Download William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Born at Stratford on Avon; referred to as the “Bard on Avon”
1610 Retired to Stratford a successful actor, theatre owner, playwright, and poet
37 plays; 154 sonnets (mostly written when theatres were closed during the Plagues)
1623 “First Folio” – 1st collection of Shakespeare’s works
Married Anne Hathaway: 3 children (Susana, Hamnet, and Judith) & at least 1 illegitimate child.
Elizabethan Age = the time during Queen Elizabeth I’s reign (1558-1603)
Renaissance = Rebirth of a learning culture
- starts approx. 1500
- not experienced since the Greeks
During Renaissance in Elizabethan London, theatre got a bad reputation
 prostitutes, plagues, crowd behavior
 Reputation didn’t change until Shakespeare’s troupe performed for Queen
Elizabeth I and King James I (“The King’s Men”)
 Cheapside = the disreputable part of London, originally the area where
theatres were first built
1642 All theatres closed by Oliver Cromwell and Puritan control
1660 Reopened when Stuart family gained England’s throne
Professional actresses, as well as men
Elizabethan Theatres = Theatres of the Imagination
Open Air, Natural Lighting; Play began @ 2:00 p.m.
Limited Scenery & Minimal Costuming
- WORDS created images, costumes, moonlight, etc.
- Scenes began with allusions to time & place
- Poetry, not lighting, evoked the evening and the dawn
Globe Theatre = Shakespeare’s and Richard Burbage’s theatre
 32 ft. high, 100 ft. across
 Capacity 3,000+
 Stage = thrust staging where audience is on 3 sides; 50 ft. wide, 25 ft. across
Theatrical Devices
 2 pillars support covering = balcony
 Cranes, dues ex machina, literally “god from the machine”
 Flew people on and off stage
 Used to get (gods, witches, supernatural) out of a bad situation
 Trapezes used for flight (acrobatics enhanced magic)
 Trap Doors
 actors magically appear/disappear
 serve as grave during burial/cemetery scenes
Audience= aristocrats, merchants, peasants, educated, illiterate, skilled, unskilled, rich, poor
“groundlings” paid a penny to stand around stage and look up at the action
Actors – men and boys; no women
Shakespeare’s Favorite Themes deal with Love, Revenge, and Power
Six Characteristics of Tragedy:
o Serious subject
o Protagonist hero represents many people
o No chance or coincidence involved
o Action evokes pity or fear in the audience
o Hero meets defeat but is enlightened by it
o Characteristics are measured against perfection
Tragic Hero = High born, a good person, tragic flaw (thing that ruins him), choices create fall
Five Characteristics of Comedy:
 Pokes Fun at something
 Confusion
 Happy ending
 One or more buffoon characters
 Conflict may seem light to audience but real to characters
Comic Relief – scene or lines to relieve stress and tenseness in the audience
Catharsis – the emotional change (realization, epiphany) the audience feels from seeing drama
Chorus – a group of people who represent the overall feeling or idea of a scene
- used to present the audience with information about the setting or previous action
FOILS – characters in a play who serve to bring out the qualities of one another
Ms. Monson: World Lit.