Shakespeare & You

• Half sheet of paper:

• How do you feel about reading

Shakespeare? Briefly explain

your answer.

Shakespeare (“The Bard”)

• 1554-1616 • Most widely-read author in the English language

– Why??

Renaissance

• Renaissance = Rebirth (French)

• Loved “classics” – ancient Greek & Roman myths & stories

• Elizabethan Theater– Like Sophocles, Shakespeare was a government employee.

Why do humans love him??

• Universal, timeless themes• Artistry

– Iambic Pentameter– Ingenuity (cleverness)

• Prolific– 37 plays– 154 sonnets & 5 longer narrative poems

• Wrote for the “masses”

Famous Phrases

Budge an inch, in a pickle,

dead as a doornail, kill with kindness,

into thin air, love is blind, elbow room, naked truth,

neither rhyme nor reason, faint hearted,

full circle, star-crossed lovers,

a sorry sight, piece of work,

wild-goose chase, good riddance!

A Few Interesting Facts

• For much of his life he lived in London, while his wife Anne Hathaway lived in the town of Stratford, 100 miles to the northwest

• Of his 150+ sonnets about love, not one was to or about his wife

• Because he did not go to college, some people think he could not have written the plays that he produced (there are some plays that he DID have help with)

• He had three children: Susanna, Judith, and Hamnet (does this last one sound familiar?)–Hamnet died at the age of 11

The London Theatre• Differs from the Greek Theatre in

several ways– The VIPs sat in the back, in the

balcony– The front was standing room only

• Home of the “Groundlings”

• It is believed that he died on his birthday, April 23rd

He placed a curse on his grave to ensure that no one would rob his body parts.

Upon his death, he left his wife his “second best bed”

The Tempest: A Whole New World

Sycorax’s birthplace

Carthage

NaplesProspero’s Island?

What is a “Tempest”?

Full Definition of TEMPEST

1:  a violent storm - the sudden summertime tempest drove us off the golf course and into the clubhouse

2:  tumult, uproar - the town council handled the tempest over cuts to the school budget as well as could be expected

What “tempests” do the major characters in the play have to deal with?

The Tempest probably was written in 1610-1611, and was first performed at Court by the King’s Men in the fall of 1611 and again in 1612 during the celebration of the marriage of King James’ daughter.

It’s possible that The Tempest is Shakespeare’s farewell to the stage, and is most likely the last play written entirely by Shakespeare as well as one of the few plays whose plot is completely original.

The play has connections to the reality of colonialism through the storm, the characters ideas of ownership and the ‘savage’ Caliban – a derivative of the word Cannibal.

The Servants: Who is Caliban?

The Servants: Who is Ariel?