Download Shakespeare and Julius Caesar PowerPoint Presentation

Parker Presents
William
Shakespeare
Life of William Shakespeare
A. Family
 Born around April 23, 1564
in Stratford–on–Avon
 3rd of 8 children
 Family was well off
 Most quoted, other than
the Bible
Life of William Shakespeare
B. The Dirt !
 Teenage father
 Married Anne Hathaway
at 18 - she was 26!
 Absentee father
Stratford-on-Avon
Stratford-on-Avon
Life of William Shakespeare
C. Schooling
 Attended grammar school, where he studied .
..
 Latin grammar and literature
 Use of language
 No further formal education!
London During Shakespeare’s Days
A. The City
 Thames River
polluted with raw
sewage
 No running water
or electricity
 Poverty
London During Shakespeare’s Days
B. Hygiene? (Part One)
 Bathing considered
dangerous
 Body odor strong
 Childhood diseases
 Children often died young
 Small Pox
 Bubonic Plague
London During Shakespeare’s Days
B. Hygiene? (Part Two)
 No running water
 Chamber Pots
 Open Sewers
 Crowded
London During Shakespeare’s Days
C. Clothes
 One set used all year long,
rarely washed
 Underclothing slept in,
rarely changed
 Clothes handed down from
rich to poor
Theater in London
A. The Theater
 First public theater
 Demolished in
1599
Theater in London
Theater in London
Theater in London
B. The Globe
 Shakespeare and his acting company used
materials salvaged from The Theater to
build the Globe Theater in 1599
 Penny admission
 Hard to believe? Think
about admission to the
movie theater in the ‘50s
Theater in London
Actors
All men
 Female parts played by young boys
 No actual kissing or hugging on stage

Audience
2000-3000 people from all walks of life
 Rich audience sat in covered galleries around
stage
 Most stood in yard around platform stage –
“groundlings”

The groundling
Poor audience
member
 Stood around stage in
“the pit”
 Threw rotten
vegetables at bad
performances

The Plays
 Tragedy
Ends in the death
of one or more of
the main
characters
 Most of
Shakespeare’s
tragedies involved
historical
individuals or
events.

Shakespeare sometimes altered what
he found in the history books to suit
his own dramatic purposes and make
the plays more exciting… Can you
think of a time when alterations are
made to history/events to merely
entertain audiences?
Tragic Endings

Although most tragic heroes are partly to blame
for their own fates, death can be a very high
price to pay for what may have seemed initially
like a small failing.

But in most tragedies, there is
also a feeling that some good
may have come out of the
terrible suffering.
Tragic Heroes
All of Shakespeare’s tragedies have a tragic hero.
 What is the name of the main character in a
story?
 What is the name of the character in opposition
to the main character?
 The hero is often a man of high rank, such as a
king or prince.

Line References
Plays are
divided into
sections called
acts and
scenes. When
quotations from
Shakespeare’s
plays are used,
line references
like this show
which section
they come from
in the play.
The play’s title is
written in italics
The scene is in
small Roman
numerals
Julius Caesar, II. i. 35
The act is written in
capital Roman numerals
The line
number is
written as a
normal number
New Words

In Shakespeare’s time, there were no
dictionaries.

People could spell words however they
wanted and sometimes they even made up
new words.

Over 2,000 of the words Shakespeare used
had not been recorded before.
Shakespeare’s Words