Shakespeare Who?

• Era in English history associated with the reign of Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603)
• The "Golden Age" in English history
• Height of the English Renaissance, a cultural and artistic movement focused largely on literature and music

• Built in 1599 by Shakespeare's playing company, The Lord Chamberlain's Men
• Destroyed by fire in June of 1613
• Rebuilt in 1614 but closed in 1642, along with all theatres, due to the outbreak of the plague

"The Bard"

• April 23, 1564 - April 23, 1616
• Born in Stratford-upon-Avon to John Shakespeare and Mary Alden, a wealthy and prominent couple
• At 18, he married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway, but they lived separate lives in separate cities
• Few records of his private life are available, so there is much speculation surrounding his life
• Was a successful actor as well as a writer
• Wrote and produced much of his work between the years of 1589 and 1613
• Comedies, histories, tragedies, and sonnets

• Tragedy written early in Shakepeare's career
• Two young "star cross'd lovers" whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families
• Highlights Shakespeare's skill in the use of dramatic structure, switching between comedy and tragedy to heighten tension
• Ascribes different poetic forms to different characters
• Has been adapted in different versions - West Side Story

June 1, 2016

Please return TGH novel if you haven't done so!

Do Now:

Choose 5 words or phrases you are familiar with & create a sentence for each in your journal. Underline the word or phrase used.

Be creative and be prepared to share!

Objective: To be able to understand and discuss Shakespeare, the Globe Theatre and the Elizabethan Era

Standard Addressed:

09-10.RL.06

Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of world literature

You may discuss with a partner the meaning of some words/phrases you do not know to help you!

Elizabethan England

The Globe Theater

• The Globe Theater did not have a roof (still doesn't!). It was lit by sunlight only.
• The theater could seat thousands of spectators, a remarkable feat for the time period.
• People could pay money to sit in the balcony OR could pay only a penny to sit or stand around the stage.
• The Globe Theater had an upper level that could be used for high places such as balconies or castle walls.
• There was also a trap door in the floor so that characters could appear and disappear quickly.

In families during Shakespeare's time:

• Children had no rights other than those given by their parents, and they had to obey their parents until they married.
• Wives were expected to obey their husbands.
• Marriages were not arranged for love; instead, a girl's parents were concerned mainly with her health and safety.
• Girls usually married when they were fourteen or fifteen.

Suicide during the Elizabethan Era

• Today, we look upon the "victims" of suicide with compassion for the desperation that must have preceded their demise. The Elizabethans, on the other hand, saw suicides as perpetrators, not victims.
• Suicide was considered to be such a hideous form of murder that Elizabethan society dealt with it with particular harshness.
• Self-murderers were denied Christian burials. Officials of the parish, the churchwardens and their helpers, carried the corpse to a crossroads and threw it naked into a pit. A wooden stake was hammered through the body, pinioning it in the grave, and the hole was filled in. No prayers for the dead were repeated; the minister did not attend.

William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet

What did Shakespeare write?

Exit Ticket:

In comedies, there is a good ending. All of the characters' problems somehow work out in the end.

In tragedies, everything ends sadly.

• There often aren't enough living characters left to drag the dead ones off the stage.
• These sad endings supposedly gave the audience catharsis, or the purging of unhealthy emotions.
• Shakespeare's most famous plays are tragedies.

What are three key points from today's class that you think everyone should remember as we study Romeo and Juliet?

Examples:

• A Midsummer Night's Dream
• The Merchant of Venice
• As You Like It
• Much Ado about Nothing

Examples:

• Romeo and Juliet
• Hamlet
• Macbeth
• Othello

Sonnets (aka POEMS!)

Shakespeare's histories retell an important bit of history.

You can easily tell a history play by its name.

• Although love is the overarching theme of the sonnets, there are three specific underlying themes:
• the brevity of life,
• the transience of beauty, and
• the trappings of desire.

Examples:

• Richard II
• Henry V
• Richard III
• Henry VIII

The structure of sonnets:

• 14 lines long
• Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCDEFEFGG
• Written in IAMBIC PENTAMETER