakespeare
write in his lifetime?
154 sonnets varied in theme: love,
friendship and ideal.
Hamlet (Excerpt)

Term of Soliloquy
a dramatic speech uttered by
one character speaking aloud
while alone on the stage.
The soliloquist reveals his or her
inner thoughts and feelings to
the audience.
What is the main plot of Hamlet?
 What dose Hamlet decide to choose, to live or
not to live?
To live
 What is Hamlet’s attitude towards death?
To die is to sleep, no more.
more example:
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more, Death, thou shall die.
----from John Donne’s Sonnet 10


How do you evaluate Hamlet’s characterization?
neither a weak-minded youth nor a thought-sick
dreamer,
a humanist
unbounded love for the world;
cherishes a profound reverence for man
firm belief in man’s power over destiny.
“what a piece of work is a man! How noble in
reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and
moving how express and admirable! In action
how life an angel in apprehension how like a
god!”

What is Humanism? How do the sonnet 18
and Hamlet show the author’s humanistic
ideas?
Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance.
Human values are greatly emphasized in this
period. Humanism see that human beings were
glorious creatures capable of individual
development in the direction of perfection, and
that the world they inhabited was theirs not to
despise but to question, explore, and enjoy.
Humanists also believe that man did not only
have the right to enjoy the beauty of this world,
but had the ability to perfect himself and to
perform wonders.
 Shakespeare
showed his great creative
abilities in writing this play. Hamlet is
made a hero of the Renaissance period
and the representative of humanism.
Through him Shakespeare expressed his
own humanist ideas. This play is usually
regarded as the summit of Shakespeare’s
art.
 It was borrowed from an old Danish
legend, a tragedy of blood and thunder,
but under Shakespeare’s pen, it assumed
new meaning and became permeated
with the spirit of Humanism
Summary of the selected readings
 Sonnet
18 defies the power of death and
glorifies the power of art and power of man.
 Hamlet defies the power of death and
elevates the glory of action
Question
 Why English Renaissance was later than
Italian Renaissance?
Italian Renaissance
1) marked a transition from the medieval to the
modern world;
2) first sprung in the 14th century;
3) means rebirth or revival; a movement stimulated by
a series of historical events, such as the rediscovery
of ancient Roman and Greek culture, the new
discovery in geography and astrology, the religious
reformation and the economic expansion.
4) in essence, is a historical period in which the
European humanist thinkers and scholars made
attempts to get rid of those old feudalist ideas, to
introduce new ideas that expressed the interests of
the rising bourgeoisie.
1)
English Renaissance
foundation of Tudor Dynasty:
in 1485, the first untied English Empire
founded by Henry VII
marked English national consciousness
awakened gradually
Tudor Kings
Henry VII, founder of Tudor Dynasty
2) the Enclosure Movement
a) seizure of common land and change to
private property to enclosed fields owned
by individual farmers.
b) used for sheep.
c) began in the 14th century and became
widespread in the 15th and 16th centuries.
d) caused poverty, homelessness, and
rural depopulation; development of English
Bourgeois and working class in cities
3) the Religious Reformation:
a) Church of England broke away from
authority of Pope and Roman Catholic
Church
b) Anglican Church and Protestantism
c) brought serious events and results:
decline of feudalism, rise of nationalism,
invention of printing press, circulation of
Bible texts, transmission of new
knowledge and ideas
Religious and political movement
4) Commercial expansion and martial
victory:
a) Spanish fleet consisting of 30 ships sent
against England in 1588;
b) self-confidence and patriotism strengthen
among English
Duke Francis defeated Spanish Armada
Web cites for pictures and additional information
on William Shakespeare
http://daphe.palomar.edu/
shakespeare/timeline/genealogy. htm
 http://www.shakespeare.com/link. Htm
 www.stratford.co.uk/birthplace/
 www.rdg.ac.uk/globe/DataBase/Images/NewGlobe.htm
 www.legends.dm.net/shakespeare/macbeth.ht
m/
 www.britishliterature.com

Further studies after class
Other representatives of English Renaissance in the
16th century
In poetry
Sir Philip Sidney
Edmund Spenser : poet’s poet;
masterpiece: Faerie Queene(仙后), written in a
special verse form that consists of eight iambic
pentameter lines followed by a ninth line of six
iambic feet, with the rhyme scheme ababbcbcc.
The form has since been called the Spenserian
stanza.

 In
drama
 The highest glory of the English
Renaissance was unquestionably its
drama. The most famous dramatists in the
period are Christopher Marlowe, William
Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson.
 Marlowe’s masterpiece is the Tragical
History of Doctor Faustus (浮士德博士的悲
剧).
Questions for next lecture
 Appreciate
Donne’s two poem: Go and
Catch the Falling Star and The Flea
 How do you evaluate the image of flea in a
poem?
 Summarize Donne’s features of his poetry in
artistic features and theme
 What are the main causes for the formation
of Metaphysical poetry?
 Read
Milton’s Paradise Lost (excerpt)
 Summarize the characterization of Satan
in Paradise Lost
 What’s significance of the image of Satan?