A portrait of William ShakespeareThis is an engraved image of William Shakespeare in William Marshall Style.

William Shakespeare, poet and playwright, Shakespeare would have come to Holy Trinity every week when he was in town, i.e. all through his childhood and on his return to live at New Place. His wife Anne Hathaway is buried next to him along with his eldest daughter Susanna.

Above the grave, a badly eroded stone slab displays his epitaph:

GOOD FREND FOR IESUS SAKE FORBEARE,TO DIGG THE DVST ENCLOASED HEARE.BLESTE BE YE MAN YT SPARES THES STONES,AND CVRST BE HE YT MOVES MY BONES.

Location of

Shakespeare’s

funerary

monument, Holy

Trinity Church

Chandosportrait-National Portrait Gallery

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE-1564-1616

Romeo and Juliet Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families.

Verbal Irony in Romeo and Juliet, Act III Scene IV.

Verbal irony occurs when a character says one thing and means another. This is an example of verbal irony from Romeo and Juliet.

Hamlet fights a duel

Hamlet and Laertesselect their foils (blunted swords used in fencing), and the king says that if Hamlet wins the first or second hit, he will drink to Hamlet’s health, then throw into the cup a valuable gem (actually the poison) and give the wine to Hamlet. The duel begins. Hamlet strikes Laertesbut declines to drink from the cup, saying that he will play another hit first. He hits Laertes again, and Gertrude rises to drink from the cup

Verbal Irony in Romeo and Juliet, Act III Scene IVIndeed, I never shall be satisfied

With Romeo, till I behold him

dead

—Is my poor heart for a kinsman

vex’d.

Madam , If you could find out

but a man

To bear a poidon, I would temper

it;

That Romeo should, upon receipt

thereof,

Soon slept in quiet. O, how my

heart abhors

To hear him named, and cannot

come to him

To wreck the love I bore my

cousin

Upon his body that slaugher’d

him!

(Juliet has just heard that Romeo

has killed her cousin. Romeo

and Juliet have been secretly

married and here Juliet explains

to her mother how angry she is

because of her cousin Tybalt’s

death).

IRONYIrony is a way of expression , through words or events which conveys a reality different from and

usually opposite to appearance or expectation. A writer may say the opposite of what they mean,

or create a reversal between expectation and its fulfillment, or give the audience knowledge that

a character lacks, making the character’s words have meaning to the audience which is not

Known by the character. (Irony in Hamlet, Act V, Scene II)

Dramatic Irony occurs when the audience knows something that a character or characters in aplay don’t.

This is an example of dramatic irony from Shakespeare’s play Hamlet.

This scene occurs at the end of the play, Hamlet fights a duel with another character.

Claudius wishes Hamlet dead and has plotted with Laertes, with whom Hamlet fights, to make

sure Hamlet dies. Claudius also poisons the cup of wine from which Gertrude drinks to toast

Hamlet during the fight. The audience knows that Gertrude’ s cup has been poisoned but she

doesn’t.

SHAKESPEARE’s HOUSE

Explore this historic market town and its surroundings and

discover where Shakespeare was born and grew up, where he

gained inspiration for his work. Now in the belonging of

Shakespeare’s trust.

SHAKESPEARE’S

BIRTHPLACE

There are five houses

linked to Shakespeare

and his family - all

around Stratford-upon-

Avon -where he was

born, lived, worked and

lies buried.

In town visit

Shakespeare's

Birthplace. Hall's Croft

where his daughter

lived and Nash's House

the home of his

granddaughter.

In the neighbouring village of Wilmcote

visit Mary Arden's House - a rambling

Tudor farmhouse which belonged to

Shakespeare's mother. Anne Hathaway's

Cottage nestles in the village of Shottery,

on the edge of Stratford, and was the

family home of Shakespeare's wife.

In Stratford Old Town by the River Avon

is Holy Trinity Church - one of the most

beautiful parish churches in England -

where you can visit Shakespeare's

grave.

HOLL’S CROFT

Shakespeare ‘s daughter lived there.

