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Widely regarded as the greatest writer in

English Literature

Poet and dramatist

Wrote 37 plays

Composed about 154 sonnets and a few

poems

Started out as an actor

His plays portray recognizable people in situations we experience in our lives: love, marriage, death, mourning, guilt, the need to make difficult choices, separation, reunion and reconciliation

They do so with great humanity, tolerance, and wisdom

Why is Shakespeare considered to be so great? Play - academic

Shakespeare is everywhere – play

Siri introduces Elizabethan Shakespeare -play

Seeing what people remember about famous Shakespeare quotes: play

Bio file – play

Things we don’t normally tell you about Shakespeare – play teacher: fast forward past the 1st one...

movie about Shakespeare’s life and history–1 hr – play

They are constantly fresh and can be adapted to the place and time they are performed

Their language is wonderfully expressive and powerful

They help us to understand what it is to be human, and to cope with the problems of being so

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Born around April 23, 1564; died the same day in 1616 at aged 52

3rd of 8 children,

his family lived about 100 miles NW of London

Father was a shopkeeper and well-respected –family was well-off

He went to grammar school, where he studied Latin, grammar and literature

Married Anne Hathaway, 8 years older than he, 3 children: Susanna (1583), Judith and Hamnet(twins, 1585)

1. comedy

2. tragedy

Comedy in Shakespeare’s time, had a

very different meaning from modern

comedy.

A Shakespearean comedy is one that has

a happy ending.

Involves marriages between the

unmarried characters.

Tone and style is more light-hearted than

Shakespeare's other plays.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

All's Well That Ends Well

As You Like It

Cymbeline

Loves Labours Lost

Measure for Measure

Much Ado About Nothing

Pericles, Prince of Tyre

The Comedy of Errors

The Merchant of Venice

The Merry Wives of

Windsor

The Taming of the Shrew

The Tempest

Troilus and Cressida

Twelfth Night

Two Gentlemen of

Verona

Winter's Tale

A Shakespearean tragedy is the opposite of a

comedy.

Usually based on real some historical or well

known story.

Tries to show that human beings are basically

doomed through their own failures.

Shakespeare's tragic heroes are usually

important people who are well liked.

Something harsh and personal will happen to

them.

The hero must fall from a high place, a place of

glory, or honour.

Antony and Cleopatra

Coriolanus

Hamlet

Julius Caesar

King Lear

Macbeth

Othello

Romeo and Juliet

Timon of Athens

Titus Andronicus

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Written in the 1500s

Shakespeare was a poet, as well as an actor

and playwright, and so he could read many

languages.

He loved figurative language, slang, and

word-play

He wrote with poetic meter (rhythm of word

sounds)

Was an actor in his own plays; › Used /developed soliloquy (like a monologue) &

› aside (speak to the audience like it’s a little secret)

Used over 20,000 words in his works

The average writer uses 7,500

The English Dictionary of his time only had 500

words.

He’s credited with creating 3,000 words in the English

Oxford Dictionary

He was by far the most important individual influence

on the development of the modern English

Shakespeare invented lots of words that

we use in our daily speech

Examples...

› Choose 5 words from the following list and

write them as examples in your note.

accommodation

amazement

assassination

baseless

bloody

bump

castigate

changeful

control (noun)

countless

courtship

critic

eventful

exposure

frugal

generous

gloomy

hurry

impartial

indistinguishable

invulnerable

laughable

lonely

majestic

• misplaced

• monumental

• obscene

• pious

• premeditated

• radiance

• reliance

• road

• sportive

• submerge

• suspicious

…just close enough to

what we use to be confusing.

