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Shakespeare International man of mystery

Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

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Page 1: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Shakespeare

International man of mystery

Page 2: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

William Shakespeare

• April 23, 1564-1616• Greatest writer of English?• Bard of Avon• Stratford-upon-Avon• 37 or 38 plays• 154 sonnets, plus

Page 3: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Shakespeare in love?

• Married Anne Hathaway

Page 4: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Early life

• He was 18, she was 26• Six months later first child born• Three children, two of which were twins• Lived with his father, successful glove maker• Next eight years “lost years”• ????????

Page 5: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Making plays in London

• Early 1590’s writing plays in London• Successful as playwright, actor, and

shareholder of acting company• Lord Chamberlain’s Men• The King’s Men• The Globe Theatre

Page 6: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

• Blackfriar’s Theater

Page 7: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Elizabethan Age

• Favorite of Queen Elizabeth I

• Shakespeare has strong heroines, perhaps inspired by Elizabeth

• First feminist? Portrayed the virtues of strong women who achieve their goals

Page 8: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Jacobean Age

• King James I cultivated and strong patron of the arts

• Elevated Shakespeare’s company even higher, making the participants gentlemen

Page 9: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Success

• Most popular acting company in London• Spent much of time in London away from

family• Later bought second most expensive house in

Stratford

Page 10: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Shakespeare’s house

Page 11: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Statue to Shakespeare

Page 12: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Monument to playwrights

Page 13: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

I’m not dead yet.

• Died age 52 of fever? Typhus?• "Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a

merry meeting and it seems drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted." ~ Vicar of Holy Trinity Church

Page 14: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Oh, maybe I am.

• Buried in Holy Trinity Church

Page 15: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Will’s last will

• Left his wife his “second-best bed”• Hmm…• Gave daughters, friends and relatives

everything else, which wasn’t all that much• If he was so successful and famous, where did

all his money go?• Did not arrange to have his plays printed or

mention them in his will

Page 16: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Signatures

Willm Shakp

William Shaksper

Wm Shakspe

William Shakspere

Willm Shakspere

By me William Shakspeare

Page 17: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Jonson’s praise

• This figure that thou here seest put,It was for gentle Shakespeare cut,Wherein the graver had a strifeWith Nature, to outdo the life:Oh, could he but have drawn his witAs well in brass, as he has hitHis face, the print would then surpassAll that was ever writ in brass;But since he cannot, reader, lookNot on his picture, but his book.– Ben Jonson, Lines on a Picture of Shakespeare.

Page 18: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Humanism

• Morality plays religious themes• Shakespeare explores human, not divine dilemmas• Shakespeare’s religious tolerance: “wonderful

philosophical impartiality” ~Coleridge• Humanism: human experience as a way of knowing

self, nature, or God• Value to each individual human life• Villains have sympathy

Page 19: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Humanism

• No simplistic moral or theological narratives• Explores emotions and moral choices faced by

secular men in extreme circumstances• Renaissance: arts, sciences, Greek and Roman

culture• Rapidly expanding knowledge and

extraordinary artistic production• Artistic and moral movement

Page 20: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Shakespeare’s PlaysComedies• All's Well That Ends Well, As You Like It, Cymbeline, The Comedy of Errors, Love's

Labour's Lost, Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Pericles, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest, Troilus and Cressida, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Twelfth Night, The Winter's Tale

Tragedies• Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Macbeth,

Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Timon of Athens, Titus AndronicusHistories• 1,2, and 3 Henry VI, 1 and 2 Henry IV, King John, Henry V, Henry VIII, Richard II,

Richard III

Page 21: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Theatre in London

• London 200,000 people 1590’s: high mortality, crime, unsanitary conditions, crowding

• Young men from countryside, like Shakespeare• Pickpockets, prostitutes, commoners, gentlemen,

foreign fashions, theater red-light district• Most important cultural form English Renaissance• Sophisticated audience, novelty, variety, complexity