HAMLET

The prince of Denmark, and a student

at the University of Wittenberg. At the

beginning of the play, Hamlet’s father,

King Hamlet, has recently died, and

his mother, Queen Gertrude, has

married the new king, Hamlet’s uncle

Claudius. Hamlet is melancholy, bitter,

and cynical, full of hatred for his uncle

and disgust at his mother for marrying

him. When the ghost of Hamlet’s father

appears and claims to have been

murdered by Claudius, Hamlet

becomes obsessed with avenging his

father’s death but keeps thinking of

reasons why he should wait before

killing Claudius—then chastizes

himself for failing to act boldly. Hamlet

is a character of contradictions. He

admires characters like Fortinbras and

the Player King, who behave

passionately and even violently for no

good reason, but is himself thoughtful,

reflective, and philosophical. At times

Hamlet is indecisive and hesitant, but

at other times he is prone to rash and

impulsive acts of violence.

NASH’s

HOUSE

This is the home of his grand daughter

Shakespeare’s Baptismal RecordThough no birth records exist, church recordsindicate that a William Shakespeare was baptizedat Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon onApril 26, 1564.

QuotesAll the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.

I say there is no darkness but ignorance.

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

BEST KNOWN FOR

William Shakespeare, English

poet, dramatist, and actor, often

called the English national poet,

is widely considered the greatest

dramatist of all time.

Prose writingBy using Prose, Shakespeare demonstrates that the discussion is less

profound than others in the play. He often elevates his language to

another level by using poetry.

Shakespeare does not have a set pattern or rhythm. He wrote poetry and

prose. Shakespeare often uses poetry to indicate unimportant events.

Prose in King LearShakespeare used Prose for important characters who would normally

have used verse when speaking. When this happens, there is usually a

point being made. In these instances consider when they are speaking

differently from the way they normally do.

GLOUCESTER :

Kent banished thus? And France in choler parted?And the king gone tonight,

prescribed his power confined to exhibition? All this done upon the gad?—

Edmund, how now? What news?

Quick Facts NAME: William Shakespeare

OCCUPATION: Playwright, Poet

BIRTH DATE: c. April 23, 1564

DEATH DATE: April 23, 1616

EDUCATION: King's New School

PLACE OF BIRTH: Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom

PLACE OF DEATH: Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom

NICKNAME: Bard of Avon

NICKNAME: Swan of Avon

AKA: Shakspere

AKA: Will Shakespeare

NICKNAME: The Bard

MARRIED LIFE William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway on November 28, 1582, in Worcester, in

Canterbury Province. Hathaway was from Shottery, a small village a mile west of Stratford.

William was 18 and Anne was 26, and, as it turns out, pregnant. Their first child, a daughter

they named Susanna, was born on May 26, 1583. Two years later, on February 2, 1585,

twins Hamnet and Judith were born,. Hamnet later died of unknown causes at age 11.

It has often been inferred that Shakespeare came to dislike his wife, but there is no existing

documentation or correspondence to support this supposition. For most of their married life,

he lived in London, writing and performing his plays, while she remained in Stratford.

However, according to John Aubrey, he returned to Stratford for a period every year.[7] When

he retired from the theatre in 1613, he chose to live in Stratford with his wife, rather than

London.

Hathaway married

Shakespeare in

November 1582

His age difference, together with Hathaway's antenuptial pregnancy, has been

employed by some historians as evidence that it was a "shotgun wedding", forced

on a reluctant Shakespeare by the Hathaway family.

Burial

Hathaway was interred next to her husband in the Church of the Holy Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon. The inscription states, "Here lyeth the body of Anne wife of William Shakespeare who departed this life the 6th day of August 1623 being of the age of 67 years." A Latin inscription followed which translates as "Breasts, O mother, milk and life thou didst give. Woe is me – for how great a boon shall I give stones? How much rather would I pray that the good angel should move the stone so that, like Christ's body, thine image might come forth! But my prayers are unavailing. Come quickly, Christ, that my mother, though shut within this tomb may rise again and reach the stars."[11] The inscription may have been written by John Hall on behalf of his wife, Anne's daughter, Susanna.[3]

THEATRICAL BEGINNINGS IN LONDON By 1592, there is evidence William Shakespeare earned a living as an actor and a

playwright in London and possibly had several plays produced. In the September 20,

1592 edition of the Stationers' Register (a guild publication), there is an article by

London playwright Robert Greene that takes a few jabs at William Shakespeare:

"...there [William Shakespeare] is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that

with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast

out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his

own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country."

