1. William Shakespeare Why Shakespeare Shakespeare’s Language
Elements of Drama
Romeo & Juliet
Shakespeare’s Life and Times
Shakespeare’s Theatre
William Shakespeare

2. Why Shakespeare?
For 400 years, Shakespeare has been considered the greatest dramatist and poet in the English-speaking world.
His plays are produced thousands of times each year in theaters all over the world, and audiences today are enthralled as the ones who first attended them in London.

3. Why Shakespeare?
Shakespeare was a master of our complex English language, and he filled his plays with poetry and prose in a way unequaled by any other writer.

4. Why Shakespeare?
He wrote with an incredible vocabulary of 17,000 to 29,000 words (variously disputed,) which is astounding when one considers that the King James Version of the Bible uses slightly over 3,000.
Many of those words are used in sophisticated puns and wordplay yet he wrote for the commoner as well as the educated. The language of Shakespeare is rich beyond that of any other writer.

5. The Characters
The characters in Shakespeare’s plays are complete in all varieties of human experience.
Some are silly people who do not know they are silly.
A few of them are monsters.
Some are truly tragic people: good but with flaws in character which lead them to destruction.

6. Some are lovers embracing life with a passion, and others are losers who spend their lives in anger and hate.
They represent all the varieties of personality, motivation, and character which exist in humankind.

7. Shakespeare’s Language
I hear students say, “It’s so hard to read this Old English!”
Shakespeare did not write in Old English (nor did Twain in Huck Finn or W.H.D. Rouse when he translated The Odyssey)

8. This is what Old English looks like…

9. Shakespeare’s Language
Shakespeare wrote in Early Modern English
Early Modern English is only one generation of language away from the English you speak today!

10. Shakespeare only had an 8th grade education
There were no dictionaries
Shakespeare is credited by the Oxford English Dictionary with the introduction of nearly 3,000 words into the language
His vocabulary numbers upwards of 17,000 (quadruple that of an average, educated conversationalist)

11. Words from Shakespeare
The English language owes a great debt to Shakespeare. He invented many of our common words by changing nouns into verbs, changing verbs into adjectives, connecting words never before used together, adding prefixes and suffixes, and devising words wholly original.
academe
accused
addiction
advertising
amazement
arouse
assassination
backing
bandit
bedroom
beached
besmirch
birthplace
blanket
bloodstained
barefaced
blushing
bet
bump
buzzer
caked
cater
champion
circumstantial
cold-blooded
compromise
courtship
countless
critic
dauntless
dawn
deafening
discontent
dishearten
drugged
dwindle
epileptic
equivocal
elbow
excitement

12. exposure eyeball fashionable fixture flawed frugal generous gloomy
gossip
green-eyed
gust
hint
hobnob
hurried
impede
impartial
invulnerable
jaded
label
lackluster
laughable
lonely
lower
luggage
lustrous
madcap
majestic
marketable
metamorphose
mimic
monumental
moonbeam
mountaineer
negotiate
noiseless
obscene
obsequiously
ode
Olympian
outbreak
panders
pedant
premeditated
puking
radiance
rant
remorseless
savagery
scuffle
secure
skim milk
submerge
summit
swagger
torture
tranquil
undress
unreal
varied
vaulting
worthless
zany
Source:

13. Phrases Coined by Shakespeare
As good luck would have it
Good riddance
It was Greek to me
Break the ice
Heart of gold
Eaten me out of house and home
In a pickle
Kill with kindness
Elbow room
Lie low
Fool’s Paradise
Love is blind
For goodness’ sake
Not slept one wink
Full circle

14. Shakespeare’s English
In the England of Shakespeare’s time, English was a lot more flexible as a language
The most common simple sentence in modern English follows a familiar pattern: Subject (S), Verb (V), Object (O). (Will caught the ball.)
However, Shakespeare was much more at liberty to switch these basic components
Shakespeare used a great deal of SOV inversion (Will the ball caught.)

15. Switching the S-V-O order to S-O-V made it easier for Shakespeare to rhyme and to manipulate his words to flow easily in poems and plays.
Shakespeare could effectively place the metrical stress wherever he needed it most by switching word order
Shakespeare also used O-S-V construction (The ball Will caught) for the same reasons.

16. Inverted Word Order
Lady Montague: Oh, where is Romeo? Saw you him today? Right glad I am he was not at this fray. Translation: Oh, where is Romeo? Did you see him today? I am very glad he was not in this fight.

