1. Dr. Minerva

2.  Background information FYI  Quiz information  Comprehensive exam information  Mostly, this is to provide context

3.  1350 – 1600  The Renaissance  A re-birth of arts and sciences after the medieval era  A period that values the individual, freedom of choice  1558 – 1603  Reign of Queen Elizabeth I  Known as the Elizabethan Era  Elizabethan Tragedy: no female actors; many actors played more than one role; not much scenery but costumes were elaborate

4.  1564: Shakespeare born in Stratford-on-Avon  1582: Marriage license issued to William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway; he was 18 and she was 26  1583: Susanna Shakespeare born six months later  1585: Hamnet and Judith born; Hamnet died in 1596  1587: Shakespeare moves to London to pursue writing and acting  1592 - 1594: Theaters close periodically due to the Bubonic Plague that swept through London  1594: The Lord Chamberlain’s Company formed (founding member); for about the next twenty years, Shakespeare is a leading London actor and playwright  1594: Romeo and Juliet written (1597: published)

5.  1597: Shakespeare buys the second largest home in Stratford-on-Avon (New Place)  1599: The Globe Theater opens; Shakespeare is one of its stockholders and many of his plays are performed there as well as at court and other theaters  1603: The King’s Men Company formed (Queen Elizabeth has died; King James, another patron of the arts, is monarch)  1613: A cannon shot during a performance of Henry VIII set fire to the Globe theater and it burns to the ground  1613: Shakespeare and his wife return to Stratford-on-Avon and he retires from the theater.  1616: Shakespeare dies (on his birthday?); some say it was after a night of drinking with other writers, including Ben Jonson

6.  38 plays; 154 sonnets; 5 poems in 23 years  Coined words/phrases based on his knowledge of Greek, Latin, and other languages

7.  From the spectacled pedant to the schoolboy, all gentlefolk recognize Shakespeare as a fathomless fount of coinages. The honey- tongued Bard had no rival, nor could he sate his never-ending addiction to madcap, flowery (or foul-mouthed !) neologisms. Even time-honored exposure cannot besmirch our amazement at the countless and useful words that lend radiance to our lackluster lives. All in a day’s work !

9.  Shakespeare left his wife his second-best bed.  Most of the plays did not survive in written form but were written later by the actors from memory. The collected versions of his plays are called folios.  Shorter texts published during Shakespeare’s lifetime are quartos. These were sold to theater companies to use as scripts. Shakespeare revised them.  Writers rarely invented their own plots. The plot of Romeo and Juliet comes from a poem called The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Iuliet. Brooke was borrowing from earlier sources as well.

10.  Tragedy  Comic relief  Allusion  Foil  Soliloquy  Aside  Blank verse  Chorus  Sonnet  Freytag’s Pyramid

11. Climax (Act III) ComplicationReversal Rising actionFalling action Exposition Denouement