Transcript Document

An Introduction to William
Shakespeare and the Tragedy
of Romeo & Juliet
Honors English 9
Bear Creek High School
This presentation will…
inform you about the life and work of the
mysterious William Shakespeare.
provide you details about Elizabethan
society and theater.
define basic terminology related to
Shakespearean poetry and drama.
April 23, 1564: William Shakespeare was born in
Stratford-on-Avon to John and Mary Shakespeare. There
is a baptismal registration for Shakespeare, but few other
written records exist. He was the 3 rd of 8 children.
Much of Shakespeare’s younger years
remain a mystery, but there are rumors
about what jobs he may have worked.
Schoolmaster
Lawyer
Lawyer
Butcher Apprentice
1582: According to church
records, Shakespeare married
Anne Hathaway.
At the time of their marriage,
William was eighteen and
Anne was twenty-six.
William and Anne have three
children together (Susanna,
Hamnet, and Judith).
August 1596: young
Hamnet died at the
age of eleven. The
cause of his death is
unknown.
Shakespeare left his family in
1591 to pursue writing in London.
Susanna
Judith
Hamnet
In 1592, Shakespeare began developing a reputation as an
actor and playwright.
As theatres were beginning to
grow in popularity, it is
probable that Shakespeare
began earning a living writing
plays (adapting old ones and
working with others on new
ones).
1594: William became involved with a company of actors
named “The Lord Chamberlain’s Men.” This group later (1603)
changed their name to “The King’s Men”.
In 1598, Shakespeare, in collaboration with
other actors, designed and built The Globe.
This circular theatre was the first of
its kind, breaking away from the
traditional rectangular theatres.
1612: Shakespeare moved back to Stratford
where he retired both rich and famous.
1616: William Shakespeare dies on his birthday.
At the time of his death, Shakespeare is said to have written
around 37 plays and 154 sonnets. He is also known to have
contributed over two thousand words to the English language.
Sniffledorfen
Shakespeare is
also known to have
written around
884,000 words
throughout all of his
works.
Good frend for Jesus sake forbeare
To digg the dust encloasedheare
Bleste be ye man [that] spares thes stones
And curst be he that moves my bones.
Which do you prefer?
Or…..
Shakespearean Theater
“The Globe”
Romeo,
Romeo…Wher
e for art thou
Romeo?
Elizabethan Theatre Fun Facts
The First Elizabethan Theater: “The Wooden O”
Built in 1576, first permanent stage in London
Built by James Burbage
Shaped in form of a tavern
1599 theatre torn down, but Shakespeare’s company
used it to build The Globe Theatre
Elizabethan Theatre Fun Facts
The Globe
Round/polygonal building with a roofless courtyard
No artificial light
Three stories high – upper levels were for the weathy
The “groundlings” paid a penny a piece to stand on the floor in front
of the stage (800 people)
Large platform stage
Back of platform was curtained off inner stage
Two door entrances/exits on either side of curtain
Small balcony/upper stage
Elaborate costumes but no props
Young boys played the parts of women; women weren’t allowed to be
actors
Fire and Rediscovery
Shakespeare’s Globe
burned down, but its
foundation was
discovered in 1990. It
gave us many clues to
the Elizabethan
experience such as
hazelnut shells! A
replica has since been
rebuilt. You can visit it
and see a play today.
Dramatic Terminology
The Tragic Pattern:
Act III: Crisis/Turning Point
A series of complications that
determines the outcome
Act II: Rising Action
A series of
complications
Act I: Exposition
Establishes setting,
characters, conflict, and
background
Act IV: Falling Action
Results of the turning
point; characters locked
into deeper disaster
Act V:
Climax/Resolution/Denouement
Death of the main characters and then
the loose parts of the plot are tied up
Dramatic Terminology
Irony: There are three types of irony.
Situational Irony: a great difference in the expected
outcome or purpose of the action and the result.
Dramatic Irony: when the reader or the audience is aware
of information that the characters are not
Verbal Irony: in which the writer says one thing and
means another (sarcasm is verbal irony)
Monologue: A long uninterrupted speech given by one
character onstage to everyone.
Soliloquy: A long uninterrupted speech given by one
character alone on stage, inaudible to other characters
Dramatic Terminology
Pun: A humorous play on words
After that poisonous snake struck at me in the Arizona
Desert I was really rattled.
A gossip is someone with a great sense of rumor.
A carpenter must have been here. I saw dust.
Energizer Bunny arrested - charged with battery.
Corduroy pillows are making headlines.
The executioner decided to drop out of Executioner
School. It was just too cut throat for him.
He who farts in church sits in his own pew.
Dramatic Terminology
Dramatic Foil: A pair
of characters who are
opposite in many ways
and highlight or
exaggerate each
other’s differences.