17. Elements of Drama
Tragedy: A drama that ends in catastrophe—most often death—for the main character and often for several other important characters as well
Tragic Hero: The main character, someone who is nobly born and has great influence in his or her society. This character has weakness or errors in judgment (Tragic Flaws) that lead to his or her downfall. Fate may play a role in the course that events take.
Foil: A character whose personality or attitudes are in sharp contrast to those of another character in the same work. This highlights the other character’s traits

18. Elements of Drama
Comic Relief: A humorous scene, incident, or speech that relieves the overall emotional intensity in the play. Comic relief helps the audience absorb the tragic events in the plot of a play.
Allusion: A brief reference, within a work, to something outside the work that the reader or audience is expected to know. Many of Shakespeare’s allusions are to mythology or the Bible.

19. Elements of Drama
Soliloquy: A Soliloquy is a speech made by an actor alone on stage to let the audience know what is on that character’s mind.
Aside: An Aside is a character’s remark to the audience or to another character that others on stage aren’t supposed to hear. The purpose of an aside is to reveal that character’s thoughts.
Monologue:

20. Romeo and Juliet
The exact year in which William Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet is unknown, but it is definitely one of his earlier works, and one of only two tragedies written in the period from 1590 to

21. Romeo and Juliet Romeo and Juliet is as much about hate as love
Although it is considered one of the world’s greatest love stories, it can be argued that the love story is only a vehicle for the resolution of the story about hate, that is, the feud between the two families.

22. Romeo and Juliet
The plot was based on a fourteenth-century Italian short story, or novella, written by Matteo Bandello, that included elements of history, tradition, romance, and fable.

23. Romeo and Juliet
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
The Forcefulness of Love
The Individual Versus Society
The Inevitability of Fate

24. Romeo and Juliet The Forcefulness of Love
The most famous love story in the English literary tradition.
Focus on romantic love
Love as overpowering force:
Family
Friends

25. Romeo and Juliet Love as a cause of violence. . .
Hate, Violence, Death, Love
Love is blinding. . .

26. Romeo and Juliet The Individual Versus Society
Romeo and Juliet against. . .
Family
Law
Religion
Honor

27. Romeo and Juliet The Inevitability of Fate
Straight path or a series of crossed roads?
“Star-crossed Lovers”
Feuding families
Series of unfortunate events
Bad timing

28. Romeo and Juliet Imagery: Light and dark Night/Day
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Imagery: Light and dark
Night/Day
Night = Good or Evil
Day = Evil or Good
Provides contrast, hints at alternatives
Opposing points of view
Mercutio’s POV
Servants’ POV
Nurse
Peter
Musicians

29. Romeo and Juliet Poison
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
Poison
“Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,/And vice, sometimes by action dignified.”
Tendency to “poison” things
Thumb-Biting
Insulting, juvenile gesture; vulgar display
Represents the foolishness of entire Montague/Capulet feud
Denotes the stupidity of violence in general

30. Romeo and Juliet Queen Mab
Brings dreams; confirms the vices of greed, lust, violence.
Is total nonsense; fairy pulled by “grey-coated gnat”
Tiny, Insubstantial; just like the dreams/desires/fantasies of people

31. Romeo and Juliet

32. Shakespeare’s Life and Times
BIRTH
William Shakespeare was born into a reasonably well-to-do family.
It was custom to baptize a child three days after birth, and since church records at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford show his baptism to have been April 26, 1564, he is assumed to have been born April 23, 1564.
The only records kept of births, marriages, and deaths were those kept by the Church. He is believed to have attended in the half-timbered building which still stands in Stratford and some think he taught there for a short time, as well

33. FATHER
His father, John Shakespeare, was an established businessman in Stratford-Upon-Avon who dealt in leather and glove making and who rose in town importance from being chamberlain and alderman to high-bailiff, much like being a mayor today.
MOTHER
Mary Shakespeare, his mother, was the daughter of Robert Arden, a prosperous gentleman-farmer.

35. EDUCATION
Shakespeare attended the Stratford Grammar School.
He did not attend Oxford or Cambridge, as is often assumed.
MARRIAGE
He married Anne Hathaway when he was 18 and she was 26.
They became the parents of three children—Susanna (born in 1583), and two years later, twins Judith and Hamnet.

