Download Shakespeare`s Theatre

Shakespeare: An
Introduction
Introduction
Review of Standard Deviants DVD
William Shakespeare
Born in 1564
 Died 1616
 English Renaissance
 Elizabethan Era, Queen Elizabeth I
 Creativity in culture and the arts
 Classic world, especially Roman
 Stratford-upon-Avon

Theatre
Acting wasn’t a respectable position
 Lord Chamberlain’s Men
 Globe
O
 3 story wooden theatre with open roof
 Gallery
 Pit, groundings

Theatre continued
Extended stage
 Covered stage
 Tower
 Thatched roof
 King’s Men
 No women

Shakespeare
Shakespeare, writer, actor, shareholder
 Francis Bacon, author, philosopher,
nobleman
 Comedies, histories, romances, tragedies
 1592: plague, book-length poetry
 1590’s: sonnets
 1603: King James

Shakespeare’s Language
Poetry: concentrated language with
rhythm and sound; verse
 Prose: language of everyday speech
 Poetry: A horse, a horse, my kingdom for
a horse.
 Prose: I need a horse
 Meter: regular rhythmic pattern
 Blank Verse: unrhymed iambic
pentameter

Blank Verse
Unrhymed: end of lines don’t rhyme
 iam: 1 unstressed syllable followed by 1
stressed syllable.
 Iambic: means the poetry contains iambs
 Pent= 5
 Meter: reg. rhythmic pattern in lang.
 5 iams

Why?
Why blank verse? Not every line is in
perfect i. p. Not all written in poetry.
 He just did. It was common. The rhythm
most closely resembles natural speech.
 How important is it? It will naturally be
pleasing to the ear.

Elizabethan Drama
1. Importance of words
 Real life vs stage life
 Symbolic art

Importance of Words
Theatre was different
 No movies, surround sound, pop corn
 Not many props or scenery
 Stock costumes
 No elaborate lighting
 Audiences listened; they were used to
listening to long stories and sermons

Importance of Words
Stock scenery
 No special effects
 Plays are primarily verbal and not visual
and the words are used to convey to the
audience the mood and tone.
 Modern audiences are more used to visual
elements.
 Common Elizabethans didn’t speak this
way.

Real life vs Stage life
We realize that the play is a fantasy.
 Modern theatre has blurred the lines.
 Movies suggest everything is real.
 Shakespeare’s play are always understood
to be characters—not real people.
 They’re just figures that represent real
people
 It must be in the play to be part of the
character.

How to know a character
Analysis:
 1. What the character says
 2. What other characters say about them
 3. What the characters do.
 Stick to the text
 Theatrical companies interpret the play by
changing setting and dropping lines or
characters.

Aristotle
Tragedy: imitation of an action
 4th century BC, studied under Plato
 Developed logic, wrote about ethics,
politics
 The Poetics: drama, including tragedy, is
just an imitation of action (not real!)

Symbolic Art
Influenced by medieval art
 The halo on the saints’ heads represents
goodness/holiness.
 The villain in the play represents all evil,
he’s not just a bad person.
 Truth, beauty, justice, purity (universal
themes)
