Copy of Introduction to Shakespeare

Introduction to Shakespeare

First, let us look at some information about "The Bard" himself.

Now, here's a little about Shakespeare's theaters, which are very different from ours today.

Now take a look at the different kinds of plays Shakespeare wrote.

Here are some other important elements Shakespeare included in the play.

Do Now:

Objectives:

4/7/14

Journal Entry #1

Back in Shakespeare's time, different plays were advertized by flags.

Students will be able to

• understand and discuss Shakespeare, the Globe Theatre and the Elizabethan Era by to watching a 50 minute film called "Shakespeare in the Classroom" and by completing a film guide by the end of the period.

A black flag meant a tragedy.

• What do you already know about Shakespeare?
• For an example, do you know anything about his life or what he has written?
• What would you like to know about him?

A white flag meant a comedy.

In families during Shakespeare's time . . .

A red flag meant a history.

Today I will...

So that I can...

I'll know I have it when...

• 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.

• Shakespeare was baptized on April 23, 1564.
• He grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon.
• He was the third of eight children.
• He most likely went to "petty" school and grammar school.
• He married a woman named Anne Hathaway. She was 26, while he was only 18. They had three children.

Courtly love

• Love is accompanied by agony and distress - love sickness.
• A man is inspired to do great deeds for a woman.
• Lovers reflect frequently on love itself, as well as on their own state of being in love.

1:30-5:30

Petrarchan Conceit

• It is an over-the-top metaphor comparing two extremely different things.
• It is usually used by a distressed lover, either to explain his unhappy condition, or to praise the woman he admires.

Examples:

"My lady is a sun."

"Her eyes are shining stars."

"I am a boat tossed by a stormy sea."

• For seven years (1585 - 1592), Shakespeare disappeared from history. No one knows for sure what he was doing then, except that he joined the theater before he was twenty-eight years old.

• He also became a playwright. The first recorded performance of a Shakespearean play was in 1590.

• Shakespeare worked closely with Lord Chamberlain's Men, an acting troupe.
• He both wrote plays and acted parts (in his own plays and in others'). He often took other writers' plays and made them his own.

Examples:

Romeo and Juliet

Hamlet

Macbeth

Othello

Examples:

A Midsummer Night's Dream

The Merchant of Venice

As You Like It

Much Ado about Nothing

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

• For a long time, actors in England had performed either in courtyards or in houses.
• Then, in 1576, the first theater was built in London. It was called "The Theatre."

Note: Theaters were also called "playhouses."

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.

Shakespeare wrote four kinds of plays:

An Introduction to Shakespeare, His Theater, and His Times

• The Globe Theater did not have a roof, nor does it have a roof today. It is lit by sunlight.

• The theater could seat several thousand people, a remarkable feat for the times.

• The most famous theater of the times was The Globe Theater.
• Lord Chamberlain's men built it by tearing down The Theatre and moving the materials.

• People could pay money to sit in balcony seats, or they could pay only a penny to sit or stand around the stage.

Shakespeare's histories retell an important bit of history.

You can easily tell a history play by its name.

• 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.

• Romances have comedic endings in which family members are often reunited, but their stories can have tragic elements.
• They often contain magic or fantasy.
• They contain lyric poetry.

The Romances:

Cymbeline

Pericles, Prince of Tyre

The Winter's Tale

The Tempest

Examples:

Richard II

Henry V

Richard III

Henry VIII

A trumpet blast would announce the beginning of a play.