SHAKESPEARE & ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND
Elizabethan England Known as the Early Modern period or the English Renaissance (rebirth) Queen Elizabeth I was an anomaly (strange, out of place) of the time period. She was strong, intelligent, & a well-respected ruler. Women during this time had little or no power & were seen as less than men, so her power was not typical. By refusing to marry throughout her 45 year reign as queen, she retained her own power & remained on good terms with other European nations at the same time Women, once married, had practically no rights. They could not work outside the home, & so were in charge of the domestic sphere
During this time, many members of a family would live in a small home, often with 4-8 people living in one room There was no sanitation, no indoor plumbing, no concept of germs or sterilization The streets were literally filled with waste, both human & animal 2 outbreaks of the bubonic plague occurred during Shakespeare s life, which forced the theaters to close because people thought the plague was spread from human to human, not by fleas or rats as we know now
Elizabethan England Modern medicine was virtually nonexistent, & people thought that nearly all health problems were the fault of the humors - 4 liquids in the body which corresponded to the 4 elements Blood (air), Phlegm (water), Yellow bile (fire), and Black bile (earth) Illnesses were treated by balancing the humors. If someone was diagnosed with too much blood, the physician would release some by applying leeches or cutting the skin Shakespeare often refers to the humors in his plays
Drawing of a doctor applying a leech
WHO WAS SHAKESPEARE? B. 1564; D. 1616 Not much is known about his early life; playwrights were not considered important people & so no biographies were written about him until many years after his death He was married in 1582, at the age of 18, to a 26 year-old woman named Anne Hathaway
WHO WAS SHAKESPEARE? 37 plays are attributed to him, but there is great controversy over the authorship Some claim many authors wrote under one name, or another famous figure such as Elizabeth I used the pseudonym to publish works In Elizabethan England, one could spell their name any way they wished, including changing it from day to day, which led to much confusion. Shakespeare s name has been spelled in over 80 different ways, including Shagspeare, Shaxpere, & Shakestaffe, just to name a few.
WHO WAS SHAKESPEARE? You can see how this may cause confusion. Also, many people argue that the plays are so different in content & style that no one person could have written them all Whether it was one person or many, the fact remains that Shakespeare s plays continue to be a dominant influence on our culture today. One can see references to Shakespeare in everything from music to movies. His early plays consisted mostly of histories, because of the politics of the time period.
WHO WAS SHAKESPEARE? Just like celebrities today, who support certain political candidates, writers during this time would reflect their opinions on politics in their writing Thus, many of Shakespeare s histories were written to praise Queen Elizabeth the 1 st. Many of his tragedies were written during the 1590s, and his comedies & romances came near the end of his career
WHO WAS SHAKESPEARE? Nearly all of his plays were written in blank verse, which is unrhymed iambic pentameter. He is known to have invented dozens of words & phrases, such as laugh it off, hint, lonely, excellent, fair play, & catch cold He is also believed to have the largest vocabulary of any writer in history.
Elizabethan Theater The theater at this time was entirely outdoors Wealthier people could pay more to sit in the balcony, while the working class stood in front of the stage (groundlings) There were no curtains, so scenes were divided by a chorus or an actor s announcement
Romeo & Juliet Shakespeare s play is based off a 1562 poem That poem was a translation from a French work, which was an adaptation of an Italian work, which was based on a 1525 translation of another tale, which was most likely based on a Greek story called Pyramus & Thisbe, as well as various folktales
Romeo & Juliet Shakespeare made the story his own by changing the time frame from 9 months to 5 days. This was designed to emphasize the passing of time, & add intensity to the story He also decreased Juliet s age from 16 to 13, to show she is too young for marriage Finally, he set the play in July, rather than in winter as it was originally written Focused the language on puns- plays on words. In puns, words have more than one meaning. This focuses the audience s attention on surface meanings & deeper meanings
The Story of Romeo & Juliet has been retold throughout the centuries