Transcript Shakespeare Introduction - Kingsley Area Schools K-4

Shakespeare
Introduction
Grade 10 English
Davis 2009-2010
Elizabethan England
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Queen Elizabeth I - born September 7, 1533 in
Greenwich
Died March 24, 1603 in Richmond, Surrey
Daughter of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn
(beheaded by Henry for not bearing a son)
Coronated January 15, 1559
Spoke Greek, French, Italian, Latin, and, of course, English.
Never married and was nicknamed, "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,
and possibly most famous English play write of all time
Shakespeare’s Life
• Born in Stratford-upon-Avon,
Warwickshire
• Baptized on 26 April 1564
• Married in 1582 to Anne
Hathaway
• Was working on plays and
sonnets in London by 1592
• Died in 1616
• 36 of his plays published for the
first time in The First Folio in
1623
Family Life
• Father - John Shakespeare
glovemaker and wool merchant
• Mother - Mary Arden, daughter
of well-to-do local landowner
• Wife - Anne Hathaway was 12
years older and four months
pregnant at the wedding
• Children - Susanna (1583 - 1539),
twins Judith (1585 - 1592)
Hamnet (1585 - 1596)
• Family lived in Stratford,
Shakespeare lived in London
except for last five years of his
life when they were together
FACTS
Professional Life
• He wrote 37 plays and 154
sonnets in London - first
documented play in 1594
• Two of his sonnets were
written
with the patronage of
Henry
Wriothesley
• He acted with and wrote for
the 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
Portfolio
• Shakespeare wrote HISTORIES,
TRAGEDIES, AND ROMANCES
Historical Guesses: (No one knows exactly when Shakespeare wrote
anything, but based on the little information available, the time line
of some of his plays are thought to be)
1589 - first play is Henry IV Part One
1590-91 - Henry IV Parts II and III
1593 - Two Gentlemen of Verona
1594 - Taming of the Shrew
1595 - Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer’s Night Dream
1605 - Macbeth, King Lear (To honor King James)
1610 - Othello
1611 - The Tempest
Performing a
Shakespearean Play
• Protestant Church, City officials opposed
theaters due to crime, bawdy subject
matter, fighting, drinking, and up to 3,000
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.
Importance to English
• Over 12,000 words entered English between
1500 - 1650
• 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)”
(Bryson loc. 1396-1406).
Understanding
Shakespearean English
• Read through the insults and
compliments and try some of your own
• What do you think some of them would
have looked like? Draw a picture of your
meanest insult or your nicest
compliment and explain what it is you’ve
called your friend (or enemy)
Shakespeare’s English Continued
The following phrases were coined by Shakespeare. What do they mean
and how do we use them today. Choose at least four of them to use in
your own creative story:
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)
Works Cited
Absolute Shakespeare, Shakespeare Timeline. Absoluteshakespeare.com, 2005. Web. 3 January
2010.
BBC. BBC Historic-Figures, William Shakespeare. BBC, MMX, n.d. Web. 3 January 2010.
Bryson, Bill. Shakespeare, The World as Stage (Kindle Edition). Amazon, 2007. Ebook.
The Elizabethan Era. Elizabethan Era, n.d. Web. 3 January 2010
The Folger Shakespeare Library. The Folger Institute, n.d. Web. 3 January, 2010.
Jamieson, Lee. Common Phrases Invented by Shakespeare. About.com Guide, n.d. Web. 3 January 2010.
Plowright, Teresa. Globe Theater. About.com Gude, n.d. Web. 3 January 2010.
Shakespeare for Children. Squidoo, 2010. Web. 3 January 2010.