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William Shakespeare
1564-1616
Who was Shakespeare?
William Shakespeare was born in 1564 in Henley Street,
Stratford-upon-Avon.
Shakespeare never finished his education.
At the age of 18, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway
who was 26-years-old at the time.
Sometime before 1592 Shakespeare fled his home and
family to follow the life of an actor in London.
Who was Shakespeare?
London's theatres were closed in January 1593 due to an
outbreak of the plague.
When the theatres reopened in late 1594, Shakespeare
was no longer a simple actor, but a playwright as well,
writing and performing for the theatre company called
"Lord Chamberlain's Men", which later became "The
King's Men".
For the next 17 years he produced an average of 2 plays
a year for The King's Men.
Who was Shakespeare?
When he died in 1616, William Shakespeare divided up
his considerable property amongst his daughters (his son
Hamnet had died in childhood). Shakespeare was buried
in the chancel of Holy Trinity church.
Shakespeare’s
funerary monument
in Holy Trinity
Church, Stratfordupon-Avon.
The Theatre
The first proper theatre was built in Shoreditch in
London in 1576.
Before this time plays were performed in the courtyard
of inns or inn-yards, or sometimes, in the houses of
noblemen or on open ground.
The Globe was built by carpenter Peter Smith and his
workers, in 1597 -1598. This theatre could seat 3000
people.
The Globe theatre had an open roof. Most plays were
performed during the day, in the afternoon, because, of
course, there was no artificial lighting.
The Globe
A trumpet was sounded to announce to people that the
play was about to begin in order for people to take their
final places.
Flags were used as a form of Elizabethan Advertising!
Flags were erected on the day of the performance, and they
were colour coded - a black flag meant a tragedy , white a
comedy and red a history.
Props!
The stage was often bare, actors often told the audience
where they were or gave hints in their dialogue as to the
setting.
Special effects at the Globe:
• Smoke effects, the firing of a real canon;
•Fireworks (for dramatic battle scenes);
•Spectacular 'flying' entrances from the rigging in the
‘heavens’;
•The stage floor had trap-doors allowing for additional
surprising incidents;
•Music - musicians usually performed off stage.
The Actors
Shakespearean Actors only got their lines as the play
was in progress.
Parts were often allocated on the day of the
performance.
Many times the actors didn't even get their own lines.
They did “cue acting”.
All actors were male. Women were not allowed to
act until much later in the 17th century.
Paying Customers
The Elizabethan general public (the Commoners) referred
to as groundlings would pay 1 penny to stand in the ‘pit' of
the Globe Theatre.
The gentry would pay an extra penny to sit in the galleries
often using cushions for comfort.
Rich nobles could watch the play from a chair set on the
side of the Globe stage itself and would have to pay 3-4
pennies.
Men and women attended plays, but often the prosperous
women would wear a mask to disguise their identity.
Paying Customers
Groundlings could boo actors and frequently threw
food onto the stage if they didn’t like the production!
Theatre in the 17th century was more like pantomime
compared to the sophisticated productions we have today.
Prostitution and gambling were rife among theatre
goers. It was generally seen as shameful to watch a play.
Due to these immoral happenings puritans had the
Globe and all other playhouses shut/pulled down in 1648.
All players were to be seized and whipped, and anyone
caught attending a play to be fined five shillings.
Macbeth
• Macbeth is said to have been written around 1606.
• Macbeth is a tragedy. What usually happens in a tragedy?
• Themes–
ambition
loyalty
treachery
struggle for
good and
evil
conscience
supernatural
Hamlet
Hamlet was approximately written in 1601-2.
The play was adapted from ‘Historica Danica’
(This is the oldest surviving version of the story of
Hamlet) by Saxo Grammaticus who was born in
Elsinore, Denmark, where the play is set.
Hamlet is a revenge tragedy and tells the story of
Young Hamlet, a prince, who sets out to avenge his
father’s death.
Some themes that run through the play are:
revenge, madness, death, perception vs. reality.
Queen Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I was 25 years old when she became Queen
of England in 1558. Her 45-year reign, which ended
with her death in 1603, saw England's emergence as a
nation of tremendous political power and unparalleled
cultural achievement.
The Ghost
The Ghost hearkens back to the late medieval world
of magic and superstition, the Catholic doctrine of
Purgatory--as well as the generic conventions of the
Elizabethan revenge tragedy.
In a crucial way the whole plot of Hamlet depends
upon the Ghost.
The Ghost also raises larger questions about the role
of the supernatural within early modern culture.
The repression of Purgatory was part of a larger
attack on the belief in ghosts in general.
The figure of the Ghost expresses (1) a widespread
fear among the living of being forgotten after death and
(2) bereavement for those already dead. The Ghost, in
brief, inhabits the imaginative space left open by the
English Reformation's banishment of Purgatory in 1563.
The Ghost returns from Purgatory, and in effect brings
Purgatory back with him.
The Ghost clearly implies that he has returned from
Purgatory. He is "Doomed for a certain term to walk the
night / And for the day confined to fast in fires, / Till the
foul crimes done in days of nature / Are burnt and
purged away" (1.5.11-14).