William
Shakespeare
The World's
Most Influential
Writer
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Shakespeare is considered the world's greatest
dramatist.
LIFE
Much of Shakespeare's life is shrouded in
mystery due to the lack of record keeping at
that time in England
Born – April 23, 1564…Died – April 23, 1616
Stratford-upon-Avon, England
Middle-Class parents
Shakespeare was 3rd of 8 children
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Great Britain, including
England, Shakespeare’s
home
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England
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Stratford-Upon-Avon,
where Shakespeare was
born and grew up
London, where
Shakespeare’s
reputation was born
(and where the
Globe was located)
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Father was poor, but through ambition
and work made something of himself.
He married into land (land=money) and
later became bailiff (mayor) of the town
1571 – Shakespeare probably (records
lost) began attending the King's New
School, a grammar school of good
quality in Stratford
Teachers at the school were graduates of
Oxford University and were very strict
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with students
By modern standards school would have
been routine and dull
Students spent 9 hours a day at school
School was taught year-round, except for
3 brief holidays
Studies were mainly in Latin
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1575 – The Queen of England, Queen
Elizabeth, visited a nearby town.
Shakespeare might have seen her walk
through the street, because a scene
very similar to this appeared in the play
A Midsummer Night's Dream
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• Stratford was a popular spot for
traveling acting troupes.
• Kettleworth Castle hosted a huge play
festival very near Stratford while
Shakespeare was a child.
• It can be assumed Shakespeare was
exposed to theater at a young age.
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1582 – Shakespeare married Anne
Hathaway – he was 18, she was 26.
She gave birth to a daughter the next
year.
Little is known about the next 8-10 years
of Shakespeare's life – few records
exist (Scholars call this period The Lost
Years)
Most likely he was in London trying to
succeed in the theatre
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Anne Hathaway’s Home
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1592 – First evidence that Shakespeare
had moved to London and was working
in the theater
mid-1592-1594 – outbreak of plague
closed the London theaters, so…..
Shakespeare began to write poetry
Became well known for a 14 line poem
called a sonnet
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Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
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1594 – Shakespeare was part of a group
that founded the company of players
called Lord Chamberlain's Men (later
called the King's Men)
Lord Chamberlain's Men was a very
successful company of players (actors)
– by the turn of the century, they had
the:
best actor, Richard Burbage
best theater, The Globe
best playwright, W. Shakespeare
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1594-1608 – Shakespeare worked in
London as a playwright and actor.
This is the period when he solidified
himself as the most popular playwright
in London.
He did not gain recognition as an
unrivaled genius until later generations
studied his works more closely.
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1599 – Shakespeare and his partners
built a new theater in a suburb of
London. It was called The Globe - his
10% ownership in this theater helped
Shakespeare make his fortune
The Globe was one of the largest in the
London area – held 3000 spectators (for
reference our auditorium holds 1025
people)
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The Globe (outside)
(This is a modern recreation of the theater.)
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Note the open air design. The original Globe would have had a
roof made of thatch.
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Note the round shape – all
spectators were facing the stage
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The Globe Theater was an
open air theater
______________
(no roof).
Wealthier spectators would sit on
galleries
benches in the _____________,
and those with lesser financial
resources (poorer people) would
pit
stand in the _________,
or the
floor of the stage
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Inside view of stage, upper stage, galleries, and the pit.
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Upper stage
galleries
stage
pit
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The first play ever performed at The Globe was
Shakespeare’s own “Julius Caesar.”
The Globe would later burn down during a performance
of “Henry VIII”. A cannon was fired for special effect in
one of the scenes. Some of the sparks landed on the
thatch of the roof and created a monstrous fire.
It’s eerie that a Shakespeare play was the first and last
performed at The Globe…
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1599-1608 – Period in which
Shakespeare wrote the plays which
made him famous: comedies Much Ado
About Nothing and Twelfth Night; the
history Henry V, and great tragedies
Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, Julius
Caesar, King Lear, Macbeth, and
Othello
1608-1616 – Shakespeare most likely
split his time between Stratford and
London
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Shakespeare wrote only 4 plays during
the last 8 years of his life
April 23, 1616 – Shakespeare died and
was buried inside the Stratford parish
church
Shakespeare wrote 37 plays, which have
been divided into comedies, histories,
and tragedies
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Trinity Church, burial site of Shakespeare
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Burial site, inside the church
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Scholars have placed his plays into one of
four periods:
First Period 1590-1594
Second Period 1595-1600 (This is the
period Romeo and Juliet would have
been written.)
Third Period 1601-1608
Fourth Period 1609-1613
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The Theater in Shakespeare’s Day
Plays were fast paced, lively productions.
A show would normally take _________
90-120
minutes
Dialogue
______________
was key, because the
plays did not use _________________
sets or scenery as
today’s plays do
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The Theater in Shakespeare’s Day
Audiences of the time loved wordplay, so
Shakespeare’s plays contained lots of
quips ________
jokes and _________
puns
______,
Women
______________
were not allowed to
perform on stage, so roles of women would
boys of ______
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have been played by ______
whose voices had not changed yet
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Reason for his appeal?
1) understanding of human nature
2) knew people's motivations, desires,
fears – still valid 400 years later
3) had to make great use of language
because of the conditions of the theater
at that time: no lights, no scenery
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4) produced characters that have
meaning beyond the time and place of
his plays (timeless)
5) created remarkably individual
characters for his plays. Kings,
pickpockets, drunks, generals, hired
killers, shepherds, and philosophers all
mingle in Shakespeare's plays
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Significance today
Shakespeare's plays are still extremely popular today
Many of his plays have been made into movies – some
several times
Shakespeare "invented" many words that are still used today:
lonely academe leapfrog assassin
most serious actors still consider performing Shakespearean
plays to be the toughest test of an actor
plays are still read, debated, discussed, made into movies:
400 years after he wrote them
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• Have you seen these Shakespeare movies?
“West Side Story” – (Romeo and Juliet)
“10 Things I Hate About You” – (Taming of the Shrew)
“She’s The Man” – (Twelfth Night)
“Much Ado About Nothing”
“The Lion King” – (Hamlet and Richard III)
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