Present Tense:

Past Tense:

Now You... are have will can shall do

Then Thou… art hast wilt canst shalt dost

Now You... were had would could should did

Then Thou… wast hadst wouldst couldst shouldst didst

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Phrases: Love is blind (Merchant of Venice) Faint hearted (I Henry VI) Forever and a day (As You Like It) For goodness' sake (Henry VIII) Full circle (King Lear) Good riddance (Troilus and Cressida) In a pickle (The Tempest) Kill with kindness (Taming of the Shrew) Knock knock! Who's there? (Macbeth) Laughing stock (The Merry Wives of Windsor) There's no such thing (Macbeth) Too much of a good thing (As You Like It) Wild-goose chase (Romeo and Juliet)

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NO FEAR SHAKESPEARE

Pun: play on words involving

Word with more than one meaning

Words with similar sounds

Soliloquy & Monologue

Aside Direct address by actor to audience

› Not supposed to be overheard by other

characters

A soliloquy (from Latin solo "to oneself" + loquor "I talk")

a character speaks to himself or herself,

relating thoughts and feelings,

thereby also sharing them with the audience,

giving off the illusion of being a series of unspoken reflections – thinking aloud

No one else is on stage during a soliloquy.

In a soliloquy, the speaker isn't addressing anyone.

a speech made by one person

in the company of others

Think of it as though someone goes off on a tangent and gives a speech while

everyone else holds their tongue and is forced to listen to the babbling

may be addressed to other characters or the audience

Not an aside because of its length.

Can be a release of emotional or other

tension because of a funny event/laugh

It is usually stuffed in the middle of a serious or tragic event

often takes the form of a bumbling, wisecracking sidekick of the hero or villain

A sidekick used for comic relief will usually comment on the absurdity of the hero's

situation and make comments that would be inappropriate for a character who is to

be taken seriously.

Plays are written by Acts, Scenes, and

Lines.

The acts follow the plot graph.

The scenes are like chapters in each

plot stage.

Whereas the lines help us to find where

we are quickly and to source a quote.

We reference the Bible the same way

› Book, chapter, verse

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For Shakespeare, we use roman numbering. Why... Because it adds to your literacy and looks cool.

Acts are written in upper case roman numerals,

Scenes are written in lower case roman numerals

Lines are written in Arabic numerals I bet you

didn’t even know you were writing Arabic in math class, did you! We call this EDUCATING

YOU.

Decode these numbers:

XII = _________ xiv =___________

10 = _________ 15 = __________

4 = __________ V = __________

iii = __________ 55= __________

Upper Case Roman

Numerals, 1-12

A “C” represents 100, which is why they call

a $100 dollar bill a C-

note

Open your Romeo and

Juliet play and find the first two words for each

of the following citations.

Please note, you DO NOT REFERENCE PAGE NUMBERS

IN A PLAY OR THE BIBLE

note: your book does happen to use arabic but

you will reference using the

method taught

I. i.11.

I.iv.105.

II.ii.33.

V.iii.293.

Do not count the names of

characters as lines.

As they stand mourning together, Capulet reaches out to beg for a truce as he cries,”...give me thy hand/ This is my daughter’s jointure, for no more...” (Shakespeare V.iii.306-307).

Anytime you list a quote that goes beyond a line of the play text, you use a slash to indicate a line break.

Go find this place and tell me the next word...

Most of his plays are built around a 5-part

dramatic structure (PLOT GRAPH) which

corresponds to a play’s five acts:

Act

1. Exposition (introduction)

2. Rising action

3. Crisis or Climax

4. Falling action

5. Resolution or Denouement

Now let’s quickly review the plot graph

The play usually begins in this way and

establishes:

Tone

Setting

Characters

Basic situation

Main conflict

Fills in events previous to play

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Often called initial incident or action point:

› The first bit of action that occurs which

begins the plot.

› A Shakespearean play may have several

action points.

› Series of complications for the protagonist

(main character)

› Flows from the main conflict.

Crisis or Climax

Turning point in story.

The point where the protagonist’s

situation will either get better or

worse.

Moment of choice for protagonist.

Forces of conflict come together .

Everything begins to unravel from

here.

The falling action contains further turning points:

Results of protagonist’s decision or actions.

Maintains suspense.

Consequences of the action in Act III begins

to unfold, tension builds, and often further

character development occurs.

In a tragedy the audience is led to believe

that there is still hope for the protagonist.

In a comedy, things go from bad to worse for

the hero or heroine.

In the final act, the conflict is resolved, either through

ruination or triumph:

Conclusion of play

Unravelling of the plot

The resolution in a tragedy is the catastrophe resulting

from the climactic actions, usually focusing on the

downfall of the protagonist.

May include characters’ deaths

In a comedy, the resolution usually involves the

marriage of all principal characters in a happy ending.