WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AND THE RENAISSANCE

(APRIL 23, 1564- APRIL 23 1616)

THE LIFE OF BILL:• Understood all walks of life and social classes: Father was a glover and a leather

merchant, mother was a land heiress, which put them in the working class, but with benefits and respect.

• FAMILY:

• Married Anne Hathaway in 1582. (He was 18 while she was 26 and pregnant)

• 3 kids: Susanna, Twins – Hamnet and Judith

• ACTING CAREER:

• 1594 – actor, writer, and a managing partner for the Lord Chamberlain’s Men’s Company

• LCM Company – acting company patronized by royalty and popular by the public

WORKS• 154 sonnets, 2 epic narratives, and 38 plays including:

• Comedies: 12th Night, Measure for Measure, Taming of the Shrew

• Histories: Henry’s and Richard’s

• Tragedies: Hamlet, King Lear, Othello

• Late Romances: Tempest

LANGUAGE: • Known for prose, witty poetry, and blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter).

• No dictionaries or grammar books = learned from other educated writers

• Credited with introducing 3,000+ words/phrases into the language:

• Bedroom, dawn, gossip, gloomy, fashionable, bump, cold-blooded , Break the ice, breathed his last, dog will have his day, good-riddance, sent packing, seen better days, heart of gold

• Elizabethan Drama – turn away from religious subjects and began more sophisticated plays drawing from the ancient Romans and Greek

• Tragedies – hero hit with disaster

• Carefully crafted, unrhymed, rich language, vivid imagery

TIME PERIOD – THE RENAISSANCE:• QUEEN ELIZABETH (1558-1603)

• England emerges as naval and commercial power of Western world after defeating the Spanish armada

• Firmly established the Church of England, which attacks Catholics and witches. The C.O.E. begun with her father, Henry VIII, after a disagreement with the pope over whether or not he could be granted a divorce.

• There were Catholic plots to kill Queen Elizabeth in order to crown Mary Scot instead. Mary Scot was eventually imprisoned for 19 years and then beheaded.

TIME PERIOD – THE RENAISSANCE CONTD:• JAMES VI OF SCOTLAND (Mary Scot’s son!!!) is crowned as JAMES I OF

ENGLAND

• 1605 – Gun Powder Plot: Catholics plot to blow up king and Parliament

• Guy Fawkes rented a cellar under the House of Lords, 36 barrels of gun-powder stocked there. This act increased Catholic persecution. Until this day in England, Nov. 5th is known as Guy Fawkes Day. The English burn dummies of Guy and set off fireworks to celebrate.

• 1607 – Jamestown settled

• 1611 – King James Bible published

• Witch Trials continue

THE GLOBE THEATER:• HISTORY:

• 1576 – Known as “The Theater” (1594 – closed briefly for the plague).

• 1599 – Tore down and drug across the Thames river after a legal dispute.

• 1613 – Burnt down from a fire started by a canon shot during a Henry VIII performance.

• 1642 – Officially closed by Puritan regime

• Run predominately by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men Company

THE GLOBE THEATER CONTD:• CONSTRUCTION

• Open octagon, 3 stories high, 100 ft in diameter

• Fits 3,000 spectators

• Microcosm of London

• Pit– (1 pence) Groundlings/Peasants; standing room only, fruit and nuts sold

• 3 tiers – (2 pence) upper class seating

• Behind stage – royalty (so everyone could see them )

• Stage:

• No real scenery = audience goes off of exaggerated language and movement

• Effects:

• Trap doors, balcony entrances, rope riggings, etc.

• Fireworks (lightning), rolled canon balls (thunder)

• Plays performed during the day for light (2-5pm)

• Actors:

• Only men (young boys played women)

MACBETH HISTORY:• A man is urged by his wife and a prophecy to murder the king

to gain power.• SETTING:

• Scotland

• Inverness (Macbeth’s Castle near Dunsinane and Birnahm Woods)

• Fife (MacDuff’s Castle)

• Cawdor (territory in Scotland)

• Glamis (territory in Scotland)

• England

• Ireland

• Norway

• CHARACTERS: (in the front of your Macbeth book)

• HISTORICAL SOURCE: Raphael Holinshed’s “Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland”

MACBETH HISTORY CONTD:

• IT WAS WRITTEN SPECIFICIALLY FOR KING JAMES I:

• He was obsessed with demonology, the idea of magic and witches.

• Experienced the Gun Powder Plot, an assassination attempt.

• Scotish History: The real Macbeth, King Duncan, Malcolm, Banquo and Lady Macbeth all lived in the 1000s (Beowulf’s times). It is loosely based on the career of King Macbeth of Scotland. He was a commander under King Duncan I, Macbeth murdered Duncan in 1040 and claimed the kingdom for himself. After a rule of 17 years, Macbeth was killed by Duncan’s son Malcolm, who later became King Malcolm III.

• Banquo was written as a good guy since King James I was one of his descendents

• Short because the King liked short plays