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1564-1616
 Born
in Stratford-on-Avon
 Middle class family (father - glove
maker)
 Married Anne Hathaway, 26, when 18
 Three children: Susanna, Judith, and
Hamnet, who died at 11
 Joined
Lord Chamberlain’s Men in 1594
 Built the Globe and wrote Julius Caesar in
1599
 Wrote 38 plays (Caesar being #18)
• Tragedies, Histories, Comedies
 Wrote
154 sonnets
• Characters: Fair Youth, Rival Poet, Dark Lady
• Themes: time, love beauty, mortality
 Built
outside of London
 3000 guests
 Performances during warm days
 Little to no scenery
 Burnt down in 1613, rebuilt in 1614,
closed by Puritans in 1642
 Modern reconstruction in 1997, 750 feet
from original position
 Soliloquy
– speech made by a character
alone onstage
 Aside – comment made by a character
meant to be heard only by the audience
 Dramatic Irony – when the audience
knows something that a character does
not (for instance, we know that Julius
Caesar will be assassinated, though he
does not)
 Blank Verse
– unrhymed iambic
pentameter
 Alternating Prose, Blank Verse, and
rhyme depending on the character or
scene
 Metaphor – comparison
 Puns – word plays
 Inventive Language
 After
the fall of Troy,
Aeneas, supposed son of Venus,
escapes with Trojan gold to found Alba
Longa
 His descendant, Procas, dies, leaving two
sons, Numitor and Amulius competing for
the throne.
 Amulius kills his elder brother, but
Numitor had a daughter, Rhea Silvia
 Amulius
forces Rhea Silvia
to become a Vestal Virgin, a priestess
sworn to abstinence
 Rhea is seduced in the
woods by Mars
 Rhea gives birth to twins,
Romulus & Remus
 Amulius
buries Rhea alive and orders the
execution of Romulus and Remus
 A servant sends Romulus and Remus
down the Tiber River in a reed basket
 A wolf, Lupa, finds them
and raises them as her
wolf cubs in her cave,
Lupercal
 As
young men, Romulus and Remus learn
of their history and vow to found their
own city
 Seeing an augury (omen) in circling
birds, Romulus slays his brother and
names this new city after him, becoming
its first emperor
 ROME – 753 BCE
 There
were seven kings of the First
Roman Empire, beginning with Romulus
and ending with Tarquinius Superbus
 King Tarquin was overthrown by Lucius
Junius Brutus in 509 BCE after years of
corrupt and violent rule
 Lucius Junius Brutus became the first
consul of the new Roman Republic
 Empire –
 Republic
one ruler, no election
– elections, representation
(Senate)
 Consul – one of two elected leaders, highest
position in Roman Republic
 Praetor – judge and commander
 Optimate – conservative party that
protected the elite
 Populare – “citizens” party, against slavery
 Triumvirate – political regime dominated by
three individuals (formal or informal)
 Born
100 BCE
 Statesman, general,
lawgiver,
mathematician who
claimed lineage to
Aeneas
 “Caesar” comes from
the Latin “caesum,”
meaning “to cut.”
 60
BCE – Julius Caesar, a populare;
Pompey, a optimate; and Crassus, a
wealthy statesman who put down
Spartacus’ gladiator revolt in 71 BC, form
the First Triumvirate
 59 BCE – Julius Caesar elected consul
 57 BCE – Julius Caesar conquers Western
Europe
 Crassus
dies in 53 BCE in the Persian War
 Pompey begins whittling away at
populare power
 Caesar breaches Roman law by
“Crossing the Rubicon” (49 BCE) upon
his return to Rome
 Pompey flees to Egypt, where he is
assassinated
 Julius Caesar dubbed
“dictator perpetuo”