36. Anne Hathaway’s Cottage

37. Tragedy struck Shakespeare when Hamnet died in 1596 at age 11.
Susanna was married to John Hall, and they had a daughter, Elizabeth
Elizabeth married twice but had no children
Judith married and had three sons
None of Judith’s sons produced an heir
So, when Elizabeth died in 1670, Shakespeare ‘s direct bloodline came to an end
No one today can claim direct, blood relationship to William Shakespeare

39. Upstart Crow
No one knows for sure what Shakespeare did from 1585 to 1592 he was being mentioned as an “upstart crow” by a jealous rival dramatist in London. By 1592, he was an actor and playwright. His first three plays were Henry VI, Titus Andronicus, and The Comedy of Errors.

40. Theaters of London
The theaters of London were closed between the years of 1592 and because of the bubonic plague, and during this time Shakespeare wrote his poem “Venus and Adonis” and began writing sonnets.

41. Lord Chamberlain’s Men
In 1594 the plague was over, and Shakespeare helped form the Lord Chamberlain’s Men which became London’s premier acting company in which he was both actor and playwright.

42. Queen Elizabeth
He and his company acted before Queen Elizabeth in 1594.
Queen Elizabeth placed the company under her protection.

43. The Puritans
This protection was very important because a religious group called the Puritans were trying to shut down the theaters for being sinful and attracting the wrong sorts of people. The queen loved the theater and the arts, so Shakespeare’s company was able to enjoy 14 productive years until her death in 1603.

44. King James I
At that time, King James I continued royal patronage, and thereafter, the company was known as The King’s Men.

45. Shakespeare’s Plays and Poetry
Shakespeare’s plays and poetry were very popular and from the beginning of his writings until his death in 1616 he wrote 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and other poetry. Sonnet: a fourteen line poem with a fixed rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter that ends with a rhyming couplet Around 1610 he left London for good and retired to his home in Stratford where he became an important member of the local gentry. In 1613 he collaborated with John Fletcher on Henry VIII, The Noble Kinsmen, and a play, which has since become lost, named Cardenia.

46. He died on April 23rd in 1616.
Shakespeare wrote his own epitaph, a curse, which has proven highly effective, as no one has moved his remains.

47. Shakespeare’s Theater
Attending the theater in Shakespeare’s time was very different from attending it now, and Shakespeare’s theater, the Globe, was unlike any modern one. It was probably round, or nearly so, and the roof covered only the outside galleries; thus, many who went to see the plays got wet in the frequent London rains. The stage jutted out into the audience and the actors were surrounded on three sides by people who paid to see the performance.

48. Shakespeare’s Theater

50. Shakespeare’s Theater
No one went to the theater at night. There were no electric stage lights, and the stage was in the middle of the audience, lighted by the sun. There was no scenery and very few props. There were no costumes except for any which the actors acquired for themselves, so there might be all manner of styles and periods of dress on the stage at one time.

51. Shakespeare’s Theater
The Stage
1/3 of yard was filled with 6ft high platform
no curtain
no artificial lighting
back wall had at least two doors
balcony was used for hilltops, walls of cities, or second story scenes.
trapdoors were used to raise or lower actors and props.

52. Inside The Globe Theatre

53. Attending Shakespeare’s Theater
Spectators’ price of admissions was
One penny - to stand in yard around stage (these were called the groundlings)
Two pennies - to sit in 2nd and 3rd floor galleries
Three pennies - to sit in the first floor galleries
Nearly half the theater-goers stood on the ground around the stage; they were called “groundlings,” and they were a rowdy bunch, eating, talking and yelling out anything which took their fancy at the moment. People paying higher prices got seats in the galleries for their money and a roof to keep off the rain.

54. Inside The Globe Theatre

55. Attending Shakespeare’s Theater
The Groundlings

56. The Galleries

57. The Galleries

58. Attending Shakespeare’s Theater
Today no courteous theater-goer would think of walking around while a play was on, but Shakespeare’s audiences, especially the groundlings, made no pretense of courtesy, and the playwright who, after all, had been an actor himself, knew he had better write a play filled with action and good stories or he would soon lose the attention of his audience. Shakespeare’s plays are action-packed with all sorts of sword play and buffoonery.

59. Attending Shakespeare’s Theater
In Shakespeare’s time no women or girls acted in plays, which is probably the main reason there are many more men’s than women’s parts in his plays. For a woman to act in a play would have been a shameless and serious breach of social custom. Women were played by men, and girls and young women were played by young men or boys who were carefully taught by the older actors. Only later in the 17th century did women and girls act, and even then an actress was considered somewhat daring and her character a little suspect.

60. http://www. greatbuildings. com/cgi-bin/gbi. cgi/Globe_Theater

61. In 1613 the old Globe Theater burned to the ground after being set on fire by a spark from a cannon during a performance of Henry VIII.