Transcript Who was Shakespeare?

Shakespeare!!
Elizabethan Beliefs
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Life in Elizabethan
England could be cruel
and hard. The poor often
went hungry, disease was
widespread, medical
remedies often felt more
like tortures, and many
women died in childbirth.
But through their beliefs,
people found ways of
making sense of their
existence.
Elizabethan Beliefs
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Religion
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People were, in general, much more religious
than people today.
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Almost everyone believed in God and expected to
go to heaven or hell after death.
At this time, England was a Protestant country – it
had broken away from the Catholic Church of
Rome. This was part of the European movement
called the Reformation, which began with attacks
on corruption in the Catholic Church.
Elizabethan Beliefs
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The Chain of Being
A concept inherited from the Middle Ages
 An attempt to give order, or “degree”, to the vastness
of creation.
 God created everything in a strict hierarchy, or chain,
that stretched from God himself down to the lowest
things in existence.
 Humans occupied a place in the chain below the
angels but above animals, plants and stones. Some
humans were higher in the chain than others.
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Elizabethan Beliefs
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The Chain of Being, cont.
 The
monarch was the highest
 Nobles and churchmen below
 Gentlemen
 Commoners
 All women were considered to be inferior to
men, with the obvious exception of Elizabeth
I.
Elizabethan Beliefs
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Chain of Being, cont.
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Accepting one’s place in the
chain was a duty that would
be rewarded by God in
heaven.
Disrupting the chain was
thought to lead to chaos,
but of course many people
still did challenge their
position in society.
Elizabethan Beliefs
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Myths and Magic
 Fairies,
magic, witches, spells and prophecies
all formed part of their view of life.
 Folklore and superstition were often as
important to people as the official religious
beliefs taught by the Church.
Elizabethan Beliefs
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Myths and Magic, cont.
 Many
Elizabethans thought that fairies,
goblins and sprites came out at night to play
tricks on innocent people.
 It was believed they could make people go
insane, give them terrible nightmares, or even
lure them into a devilish underworld.
Elizabethan Beliefs
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Myths and Magic, cont.
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Diseases and disasters were often
blamed on witches
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Many women who didn’t fit into society
were branded as witches and accused of
working for the devil.
Astrology – the belief that the position and
movement of the stars can foretell and
influence events on Earth - was more
important than it is today.
Elizabethan Beliefs
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Little and Large
 The
human body was thought to be a
miniature representation of the universe as a
whole – a microcosm.
 Various
parts of the body were linked to the
planets and signs of the zodiac
Elizabethan Beliefs
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Little and Large, cont.
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The body was thought to contain four
“humours” or fluids – black bile, phlegm,
blood and choler.
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A person’s temperament depended on the
way the humours were mixed.
Most people were thought to have one
humour that was more dominant than the
others.
Illnesses and mental disorders were blamed
on an imbalance of the humours.
What Kind of Play is Macbeth?
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Tragedy
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Ends in the death of
one or more of the
main characters.
Most of his tragedies
involve historical
individuals and events
King James and Shakespeare
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King James (who came to the throne in 1603,
and who claimed to be descended from Banquo)
took a special interest in the subject of Witches.
In 1597 he published a book that he had written
on the subject of witchcraft, his Daemonologie.
In this work, James put the traditional
arguments in favour of a belief in witchcraft, and
his lifelong interest in the subject is evidenced
by the fact that he himself participated in a
number of trials of alleged witches.
Tragedies
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Shakespeare’s most famous and popular
plays
 Romeo
and Juliet; Macbeth; Hamlet; Othello;
King Lear; Julius Caesar
Tragic Hero
Often a man of high rank, such as a king or
prince
 Creates, or is put into, a difficult situation which
he must try to resolve.
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A combination of bad luck and bad decisions lead to
his death.
Often a relatively sympathetic figure. His soliloquies
show his feelings and motives, and show the
audience how easy it would be to make similar
mistakes.
Doom and Destiny
Many people believed in fate, or destiny,
and in the power of the stars to foretell
the future.
 Shakespeare uses the idea of fate or
destiny to add excitement and anticipation
to the tragedies
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 Uses
a prophecy as a way of holding the
audience’s interest, because everyone wants
to see if it will be fulfilled.
Tragic Endings
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Tragedies give a very bleak view of the world.
At the end, the hero, and usually several other
characters, are dead, and the survivors are left to start
again without them.
Although most tragic heroes are partly to blame for their
own fates, death can be a very high price to pay for
what may have seemed initially like a small failing.
In most tragedies, there is also a feeling that some good
may have come out of the terrible suffering.
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In Macbeth, the land of Scotland is tested through the rise of
Macbeth, and recovers by placing the rightful King in his place
on the chain of being.