1. Do Now What do you know about Shakespeare?
What Shakespearean plays have you already read?

2. Widely regarded as the greatest writer in English literature

3. How could 1 person write all that in a lifetime?

5. Built 1598; opened 1599
Burned down in 1613 from a cannon blast during a play
Rebuilt and opened in 1614
Closed by Puritans in 1624
torn down in 1644.

7. Only men and boys
Young boys whose voices had not changed play women’s roles
Considered indecent for a woman to appear on stage

8. Wealthy got benches
“Groundlings”-poorer people stood and watched from the courtyard (“pit”)

9. 2 pennies to sit in the balcony Broadway Today:
1 English penny to stand
2 pennies to sit in the balcony
Broadway Today:
$85 Orchestra
$60 Balcony

10. Monologues, dialogues, asides, soliloquies, all used in Elizabethan
drama

11. Shakespeare used it in many plays
unrhymed verse in iambic pentameter
(more on this later)

12. Humorous use of a word with two meanings, often sexual innuendo
Shakespeare loved to use them!!!

13. Use of comedy within literature that is NOT a comedy to provide “relief” from seriousness or sadness.

14. Shakespearean Comedy A greater influence of situation than characters
A struggle of young lovers to overcome difficulty, often presented by elders
Separation and re-unification
Deception among characters (especially mistaken identity)
A clever servant
Disputes between characters, often within a family
Multiple, intertwining plots
Puns/dry humor
Pastoral elements– rural life
Happy endings

15. A drama that tells the story of the fall of a person of high status.
A serious work that tells the story of a tragic hero in the face of inevitable doom.
A tragic flaw is a personal weakness that brings about the fall of a character in a tragedy.

16. Each Shakespearean tragedy is divided into 5 acts and contains the following 6 elements:
Exposition
Inciting Incident
Rising Action
Climax
Falling Action
Catastrophe

17. Shakespearean tragedy has 5 acts w/6 elements:
Act I: Exposition, Inciting Incident, Start of the Rising Action
Act II: More Rising Action
Act III: Rising Action, Climax, start of the Falling Action
Act IV: Falling Action
Act V: Falling Action, Catastrophe, Resolution

18. Took place over more than 1 day (Greeks = 1 day)
Shakespeare added romance to the tragedy
Mixed poetry & prose
Acted violent scenes out on stage
Played to a more diverse audience (all classes)

19. OR a combination of the two
Drama where the central character suffers great misfortune due to:
- fate
- character flaw
OR a combination of the two

21. Reflection
Describe your experience with Shakespeare last year. Do you find his writing easy/hard? Do you like/dislike? Any other information you would like to share? Etc.
List 3 new things you learned about Shakespeare today in class.