Your Questions Answered.

1. Your Questions Answered. Act I

2. Billy’s middle name? • The only references to his “full name” that I could find are: • Willm Shaksp • William Shakespe • Wm Shakespe • William Shakspere • Willm Shakspere • William Shakspeare

3. What happened to Will’s mum? • I don’t know.

4. Life in London • Life expectancy was 25-35 years (lots of deaths in youth brought down average) Shakespeare’s London was overall a youthful place though. • The plague flared every 10 years or so. • Public performances of all types (everything except Church) were banned within 7 miles of London each time the death toll reached 40, and that happened a great deal! • In nearly every year for at least 250 years deaths outnumbered births! • However, the influx of refugees from the continent kept the population steadily growing. • Housing was not to be erected within 3 miles of the City walls, under pain of demolition. So, London was increasingly ringed with slums.

5. Life in London • City life had a density that we can scarcely imagine now. • Refuse was a constant problem. “Houndsditch” (an area in London) was apparently named because of the number of dogs thrown into it. • Rich and poor lived side by side. Robert Green died in squalor only a few doors down from Sir Francis Drake (one of the richest men in the land). • The city had a strict curfew which took effect at dusk and lasted until dawn. The gates were locked and no one was allowed in or out.

6. Diet/booze/tobacco • Those who ate well ate as well as many of us. A “household management” book was discovered that had recipes for “mutton with claret and Seville orange juice”, “spinach tart” and “cheesecakes”. • The poorer ate a simpler diet. Dark breads, cheese, and occasional meat. Veggies appeared to be eaten only be those who could afford no better. • Sugar was popular and expensive. It turned people’s teeth black, and those who failed to have their teeth blackened by eating sugar sometimes blackened their teeth artificially to give the appearance of being able to afford the sweet treat. • Beer was consumed copiously by everyone, including the pleasure wary Puritans. A gallon a day was traditional ration. English ale was an acquired taste, and has been described as “cloudy like a horse’s urine”. • Tobacco was a luxury at first, but gained such widespread popularity that (in a city 2 miles by 3 miles which could be crossed in about an hour by foot) had no fewer than 7 thousand tobacconists. • Tobacco was smoked for pleasure, but also was a “treatment” for venereal disease, headaches, bad breath, and as a prophylactic against the plague. (Even kids were encouraged to use it. At Eton school students were beaten if they neglected to smoke their tobacco.)

7. What were some crimes John committed? • He was fined a shilling (probably the equivalent of 2 days pay!) for keeping a dung heap in Henley Street. • He was prosecuted 4 times for trading in wool and money lending (both highly illegal activities). In 1570 he was accused of making loans worth 220 pounds, over 100,000 in today’s money.

8. How educated was Shakespeare? • As the son of a prominent citizen, he probably attended the Stratford grammar school (King’s New School), a boys only school. • It appears that any local boy could attend as long as he could read and write. (Ironic?) • Schooling started at age 7 or 8 and would end around 8 years later. William would have been taught Latin, and taken courses focusing on translating, reciting, and IMITATING the works he read. (FYI- school went from 6am-6pm, 6 days a week!)

9. Was he as popular then as he is now? • Christopher (Kit) Marlow (1564-1593) was very popular and seen as an innovator for his use of blank verse instead of rhyme. Doctor Faustus was his most famous work. • Thomas Kyd (1558-1594) was one of the first playwrights to gain a wide following of fans and wrote the most popular play of the 1500s- “The Spanish Tragedy.” • Robert Green (1560-1592) was a popular writer and a critic of Shakespeare calling him “an upstart crow.”

10. Was he a better writer than others? • Thomas Dekker, Ben Jonson, Thomas Kyd, and Christopher Marlowe were all, as far as reviews and critical pieces from the time show, more famous and popular than Shakespeare. • Perhaps the reason Shakespeare is so popular today is due to the fact that of the 230 plays that still exist from his time, 38 are by him. (15% of all surviving plays!)

11. What was his first play? His famous poems? • First play= Henry VI (?) At least, this is the first mention of his work. It was performed at The Rose in the first week of March 1592. • Most well known poem at the time was “Venus and Adonis” (1593). This narrative was 1,194 lines long and was followed up by “The Rape of Lucrece” pronounced (Loo-cress) which was 1,855 lines long!

12. How many plays did he write? • 38 • 12 Tragedies, including Romeo and Juliet. • 10 Histories. • 16 comedies.

13. Did William have lovers? • He wrote his most erotic and lustful poems in 1593-1594. He also wrote Romeo and Juliet in 1594. • It has been suggested that his apparently unwanted marriage and affairs with women fueled his desire to write about love.