Scholars differ on the interpretation of this criticism, but most agree that it was Greene's

way of saying Shakespeare was reaching above his rank, trying to match better known

and educated playwrights likeChristopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe or Greene himself.

By the early 1590s, documents show William Shakespeare was a managing partner in the

Lord Chamberlain's Men, an acting company in London. After the crowning of

King James I, in 1603, the company changed its name to the King's Men. From all

accounts, the King's Men company was very popular, and records show that Shakespeare

had works published and sold as popular literature. The theater culture in 16th-century

England was not highly admired by people of high rank. However, many of the nobility

were good patrons of the performing arts and friends of the actors. Early in his career,

Shakespeare was able to attract the attention of Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of

Southampton, to whom he dedicated his first published poems "Venus and Adonis"

(1593) and "The Rape of Lucrece" (1594).

ESTABLISHING HIMSELF

By 1597, William Shakespeare had published 15 of the 37 plays attributed to him. Civil records show that at this time he purchased the second largest house in Stratford, called New House, for his family. It was a four-day ride by horse from Stratford to London, so it is believed that Shakespeare spent most of his time in the city writing and acting and came home once a year during the 40-day Lenten period, when the theaters were closed.

By 1599, William Shakespeare and his business partners built their own theater on the south bank of the Thames River, which they called the Globe. In 1605, Shakespeare purchased leases of real estate near Stratford for 440 pounds, which doubled in value and earned him 60 pounds a year. This made him an entrepreneur as well as an artist, and scholars believe these investments gave him the time to write his plays uninterrupted.

LATER WORKS: TRAGEDIES AND TRAGICOMEDIES

It was in William Shakespeare's later period, after 1600, thathe wrote the tragedies "Hamlet," "King Lear," "Othello" and"Macbeth." In these, Shakespeare's characters present vividimpressions of human temperament that are timeless anduniversal. Possibly the best known of these plays is"Hamlet," with its exploration of betrayal, retribution,incest and moral failure. These moral failures often drivethe twists and turns of Shakespeare's plots, destroying thehero and those he loves.

In William Shakespeare's final period, he wrotetragicomedies. Among these are "Cymbeline," "TheWinter's Tale," and "The Tempest." Though graver in tonethan the comedies, they are not the dark tragedies of "KingLear" or "Macbeth" because they end with reconciliationand forgiveness.

Anne Hathway Cottage

Enjoy the peace and tranquility of beautiful cottage gardens and traditional orchards

Shakespeare's Birthplace from Henley Street

Shakespeare's Birthplace

has been welcoming visitors

for over 250 years. William

Shakespeare grew up here

and he played here. He ate

meals in the hall and he slept

and dreamed in these rooms.

Shakespeare also spent the

first five years of married life

in this house with his new

wife, Anne Hathaway.

For millions of Shakespeare

enthusiasts worldwide, the

house is a shrine. You

will discover the world that

shaped the man and you'll

find out what other famous

writers thought when they

visited here. Well-known

visitors have included

Charles Dickens, John Keats,

Walter Scott and Thomas

Hardy.

Shakespeare's Birthplace is

a fascinating house that

offers a tantalising glimpse

into Shakespeare's early

world. It's a special place

that everyone should see at

least once in their lifetime.

The most romantic Shakespeare’s House

Willow Sculpture Trail

Discover where the

young William

Shakespeare

courted his future

bride Anne

Hathaway at her

picturesque family

home.

