Intro to Shakespeare8th Grade English Language Arts

William Warm-up!!

Write down three facts you know about Shakespeare…

1.

2.

3.

ShakespeareBorn April 23, 1564—died 1616

In England, Stratford-upon-Avon

Guess what… Shakespeare had parents!

John and Mary Arden Shakespeare• Mary—daughter of wealthy

landowner• John—glovemaker, local

politician

Shakespeare’s Early LifeProbably attended King’s New School in StratfordEducated in: Rhetoric, Logic, History, Latin

Married in 1582 to Anne Hathaway, who was pregnant at the time with their first daughter

Had twins in 1585

“Googoo Gaga”

(Fun fact: HE was 18, SHE was 26)

Shakespeare got hitched… and it was scandalous!!

Okay… then what?

He left Stratford for London to advance his literary career and become an actor. In London he became a shareholder in an acting company called The Lord Chamberlain’s Men as well as the primary playwright and an actor.

He would often perform at the court of Queen Elizabeth I.

Shakespeare wrote a total of 37 plays. This made William a wealthy man.

Fun fact: He also is considered the greatest English poet

THE GLOBE THEATER

Globe Theater was built in 1599 with Shakespeare as primary investorIt was three-stories high and had no roof.It could together hold more than 1,500 people.

The roof, the roof, the roof is on FIRE! Wait… there was no roof?

In 1613, during a performance of Henry VIII (8th), a misfired canon ball set the Globe's thatched roof on fire and the whole theatre was consumed.“Is it hot in here, or is it just me?”

So they built a new one!!

Types of Shakespearean Plays…

• 3 categories

1. Tragedy: a play that traces the main character’s downfall

2. Comedy: a play that ends happily and usually contains many humorous elements

3. History: a play that chronicles the life of an English monarch

Midsummer Night’s Dream is a…

Comedy“Bahahahahahaha…”

A Midsummer Night's Dream is first mentioned by Francis Meres in 1598, leading many scholars to date the play between 1594 and

1596. It is likely to have been written around the same period Romeo and Juliet was created.

Oh come on. Was Shakespeare really funny?

Yes, his humor appealed to all types and classes.

Midsummer contains all kinds ofhumor – slapstick, wit, sight gags, puns…

Midsummer Night’s Dream

• The play was first performed between 1595 and 1596

• Like R&J it explores love, but is a comedy, not a tragedy

• Shakespeare explores the complex nature of the human heart

• Midsummer mocks many aspects of human behavior

What’s really happening in Midsummer Night’s Dream?

• Shakespeare uses different kinds of humor to mock people’s common assumptions about love

• Shakespeare uses numerous examples of figurative language to explore the complexities of human emotions

• Shakespeare uses dramatic irony to heighten the sense of comedy and humor in the play

• Shakespeare uses soliloquies by major characters to draw the audience into central ideas and themes

• Shakespeare portrays human relationships in several different lights in order to illustrate the changing and complex sides of human emotions

“All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players.” – Shakespeare

So….. Let’s dramatize Shakespeare!!!

A Midsummer Night’s Dream lingo

The most common simple sentence in modern English follows a familiar pattern: Subject (S), Verb (V), Object (O).

To illustrate this, we'll devise a subject (John), a verb (caught), and an object (the ball).

Thus, we have an easily understood sentence, "John caught the ball." This is as perfectly an understood sentence in modern English as it was in Shakespeare's day.

However, Shakespeare was much more at liberty to switch these three basic components—and did, quite frequently. Shakespeare used a great deal of SOV inversion, which renders the sentence as "John the ball caught."

Midsummer Night’s Dream LINGO

• A Midsummer Night's Dream contains a fair amount of regular old prose (how we talk every day), but it's is famous for its dazzling displays of verse, or poetry. The three most common types of verse in the play are: iambic pentameter, rhymed verse, catalectic trochaic tetrameter.

ProseThe basics people, the basics!!

Ordinary folks like the Mechanicals (craftsmen), usually don't talk in a special rhythm – they just talk. Check out this passage, where Bottom and his pals talk about the play they want to perform:

There are things in this comedy of Pyramus andThisbe that will never please. First, Pyramus mustdraw a sword to kill himself; which the ladiescannot abide. How answer you that?

Prose makes sense for this scene, because it's a very practical way to talk.

Iambic PentameterDon’t let the big words scare you. It’s easy when you get the beat! Let’s break it down!

An "iamb" is an unaccented syllable followed by an accented one. "Penta" means "five” "meter" refers to a regular rhythmic pattern.

So "iambic pentameter" is a rhythmic pattern that consist of five iambs per line. It's the most common rhythm in English poetry and sounds like five heartbeats :da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM

Here's an example from Theseus's speech to Hippolyta (hippOLyTA)

i WOO'D thee WITH my SWORD,and WON thy LOVE, doING thee INjurIES;

Every second syllable is accented (stressed), so this is classic iambic pentameter. Since the lines have no regular rhyme scheme we call it unrhymed iambic pentameter, a.k.a. blank verse.

Rhymed VerseHey it could be worse!

When the young Athenian lovers speak passionately about love, their lines of poetry tend to rhyme like this speech, where Helena goes on about the nature of love. Notice that the rhyme scheme below follows this pattern: AABBCC.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; (A rhyme)And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind: (A rhyme)Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste;(B rhyme)Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste: (B rhyme)And therefore is Love said to be a child, (C rhyme)Because in choice he is so oft beguiled. (C rhyme)

(Catalectic) Trochaic Tetrameter That's a mouthful, but, again, it's actually pretty simple once you get the hang of it.

"trochee" is the opposite of an "iamb." It's an accented syllable followed by an unaccented syllable that sounds like DUM-da. "Tetra" means "four” "meter" refers to a regular rhythmic pattern.

So "trochaic tetrameter" is a kind of rhythmic pattern that consist of four trochees per line. It sounds like this:

DUM-da, DUM-da, DUM-da, DUM-da.

When the last syllable of the line is cut off, it's called catalectic trochaic tetrameter. Here's an example where Puck addresses Oberon:CAPtain OF our FAIry BAND,HELeNA is HERE at HAND

( Shakespeare's a big fan of using trochaic verse for supernatural beings like FAIRIES)