14. Was Shakespeare Homosexual? • Homosexuality was common in Elizabethan England. • Here are weak reasons why people have suggested he was gay: His clothing, being a poet, acting in love scenes with boys. • Some of his sonnets have the speaker addressing a male, and MAY be interpreted as being suggestive. (ex. “Thou art the master of my passion.”) Understanding context, and discretion is necessary! • We don’t know, and who cares?!

15. What happened to Anne Hathaway? • She never left Stratford, though William would have returned on occasion to take care of his family’s business interests. • Anne lived on an estate called “New Place” that William bought. Her social standing around the town grew greatly. • In 1610, William returned to Stratford and lived with Anne again. • She was left only his “second best bed” and its linens in his will. (Cynic, or sentimentalist?) Tradition would hold that she automatically got 1/3 of his estate.

16. What happened to his kids? • Hamnet dies of the plague at 11 years of age. • Susanna married a doctor and lived a comfortable upper class life. She lived to be 66. • Judith married a tavern owner but the marriage was excommunicated when it was found out that he had gotten another woman pregnant. She died at 77 years of age.

17. How did he die? • The cause of his death is unknown, but we do know that he died on the 23rd of April 1616. • John Ward, the vicar of Stratford during this time, has recorded a story that MAY give insight into his death. • Ward tells of Shakespeare binge drinking with his friends Ben Johnson and Michael Drayton, and then developing a fever that led to his death.

18. Shakespeare’s Writing Style Act II

19. Why did he have his characters talk funny? • He didn’t. • He wrote for effect.

20. Verse vs. Prose • 1) Verse= “poetic language” • Uses rhyme, has flow • Blank verse= 10 syllables alternating from stressed to unstressed. • 2) Prose= “normal language”

21. Verse • Shakespeare would use verse to place emphasize on lines, or scenes. • As a rule, women and important characters spoke verse. It makes the heroes sound more heroic, the baddies more evil, and the royalty more regal.

22. Verse continued… • It is difficult to have each line have 10 syllables, so Shakespeare would cheat at times and trim or add syllables. • ex. “Is it possible?” could be trimmed down to “Is’t possible?” • Shakespeare would often use rhyming couplets to end a scene as a cue for the audience. “The which of you with patient ears attend, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.” Prologue

23. Prose • The “regular Joes,” such as servants, spoke prose. • It is easier to be funny in prose, so it would be spoken by characters such as the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet.

24. The English Language in the 1500s- 1 • By the late 1500s the English language was in transition from older, medieval forms to the patterns and diction more like what we use today. • The printing press= more books= more people learning to read and write= changes in the language.

25. The English Language in the 1500s- 2 • English was thought to be lacking in expressive possibilities as compared to a rich language such as Latin. • Writers in the 16th century regularly invented, borrowed, or altered words to suit their needs. • Ex. Ignoranus= someone who’s both stupid, and a butthole.

26. The English Language in the 1500s- 3 • Shakespeare’s vocabulary seems to have been exceptionally large. It has been estimated at 29,000 words (or twice that of an average American college student). • Some modern words that he has been credited with creating include: assassination, bump (as in a swollen area), and dwindle.

27. Shakespearean Tragedy Act III

28. Shakespeare’s plays are broken down into “sections” • The ”big” sections are called ACTS. • Acts are made up of multiple SCENES. • There are 5 acts in every Shakespeare play. • There is no rule for the number of scenes per act. • But the early acts usually have longer scenes to establish the plot, important characters and themes. • The later acts usually have shorter scenes and the pace of the plot quickens.

29. When Referencing Lines: • Acts are referenced using UPPER CASE roman numerals. • (I, II, III, IV, V) • Scenes are referenced using LOWER CASE roman numerals. • i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, vii… • Lines are referenced using “arabic” numbers. • 1,2,3,4,5… • So lines 40-41 from Act 1, scene 1 would look like: • “Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them, which is disgrace to them if they bare it.” (I.i.40-41)

30. *Shakespeare's tragedies are, for the most part, stories of one person, the "hero," or at most two, to include the "heroine." • *In these plays, the heroine is as much at the center of action as the hero.

31. *The tragic heroes must be characters who the audience will “like” and feel sorry for. • *Sorry to ruin things, but the tragic story always leads up to, and includes, the death of the heroes. • *There is great suffering by the tragic heroes.

32. FYI, the full title of the play is… • The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet

33. *In Romeo and Juliet the tragic heroes are responsible for their falls to a certain extent, but there are other factors which influence the downfall.