William Shakespeare: A Life of Drama
Viewing Guide
What nickname is William Shakespeare often referred to by?
Name five plays Shakespeare wrote.
His work is referred to as the very ____________ of our culture.
Who was the monarch who ruled England during Shakespeare’s age?
When and where was Shakespeare born?
What horrific disease afflicted much of Europe at the time of his birth?
How would Shakespeare’s educational experience have been different from that at your school?
What would Shakespeare’s childhood have been like?
What is one of the jobs that people think Shakespeare may have had in his twenties (the lost years) that
influenced the settings and other aspects of his plays?
Where did Shakespeare begin his playwriting career?
How were his first plays received?
What different genre of writing did Shakespeare specialize in besides playwriting?
Name the three different types of plays that Shakespeare wrote?
What three personas are central to Shakespeare’s sonnets?
How many plays did Shakespeare write?
How many people were being killed by the plague a week during Shakespeare’s early career?
How did this directly affect his work?
What evidence of Shakespeare’s “fascination with death” are apparent in his plays (name one).
What immediate disaster did he experience in his own life that reshaped the future of his legacy?
What theater did Shakespeare write plays to be performed in?
Given the simplicity of the stage, how did Shakespeare spark the imagination of his audiences?
Who played the girl parts in his plays, given that girls weren’t allowed to act at the time?
What does Shakespeare call himself rather than a playwright?
Name one of Shakespeare’s “great tragedies”.
What family relationship is often explored in Shakespeare’s later plays?
What character in Shakespeare’s final play, The Tempest, is often viewed as an embodiment of
Shakespeare himself in his farewell address to the theatrical world?
What unfortunate event marked Shakespeare’s retirement from the stage?
What does Shakespeare surprisingly leave his wife in his last will and testament?
What was Shakespeare doing that led to him catching a sickness and dying, or so the story goes.
Ironically on what (special day) did he die?
What specific reason is often given for why Shakespeare is widely considered the greatest English
playwright of all time?
What is Shakespeare’s legacy to the world according to the film?