Transcript Translate these Shakespearean lines:

The World of Shakespeare
Mrs. White
LA-9
Essential Question
(Why) Is Shakespeare still relevant after
400 years?
Shakespeare creates great story lines.
Biography
Shakespeare is renowned as the English
playwright and poet whose body of works is
considered the greatest in history of English
literature.
Surprisingly for the world's greatest playwright,
we actually know very little about Shakespeare's
life. What few details we have come from church
records, land titles and the written opinions of
others. Very little is known about young
Shakespeare.
Basic Facts:
Shakespeare was baptized on
April 26, 1564
It is assumed that he was born on
April 23, 1564. (there is no proof
of the actual DOB)
Shakespeare was married in 1582
at age eighteen
Shakespeare married Anne
Hathaway, an older women who
was twenty six at the time.
Shakespeare left Stratford for
London to make his fortune
roughly fours years later. Leaving
his wife and children behind.
Shakespeare headed to London
sometime in 1586, there already
was an established community of
playwrights
By 1595, Shakespeare was
suffiently successful to be named
as one of the more senior
members of the Lord
Chamberlain's men, an acting
company that performed
frequently before court.
This was no small honor; this
prominent theatre company later
became the royal company called
the King's Men, making
Shakespeare an official playwright
to the King of England.
Basic Facts Con’t
By 1596, Shakespeare was so
successful as a playwright that
his family was finally granted a
Coat of Arms which amongst
other things allowed
Shakespeare to call himself a
"gentleman".
Shakespeare's fortunes were
also improving during this time;
in 1597 he purchased the
second largest house in
Stratford which he called New
Place and began buying up
land around Stratford. This
was a big deal at the time.
One year later, Shakespeare
became a ten percent owner of
the new purpose built theatre
in London, the famous Globe
Theatre where so many of his
plays would later be
performed.
By 1611, Shakespeare retired,
returning to Stratford and in
1616 Shakespeare died,
famously bequeathing his
second-best bed to his wife,
often seen as a sign that his
marriage may not have been
happy.
Mother
Shakespeare's mother was Mary Arden
who married John Shakespeare in 1557.
The youngest daughter in her family, she
inherited much of her father’s landowning
and farming estate when he died.
She had 7 children, William Shakespeare
was the 3rd.
Father
From baptism records,
we know William's father
was a John Shakespeare,
said to be a town official
of Stratford and a local
businessman who
dabbled in tanning,
leatherwork and
whittawering: working
with white leather to
make items like purses
and gloves. John also
dealt in grain and
sometimes was described
as a glover by trade.
John was also a
prominent man in
Stratford. By 1560, he
was one of fourteen
burgesses which formed
the town council.
Interestingly, William
himself is often described
as a keen businessman
so we can assume he got
his business acumen
from his father. In the
Bard's case, the apple
didn’t fall far from the
tree at all...
The Bard’s Education
We know that the King’s New Grammar School
taught boys basic reading and writing.
We assume William attended this school since it
existed to educate the sons of Stratford but we
have no definite proof.
Likewise, a lack of evidence suggests that
William, whose works are studied universally at
Universities, never attended one himself!
Marriage and Children
A bond certificate dated
November the 28th, 1582,
reveals that an eighteen year
old William married the twentysix and pregnant Anne
Hathaway.
Barely seven months later,
they had his first daughter,
Susanna. Anne never left
Stratford, living there her entire
life
Anne Hathaway never left
Stratford and spent most of her
married life without her
husband.
Susanna was baptized in
Stratford sometime in May,
1583.
Baptism records again reveal
that twins Hamnet and Judith
were born in February 1592.
Hamnet, William's only son
died at eleven years old.
William's family was unusually
small in a time when families
had many children to ensure
parents were cared for in later
years despite the very high
mortality rates of children and
also their life expectancy in the
1500s.
Death
Records reveal that the great Bard revised his will on
March the 25th, 1616. Less than a month later, he died
on April the 23rd, 1616.
Literature's famous Bard is buried at the Holy Trinity
Church in Stratford.
He infamously left his second-best bed to his wife Anne
Hathaway and little else, giving most of his estate to his
eldest daughter Susanna who has married a prominent
and distinguished physician named John Hall in June
1607.
This was not as callous as it seems; the Bard's best bed
was for guests; his second-best bed was his marriage
bed...
Bard’s Last Words
Written upon William Shakespeare’s tombstone is an
appeal that he be left to rest in peace with a curse on
those who would move his bones...
Good friend, for Jesus´ sake forbeare
To digg the dust enclosed here!
Blest be ye man that spares thes stones
And curst be he that moues my bones.
Translated this reads as:
Good friend, for Jesus’ sake, forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here;
Blest be the man that spares these stones
And curst he that moves my bones.