Iambic Pentameter
Iambic Pentameter is the rhythm and meter in
which poets and playwrights wrote in
Elizabethan England. It is a meter that
Shakespeare uses.
An Iamb is a unstressed syllable followed by
a stressed syllable. These two syllables
together are called a iambic foot. It is the first
and last sound we ever hear, it is the rhythm
of the human heartbeat.
Iambic Petameter: Quite simply, it sounds
like this: dee DUM, dee DUM, dee DUM,
dee DUM, dee DUM. It consists of a line of
five iambic feet, ten syllables with five
unstressed and five stressed syllables.
It is percussive and
attractive to the ear and
has an effect on the
listener's central nervous
system.
U /
U
/
U
/ U / U
/
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
Poetic Terminology
Couplets: Two consecutive lines that rhyme (aa bb cc).
Usually followed when a character leaves or a scene ends.
• So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
Sonnet: A fourteen line poem using iambic pentameter and
the following rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg.
Internal Rhyme: Words rhyming inside one line.
End Line Rhyme: Words rhyming at the end of consecutive
lines.
Perfect vs. Slant Rhyme: ball & hall are a perfect rhyme (end
sounds the same). Ball & bell are slant rhymes (beginning
and end sounds the same; middle sound is different).
Poetic Terminology
Allusion: a literary reference to a familiar person, place, thing, or event.
“She’ll not be hit with Cupid’s arrow. She hath Dian’s wit”
Alliteration: the repetition of the same beginning consonants
“Nor ope her lap to saint seducing gold.”
Assonance: the repetition of the same vowel sounds without repeating
consonants.
“Blind eyes could blaze like meteors.”
Consonance: the repetition of the same ending or middle consonants
“the sacred flag of truth unfurled.”
Metaphor: a comparison of two unlike things without using like or as.
“It is the East, and Juliet is the sun.”
Simile: a comparison of two unlike things using like, as, or than.
“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun.”
Hyperbole: an exaggeration or overstatement.
• “I have seen a river so wide it only has one bank.”
Personification: giving an animal, object, or idea human charactersistics.
“If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.”
Tips for Understanding
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is based on Arthur Brooke’s long narrative
poem the Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet (1562).
The play has a highly moral tone: disobedience (free will), as
well as fate, leads to the deaths of two lovers.
Motifs in Romeo and Juliet
Power of Love
Violence from Passion
The Individual vs. Society
The Inevitability of Fate
MONTAGUE
Romeo
Lord Montague (his dad)
Lady Montague (his mom)
Mercutio (friend)
Benvolio (cousin)
vs. CAPULET
Juliet
Lord Capulet (her father)
Lady Capulet (her mother)
Tybalt (cousin)
Nurse
A Pair of Star Crossed Lovers…
“My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen
unknown , and known too late!”
~ Juliet; Act I, Scene V
FIN
The Sonnet
Honors English 9
Bear Creek High School
What do you remember about
sonnets?
14 line poem
 iambic
pentameter
 specific rhyme scheme (ababcdcdefefgg)
 archaic language
 usually about love
I bet you didn’t know that …
The word “sonnet” means “little sound” or “little song.”
The sonnet originated in Italy and had 14 lines, but had a
different rhyme scheme than what we study.
All of Shakespeare’s sonnets were connected by theme.
Of the 154 sonnets, #s 1-126 are addressed to a young man
expressing the poet’s love for him, and #s 127–152 are written
to the poet’s mistress expressing strong love for her.
The English version (Shakespearean sonnet) consists of four
parts: three quatrains and a couplet.
Look at the Prologue for Act I in Romeo and Juliet for
example…
1st
Two households both alike in dignity, A
Quatrain
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene. B
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, A
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
B
2nd
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes C
Quatrain
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life, D
Whose misadventure piteous overthrows C
Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife. D
rd
3
Quatrain The fearful passage of their death-marked love, E
And the continuance of their parents’ rage, F
Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove, E
Couplet
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage, F
The which if you with patient ears attend, G
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend. G
The Sonnet Form
The form into which a poet puts his or her words
is always something of which the reader ought to
take conscious note. And when poets have chosen
to work within such a strict form, that form and its
strictures make up part of what they want to say.
In other words, the poet is using the structure of
the poem as part of the language act: we will find
the "meaning" not only in the words, but partly in
their pattern as well.
Consider the following when
interpreting a sonnet …
The sonnet can be thematically divided into
two sections:
The first presents the theme, raises an issue or
doubt,
The second part answers the question,
resolves the problem, or drives home the
poem's point.
This change in the poem is called the turn and
helps move forward the emotional action of
the poem quickly.
The Sonnet
The Shakespearean sonnet has a wide range
of possibilities. One pattern introduces an
idea in the first quatrain, complicates it in
the second, complicates it still further in the
third, and resolves the whole thing in the
final couplet.
Each sonnet functions as it’s own short
story in a way.