William Shakespeare

An Introduction

Actor, Writer, Poet, Playwright

Poet, playwright, actor…

• Born in the middle of the 16th Century, and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon.

• Shakespeare came of age during the Renaissance, a flourishing of arts, culture, and thought that took place after the Middle Ages/Medieval Period.

• He was an actor, himself, as well as a playwright.

• He wrote over 36 plays and 154 sonnets.

Shakespeare’s Plays

• Romeo and Juliette• Midsummer Night’s Dream• Othello• Hamlet

• And…

Macbeth

Macbeth

Macbeth

The Scottish Play• One of the most famous theatrical superstitions is not saying the word

‘Macbeth’ inside a theatre, but referring to it as The Scottish Play.• Theatrical folklore has it that, Shakespeare got a few of the lines from an

actual coven of witches and when they saw the play they were greatly offended and cursed the play for all eternity.

• Another tradition tells that the original propmaster could not find a suitable pot for a cauldron and stole one from a coven, who then cursed the play in revenge for the theft.

• Whether or not you believe these explanations is irrelevant, though, because the ill-fortune associated with the play is backed up by many examples over its four hundred year history.

• Initially, King James banned the play for five years because he had such a dislike for it, but there are also more bloody examples: there was an unpleasant and lethal riot after one showing in 19th century New York.

The Scottish Play

• In another performance, Lady Macbeth fell off the front of the stage while sleepwalking, dropping nearly twenty feet.

• Even Lawrence Olivier wasn’t free from the curse, as one of his performances was enlivened by a falling stage weight which landed only inches from him mid-performance.

• It is believed that breaking the taboo calls the ghosts of the three witches to the show and it is they who cause all the mishaps.

• The last, and probably most spectacular view of the curse is that Shakespeare used the curse in the play to actually curse the play himself, guaranteeing that no one other than himself would be able to direct the play.

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 dimmed; • And every fair from fair sometime declines, • By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;

• But thy eternal summer shall not fade, • Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, • Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade, • When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.

• So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, • So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

A Shakespearean Sonnet has very strict rules for its structure:

1) Iambic Pentameter:

5 sets of syllables – the second syllable of each set is stress, the first is unstressed.(10 syllables per line)

2) Sonnet:

• 14 lines – four sets of verse

• The first three sets consist of 4 lines, alternate lines rhyme.

• The last set is two lines, which also rhyme.

Video LinksIntro to Shakespeare video links https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwSqW_19vLo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbgZxAIiO04 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wVkqPFEwGo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geev441vbMI