The Globe Theatre
Opened 1599
The Globe Theatre also known as the
Shakespeare Globe Theatre was not only one
of most famous playhouse’s of all time, but
the play house where Shakespeare
performed many of his greatest plays.
Built from oak, deal, and stolen playhouse
frames, the 3 storey, 3000 capacity Globe
Theatre, co-owned by William Shakespeare
has become almost as famous as the
playwright himself
Though located near the river Thames, Shakespeare’s playhouse
was not in fact in central London but rather an outlying district called
Southwark. Southwark had a "colorful" reputation of being not too
different from what we would call a "bad" district today, certainly not
the place to find respectable gentry.
Yet the famous playhouse by attracting commoners and gentry
alike, brought people of all classes together in a region renowned for
bear-baiting and other less than respectable activities.
Nonetheless, elements of England’s strict class divisions remained;
commoners were in the courtyard by comparison with England’s
gentry and nobility which were seated in the galleries or the
balconies.
That playhouses could even exist at all was in part due to its
Southwark location; it was outside the jurisdiction of a disapproving
central London bureaucracy.
True to it’s name, above the main entrance was inscribed
the words "Totus mundus agit histrionem" (the whole world
is a playhouse), a phrase echoed in As You Like It ("All the
world’s a stage").
A crest displaying Hercules bearing the globe on his
shoulders finished the effect...
Watching a Play
Unlike today’s spectacles, a Shakespearean playhousegoer really had to use their imagination; there were no
backdrops, no lighting to speak of, horrific acoustics, and
few if any props. As such watching a play would involve
watching the actors exaggerating their movements for
patrons in the galleries and shouting their lines to be
heard by all.
Much of the illusion of a play had to occur in the
viewer’s own imagination, the only notable exceptions,
being the colorful use of costumes, heralds, banners, the
odd cannon, and the dramatic use of the balcony’s and
arras. Because there was no artificial lighting, plays
typically occurred in the early afternoon, lasting from 2
pm until roughly 4 or 5 pm.
The end of an era…
In 1642 as Puritanical forces made their
presence felt in England, playhouses no longer
were a place of laughter but one of evil sin.
Predictably then, all of England’s playhouses
were promptly closed down to protect the good
people of England. Just two years later in 1644,
where Hamlet was once performed, the famous
playhouse was taken down, its presence
replaced by housing instead. One of the greatest
eras in playhouse was at an end...
Patronage
Patronage is the support, encouragement,
privilege and often financial aid given by a
person or an organization. In
Shakespeare’s case it refers to the
support and financial aid he was given by
Elizabeth I and then James I. Therefore
he had to be careful to ALWAYS depict
England’s monarchy in the best light.
Politics
Shakespeare was aware of the danger
of dabbling in politics
Plays were censored
The Catholic religion was not approved
of - Queen Elizabeth was constantly in
fear of Catholic plots
Shakespeare knew people who had
been arrested and tortured - friends
and family members!
Relatives had been arrested and taken to the
Tower of London
– William Arden, was a second cousin of Mary
Arden of Wilmcote, the mother of Shakespeare
– In 1583 Arden was indicted for plotting against the
life of the Queen
– Arden protested his innocence only admitting to
adhere to the Catholic faith but was executed at
Smithfield on 30th December, 1583
Shakespeare knew of the strict laws
prohibiting any explicitly religious or current
political events being represented on stage
LA 9-Terminology
Act: one of the main structural divisions of drama;
Shakespeare plays contain 5 acts
Scene: one of the units of action within an act of drama
Dramatic Personae: a list of characters in a play; found
at the beginning of a play
Stage Direction: instructions on what the actions should
do on stage
Terminology
Prologue: a short preface in a relativity long work used to describe
setting and any information the audience needs to know before the
start of the play’s action
Setting: the time and place in which the events in a narrative occur
Comedy: content mainly to amuse; in Shakespearean plays, it
usually ends with a marriage
Tragedy: content is meant to provoke thoughtful reflection on the
most profound experiences of the human condition and involving
actions that turn out disastrously for the protagonist
Terms…
Aside: a short passage spoken by a character either to
him/herself or directly to another character or group of
characters; there is an understanding the only those
intended to hear
Soliloquy: an extended speech delivered by a character
alone onstage
Comic Relief: the use of humorous characters,
speeches, or scenes in an otherwise serious work
Lyrical Text: writing that focuses principally on the
expression of images
Terms…
Motif: a recurring and symbolically significant
element (work, phrase, pattern, image, or idea);
contributes to theme
Pun: a deliberate confusion of similar words to
add meaning, sometimes comedic relief
Simile: an obvious comparison between two
elements using like, as, or than