1. Shakespeare Background
Allusions! Quiz tomorrow!
Vocab 16
PAPER &Cited Page\ Notes due tomorrow
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Shakespeare!
Take notes – lecture, videos, text book. Yoda Speak / Hip Hop and Shakespeare
Shakespeare Background

2. Elizabethan England See page 1082 in text book
Queen Elizabeth I – b. Sept. 7, 1533
Died March 24, 1603 in Richmond, Surrey
Daughter of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn (who (who was beheaded by Henry; no male heir)
Coronated January 15, 1559
Spoke Greek, French, Italian, Latin, and, of course, English. 
Never married : "The Virgin Queen”
Elizabethan age was height of English Renaissance in music, literature, military strength
Also saw the birth and rise of William Shakespeare, the Bard, poet and possibly most famous English playwright of all time
See page 1082 in text book

3. Professional Life FACTS
He wrote 37 plays and sonnets in London - first documented play in 1594
He acted with & wrote for the his troupe:
The Lord Chamberlain’s Men which changed names to The King’s Men in 1603 when King James ascended the throne
He and members of The Lord Chamberlain’s Men built the Globe Theater in 1599, which burnt down in 1613 and was rebuilt in 1614

4. Performing a Shakespearean Play
Protestant Church, City officials opposed theaters due to crime, bawdy subject matter, fighting, drinking, and up to 3, people in one place to spread Bubonic Plague
Theaters also used for bear-baiting and gambling
1596 Plague caused London to ban all public plays and Theatres within the City limits
All actors were men because theaters too disreputable for women
Little emphasis on scenery, more attention on costumes, though most were contemporary due to cost
Much of the audience watched from the ‘pit’ as groundlings - poor workers who went for the entertainment of alcohol, fights, prostitution, and lewd subject matter of the plays. Often threw food at the actors onstage.

5. Importance to English
Shakespeare’s plays show the first recorded use of 2,035 new English words
Macbeth, Hamlet, and King Lear have one ‘new’ word every 2.5 lines
He created: “antipathy, critical, frugal, dwindle, extract, horrid, vast, hereditary, critical, excellent, eventful, assassination, lonely, leapfrog, indistinguishable, well-read, and countless others (including countless)”

6. Understanding Shakespearean English
Read through the insults - try some!

7. Phrases Coined by Shakespeare
What do they mean today?
A laughing stock (The Merry Wives of Windsor)
A sorry sight (Macbeth)
As dead as a doornail (Henry VI)
Eaten out of house and home (Henry V, Part 2)
Fair play (The Tempest)
I will wear my heart upon my sleeve (Othello)
In a pickle (The Tempest)
In stitches (Twelfth Night)
In the twinkling of an eye (The Merchant Of Venice)
Mum's the word (Henry VI, Part 2)
Neither here nor there (Othello)
Send him packing (Henry IV)
Set your teeth on edge (Henry IV)
There's method in my madness (Hamlet)
Too much of a good thing (As You Like It)
Vanish into thin air (Othello)

8. Tips to Understanding Follow the thought and feelings
Follow the action
Identify images (hint at mood/feeling)
Decipher the meter or rhythm (imagine how the actor delivered the lines)
Note poetic devices & rhetorical devices

9. When Juliet learns of Tybalt’s death:
Look for…
Antithesis: two opposites are introduced in the same sentence, for contrasting effect
“To be or not to be?”
When Juliet learns of Tybalt’s death:
“Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,
When I, thy three hours' wife, have mangled it?
But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?
That villain cousin would have killed my husband.”

10. Look for… Word play and puns! Repetition!
Remember, all are spoken words – not meant to be read, so words like fair & fare or son & sun
Also note words that sound the same, and make for word play/ puns and words with double meaning: light
Repetition!
"My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, And every tongue brings in a several tale, And every tale condemns me for a villain."
(Richard III)

11. Imagery & important words!
Hey here’s one way to find layers of meaning:

12. This play is a tragedy Remember the Greek tragedy? Purpose of Tragedy:
purge emotion and teach!
(pity and fear)
If you want, buy No Fear Shakespeare: Julius Caesar

13. Revisit Antigone
CREON – made decisions that could have led away from tragedy but ultimately led to own downfall. (Kept audience guessing/suspense: heightens catharsis)
Antigone’s fate was obvious from the beginning: “If I die for it, what happiness!”
CREON comes away with having learned a hard lesson and was punished; he’s left alive, which allows audience to empathize more with his grief when he carries the body of his son out of the palace.
Antigone is a tragic character with a tragic fate; Creon is perhaps more tragic.

14. Shakespeare’s Tragic hero
See page 1084 (bio Shakespeare)
See page 1086
New/review dramatic terms! Take notes.