Shakespearean Drama

1. Shakespearean Drama • What maketh a tragedy fall true? • Centers around a mighty figure. • They suffer a reversal of fortune. It’s the old Wheel of Fortune – not the game. • They experience uncommon suffering. • They face their suffering with dignity.

2. Shakespearean Drama • The suffering of the main characters ennobles us. It makes us more noble and able to cope with life’s twists and turns.

3. Shakespearean Drama • Shakespeare’s characters were not meant to be real people. They were meant to be symbolic.This differs completely from the movies of our day. • Symbols are meant to display a particular, often real, object or issue and have it represent a universal fact or truth.

4. Shakespearean Drama • Shakespeare taught with words. There weren’t any special effects and not much in the way of costumes and scenery. • We only know about a character in three ways: what they say, what they do, and what others say about them. • If we try to imagine another facet of their lives, we are just guessing.

5. Shakespearean Drama • There are universal values in drama and all literature. Among the most important are: • Good • Evil • Truth • Justice • Purity • Beauty

6. Shakespearean Drama • Shakespeare was phenomenally good at weaving those into the lives of his characters.

7. Shakespearean Drama • What about all those wild, old words like bodkin, orisons, fardel, quietus and all that? • 99% of Shakespeare’s vocabulary is in use today but he wrote in Elizabethan times so, we have dictionaries to look up the words we don’t use anymore. Besides, it’s not the unique words that make folks stumble a bit. It’s the noun / verb placement and sentence length.

8. Shakespearean Drama • Think about Yoda and Luke discussing daddy Darth. How does Yoda answer Luke? “Your father he is.” How would you say it? “He is your father.” Right? Well, what have you done? You’ve just switched a noun and a verb with Yoda yet you’ve both said the same thing. Well, Shakespeare does that a lot.

9. Shakespearean Drama • Look at this: There's the respect That makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th' unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin?

10. Shakespearean Drama • Note the first section is pretty much a list of life’s woes but at the end he inverts the nouns and verbs. There's the respect That makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th' unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin?

11. Shakespearean Drama • By the way, a bodkin was a sharp, pointed instrument for making a hole or a dagger. There’s the dictionary again.

12. Shakespearean Drama • So, let’s look at some drama vocabulary.

13. Elizabethan Presentations - Review • The Narrator and the Prince teach us the lessons we’ve learned from Romeo and Juliet.

14. Elizabethan Presentations - Review • Two households, both alike in dignity,In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.From forth the fatal loins of these two foesA pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;Whole misadventured piteous overthrowsDo with their death bury their parents' strife.The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,And the continuance of their parents' rage,Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;The which if you with patient ears attend,What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

15. Elizabethan Presentations - Review • This letter doth make good the friar's words,Their course of love, the tidings of her death:And here he writes that he did buy a poisonOf a poor 'pothecary, and therewithalCame to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.And I for winking at your discords tooHave lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish'd.

16. Crime and Punishment • Nobles were generally punished for political crimes and witchcraft. • Imprisonment was less common for severe crimes than death. • Executions were sometimes public events • Punishments for the commoners were related to property crimes. • Execution for property crimes was commonplace. • Commoners were rarely imprisoned. • Punishments were often cruel and torturous

17. Shakespeare • Born in 1564 • Grew up in late Elizabethan England • His first experiences in the theater were cut short by an outbreak of the plague. • His poetry was widely distributed during his lifetime and afterwards. • He died without any surviving male children • He was not educated to the level of the nobility. • His writing is the greatest of English literature.

18. Weaponry • These guys loved to do terrible things to one another! • The halberd was an ax with a hook and a spear point used to tear riders from their horses. • The caltrop was was a three pointed spike star designed to lodge in the feet of attackers’ animals and stop their progress. • The crossbow was much more powerful and accurate than a long bow. The trigger assembly was probably invented by Leonardo da Vinci. • Muskets replaced bows.

19. Spanish Armada • The defeat of the Spanish Armada signaled the beginning of English influences toward the New World. • The defeat was not a single event but occurred over a series of sea battles. • It occurred in 1588 and 1589. • James I, came to the throne about 20 years later tried to make peace with Spain but by then British expansionism had begun.

20. Francis Drake • He was a very capable captain who had learned about sea combat tactics from pirates – he was pretty much one himself. • His voyage around the world took place within 50 years of Magellan’s. • He knew of the routes around the world. • He masterminded the defeat of the Spanish Armada by capitalizing on the attributes of the smaller British ships. • He died in Panama in 1596. • His life shows the rapid expansion of British influence in the New World after the defeat of the Armada.

21. Elizabeth I • She was the last of the Tudor monarchs. • She was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boelyn • She outlived her siblings – by a long way. • During her reign the English Renaissance flourished. • She never married nor had children. • She embraced Protestantism. • She was not particularly kind but relished the artistic community. • She is often regarded as the greatest Queen of England.

22. Bloody Mary • She was the daughter of Catherine and Henry VIII – his first marriage. • She grew up being labeled illegitimate. • She was a devout Catholic and tried to stop the Protestants • She married the King of Spain but they had no children. • She had many leaders of the Protestant movement killed. • She died at 42.

23. James I • He was a second cousin to the Tudor monarchs. • He is most notable for the King James translation of the Bible. • He was originally James VI of Scotland but when his monarch cousin, Elizabeth, died he became James I of England. • He was in office while the English colonization of America began. – Think of Jamestown, Virginia – get it?