WRITING STYLEWilliam Shakespeare's early plays were written inthe conventional style of the day, with elaboratemetaphors and rhetorical phrases that didn'talways align naturally with the story's plot orcharacters. However, Shakespeare was veryinnovative, adapting the traditional style to hisown purposes and creating a freer flow of words.With only small degrees of variation, Shakespeareprimarily used a metrical pattern consisting oflines of unrhymed iambic pentameter, or blankverse, to compose his plays. At the same time,there are passages in all the plays that deviatefrom this and use forms of poetry or simple prose.

EARLY WORKS: HISTORIES AND COMEDIES

With the exception of "Romeo and Juliet," WilliamShakespeare's first plays were mostly histories written inthe early 1590s. "Richard II" and "Henry VI," parts 1, 2, and 3and "Henry V" dramatize the destructive results of weak orcorrupt rulers and have been interpreted by dramahistorians as Shakespeare's way of justifying the origins ofthe Tudor dynasty.

Shakespeare also wrote several comedies during his earlyperiod: the witty romance "A Midsummer Night's Dream,"the romantic "Merchant of Venice," the wit and wordplay of"Much Ado About Nothing," the charming "As You Like It,"and Twelfth Night. Other plays, possibly written before1600, were "Titus Andronicus," "The Comedy of Errors,""The Taming of the Shrew" and "The Two Gentlemen ofVerona."

Shakespeare’s Literary DevicesUSING OPPOSITES:

Shakespeare uses opposite to make a point. The opposites are not

obvious.

LIFE IN THE FOREST LIFE AT COURT

“ free from peril” “painted pomp”

“ finds tongues in trees” “envious court”

finds “books in the running brooks”

“this life more sweet”

“I would not change it”

“winter’s wind,” “cold” and “icy fang” are counsellors that “feelingly

persuade me what Iam”

RepetitionSometimes Shakespeare repeated words and ideas to give more force to a

speech . Eg: The speech comes from “The Taming of the shrew”. Petruchio is

supposed to be wooing Kate to be his wife.

You lie, in faith, for you are call’d plain Kate,

And bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst;

But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom

For dainties are all Kates, and therefore , Kate,

Take this of me, Kate of my consolation;

Hearing thy mildness praised in every town,

Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,

Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs,

Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife.

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW- ACT II SCENE I

Shakespeare’s use of lists:A little like repeating the same idea or word making a list of items is also a

powerful dramatic tool that Shakespeare used. Listing allows the audience

to contemplate as item is added to them.

Eg: Cauldron scene from Macbeth Act IV Scene I

Double, double toil and trouble;Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

ACT IV, SCENE IFIRST WITCHRound about the cauldron go, In the poisoned entrails throw. Toad, that under cold stone. Days and nights has thirty-one. Sweltered venom sleeping got, Boil thou first i' th' charmèdpot.

ALLDouble, double toil and trouble, Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

SECOND WITCH

Fillet of a fenny snake,In the cauldron boil and bake.Eye of newt and toe of frog,Wool of bat and tongue of dog,Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting, Lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing, For a charm of powerful trouble,Like a hell-broth boil and bubble

ALLDouble, double toil and trouble, Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

HEIGHTENING TENSIONIn the play “Othello”, repetition is used in a very different way. In Act III Scene III

Othello is being taunted by Iago,

somebody he foolishly trusts. Iago, is plainly instills seeds of doubt in Othello’smind about the relationship between

Othello’s wife and Michael Cassio. In the extract from Othello, Iago is suggestingthis unfaithfulness in an indirect way

thus leaving Othello to make his own assumptions. Look at the way repeated wordsheighten the tension in this short

extract.

OTHELLO:Honest, ay, honest.IAGO:My lord, for aught I know.OTHELLOWhat dost thou think?IAGOThink, my lord?OTHELLO“Think, my lord?” Alas, thou echo's meAs if there were some monster in thy thoughtToo hideous to be shown. Thou dost mean something.I heard thee say even now thou lik’st not thatWhen Cassio left my wife. What didst not like?And when I told thee he was of my counselOf my whole course of wooing, thou cried’st “Indeed?”And didst contract and purse thy brow togetherAs if thou then hadst shut up in thy brainSome horrible conceit. If thou dost love meShow me thy thought.