Name: ____________________
Period: ______________________
William Shakespeare – Study Guide
INSTRUCTIONS: Read pages 776-782, and 784 in your Elements of Literature Book. Use this information
to complete the study guide.
1. How popular is Shakespeare?
Instead of journals and letters, what did he leave us?
2. How many children did John Shakespeare have?
Which child was William?
3. Who did William Shakespeare marry?
How much older was she than William?
How many children did they have?
4. In 1594, William Shakespeare was a charter member of what group?
Their name was eventually changed to what?
Who was the group supported by?
5. How many plays did Shakespeare write?
What masterpieces does this include?
6. When did William Shakespeare die, and where was he buried?
7. Finish this verse:
Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here!
Blessed by the man that spares these stones
And cursed be he that moves ______ ________.
8. When the Burbage’s Theater was torn down in 1599, what were the timbers from the theater
used for?
9. What did Shakespeare call the theater he used for Henry V?
Describe the theater.
10. When were plays usually performed? (What time of day?)
Why was there no need for lighting?
11. How was a scene “set”?
12. Describe the costumes and scenery.
13. In those days, parts in a play were usually performed by whom?
In Romeo and Juliet, who would Juliet have been played by?
14. In Shakespeare’s day, how many sides of the stage did the audience sit on?
15. When we see a play it is the movement of ________________ that delights us, instead of the
movement of ________________ . (Fill in the blanks)
16. Romeo and Juliet is written in both _____________ and ______________. (Fill in blanks)
In the play, which of these two (from above) is used for language spoken by the common people
and for occasionally when Mercutio is joking?
Which type is used most of the other characters in the play?
17. What did Shakespeare use couplets for?
18. Why are many of the words that Shakespeare used in his plays now considered archaic?
19. Most of Shakespeare’s plays are based on stories that were what?
20. Most of the people in Shakespeare’s day believed in what? How does this apply to the term
“star-crossed”?