1. A Midsummer Night’s Dream
William Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night’s Dream

2. Shakespeare’s Lifetime
The Renaissance
Europe
Rebirth of interest in the Arts
New Era

3. London during Shakespeare’s Life
Lack of tolerance
Puritans
Against acting and theaters = Impure
Feared “masterless” men – lower class not under the servitude of a master
The masterless were pushed to the city’s outskirts
Many would become actors
Many theaters were not tolerated

4. London Theatre Districts “Liberties”

5. Vegabonds
A person without a permanent home who moves from place to place.
1572 Vagrancy Law is passed
Actors would be assigned to noblemen
Become status symbols of wealth

6. Censorship and Control
Lord Edmund Tilney
Master of the Revels
Licensed and approved all plays before they could be performed
Insured no bad words or accusations were brought against Queen Elizabeth

7. Queen Elizabeth I Loved and encouraged the Arts During her time
Plays are
not literature/reading material
Written at speed by more than one writer
Performed times then discarded
Queen Elizabeth I

8. Shakespeare’s Plays Not all published in his lifetime
None come “clean” as he wrote them
1595 – Romeo and Juliet
1593 – Christopher Marlow Dies
1594 – Acting groups are combined

9. Published Work Hemming and Henry Condell 36 plays
Plays are not printed with scene and act divisions
Here is the preface to Shakespeare's First Folio - the first volume to feature all of his collected plays.

10. Acting Groups Lord Chamberlain’s Men Lord Admiral’s Men
The two groups would combine

11. Shakespeare’s Theaters
The Theatre – 1576
First playhouse in Elizabethan London
Shakespeare’s company performed there until 1598
The Globe – 1599
Small
2-3 thousand people

12. Blackfriars’ Halls Small indoor theaters Privately owned
Amphitheaters = up to 3,000 people
Open to the public
The Globe and Rose were the most popular

13. Three
tiered
seating
Open ceiling
Stage jetted 50
feet into the
audience
Standing
room
only

16. Blank Verse Definition
Unrhymed lines
Ten syllables each
The Iambic Pentameter
Later he would experiment – rhyming couplets; sonnets

17. Examples Iambic Pentameter Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
Draws on apace; four happy days bring in
Another moon: but O, methinks how slow
This old moon wanes!…

18. Couplet Two consecutive lines of verse with end rhymes
Shakespeare’s sonnets end with couplet
Signal the end of a scene that is in prose or blank verse

19. Rhyming Couplet And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be,
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours.

20. Shakespearean Sonnet “The English Sonnet” abab cdcd efef gg (14 Lines)
Called Shakespearean b/c most distinguished practitioner
10 syllables per line

21. Sonnet cont.
XVIII.
a) Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? b) Thou art more lovely and more temperate: a) Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, b) And summer's lease hath all too short a date: c) Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, d) And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; c) And every fair from fair sometime declines, d) By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd; e) But thy eternal summer shall not fade, f) Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, e) Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade, f) When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st; g) So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, g) So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

22. Shakespeare’s Verse Sought greater freedom than rhyme allowed
Rhyme = scene ending; stress for remembering
Moved towards the rhythms of everyday speech
Prose – reserved for servants, clowns, commoners, and pedestrian matters (messages/letters)

23. Midsummer Night’s Dream
Published in 1600
Written 1595
Commissioned for an important wedding
One of few plays with no source – an original piece