Shakespeare and Elizabethan Drama The Age of Shakespeare and Elizabethan Drama Part of the English Renaissance (1485-1660) is called the Elizabethan Age after Queen Elizabeth I, who reigned from 1558-1603.

Following Queen Elizabeth’s death in 1603, her cousin King James of Scotland assumed the English throne. Like his predecessor, James was a great supporter of the arts and literature. He became the direct patron of Shakespeare’s theater company, renaming it the King’s Men and thus confirming its status as England’s foremost theater company.

Elizabethan Drama, Continued Shakespeare’s company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, built their own playhouse, The Globe, in 1599. This roughly circular building had three levels of covered galleries. A platform stage about forty feet wide projected out into the open yard, where people who paid a pence, or a penny could stand and watch the play. The people standing in this section were called the “groundlings”. Admission to the gallery benches cost two pence. Wealthy people paid sixpence to sit in a “lords’ room” directly over the stage. In all, the Globe could accommodate about three thousand spectators. At the Globe and similar theaters, all performances took place in the afternoon because there was no artificial lighting. The stage was mostly bare. Instead of relying on scenery, Shakespeare used language to create illusions of a setting.

The Globe Theatre

Shakespeare’s Life Shakespeare was born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, a market town about one hundred miles from London. He received an excellent education because of his family’s upper-class status. At eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway. The couple had a daughter, Susanna, in 1583, and twins, Judith and Hamnet, in 1585. Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son, died at age eleven.

Shakespeare, Continued Sometime between 1585 and the early 1590’s, Shakespeare moved to London to pursue a career in theater. He worked as an actor and playwright, quickly gaining attention for his comedies and historical plays. By 1594, he had joined the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, which remained his theatrical home for the rest of his career. Shakespeare died in 1616.

Shakespeare’s “Homes”

The Lord Chamberlain’s Men

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare’s writing is full of figurative language and wordplay. You might find a single metaphor or simile extended throughout an entire speech. Other speeches contain a number of metaphors and similes packed together. Romeo and Juliet also contains many puns, or plays on the different meanings of a word or on the similar meaning or sound of different words.

Romeo and Juliet, Continued Shakespeare probably wrote Romeo and Juliet in 1595. Following an Elizabethan practice, he borrowed the story from other writers. His main source was the Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet (1562), a narrative poem by Arthur Brooke that was based on an ancient tale. Shakespeare departed from Brooke’s version in several ways. He fleshed out some of the characters, including the Nurse, Benvolio, and Mercutio. Juliet’s age dropped from sixteen to thirteen. Instead of taking place over several months, the action occurs within a single week, giving the play a breathless pace. Romeo and Juliet opens with a sonnet, a fourteen-line poem of rhymed iambic pentameter (prologue). When Romeo and Juliet first encounter each other, their dialogue completes another sonnet.

Romeo and Juliet, Continued During the early 1590’s, sonnets were a fad in England; poets created long series of sonnets on the subject of love. The play is divided into five acts( like a book chapter) and each act has a different number of scenes.

Background on Romeo and Juliet The events in this play take place during the summer in Verona and Mantua, two cities in northern Italy, in the 1300’s. During the Renaissance, young people needed permission from their parents or guardians to get married. Parents commonly arranged marriages for their children, especially in upper-class households. Arranged marriages customarily required the bride’s consent, however. Girls could legally get married at age twelve, but they were usually fifteen or sixteen when they married. Juliet, at age thirteen, would have been considered a young bride.

Verona, Italy

Background, Continued Romeo and Juliet come from two distinguished families who are embroiled in a bitter feud. In northern Italy during the Renaissance (1300’s to 1600’s), such feuds between families were common. Italian families were extended to include brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, and even servants. All these members of a family might become involved in a vendetta, a feud between two families often initially caused by a killing and then perpetuated by acts of revenge.