Page 22: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Theatres

• Playwrights in demand• Birth of modern theater• Daytime performances: open-air, rain or shine,

rowdy• Social classes mix freely• Poor: yard front of stage, penny• Richer: seats, higher up cost more• 1609 indoor, winter, intimate, more expensive

Page 23: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Theatres

• Theater more respectable• Plague decimates 1/3 to 2/3 of city’s population• Playhouses breeding grounds, often closed• Afraid of political unrest, so licensed• Companies 15 plays/month• Several thousand during Shakespeare’s time• Bare stage; new play every day, so big sets

expensive, impractical

Page 24: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Theatre

• Costumes main expense, language and imagination

• Cannon burned down Globe in 1613, no one killed but one man’s breeches caught fire, bottle of ale doused

• Trapdoors, deus ex machina, sword fights, jigs and dances

• Men and boys played all roles; women forbidden because “immoral”

Page 25: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Language

• Shared culture: Bible and mythology• Flexible language, no rules or standards• Shakespeare 25,000 different words• Average adult 7,000-10,000 words, 800 then• Shakespeare invented maybe 1,700 words

Page 26: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Language

• Social class, personality, mood and situation• Prose or verse class or situation• Heightened emotional state or formal poetic, otherwise

prose• Romeo and Juliet meet and exchange a perfect sonnet• Figurative language: metaphor, simile, personification,

puns, rhythm, meter, symbolism, layers of meaning• Syntax: emphasis on which part of speech to accentuate,

whatever comes last

Page 27: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Poetry

• Shakespeare wrote poetry from 1592-94 when plague shut down theatres in London

• Wanted to make name for himself• Poetry considered more sophisticated and

gentlemanly than theatre• Narrative poetry and sonnets

Page 28: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Sonnets

• Sonetto, little song• Italian, Dante, Petrarch• Earl of Surrey adapted rhyme scheme to

English, known as Shakespearean sonnet• Time, Beauty, and Verse• Very popular 1590’s• Collection known as a sequence or cycle

Page 29: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Sonnets

• Sonnets 1-126 to a young man• 127-152 to a dark lady• 153-154 to Cupid• About procreation and immortality in verse• Beauty also immortalized, preserved in poetry• “Beauty is truth, truth beauty”~Keats• “A thing of beauty is a joy forever”~Keats

Page 30: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Unrequited love

• Lancelot and Guinevere, Tristan and Isolde, and the idea of courtly love

• Evolution of feeling and thought toward the beloved: enchanted, worshipful, confounded, disenchanted, and combative

• Dark lady: eyes and hair of black• Adulterous affair ending in frustration and

deception

Page 31: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Sonnets

• “For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright/Who are as black as hell, as dark as night”

• Young man having and affair with dark lady?• Love triangle, and then competition, rival poet• Sonnet’s formal structure challenged to create

within constraints• Sound, meaning, and image combine

Page 32: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Sonnets

• Fourteen lines=three quatrains+one couplet• Quatrain=four lines• Couplet=two lines• Iambic pentameter=five feet• Turn=change of direction

Page 33: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

• How to read a sonnet: follow the train of thought, look for shifts of tone or direction

• Thought, followed by example, then comparison

• Layers of meaning, metaphor, words connected to each other

• Couplet reveals even deeper meaning

Page 34: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Origins and Sources

• Did not create stories, aside from Love’s Labor’s Lost and The Tempest

• Holinshed: Chronicles of England Scotland and Ireland, 1587: plot elements, character names, and descriptions, but reshaped to suit dramatic purposes

• Edward Hall: The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York, 1548

Page 35: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Origins and Sources

• Boccaccio: Decameron, 1353; people fleeing plague in Florence, bawdy and full of innuendo

• Romances (long narrative in poetry or prose)• Seneca: tragedies of deception and revenge• Plutarch: Lives of the Noble Grecians and

Romans

Page 36: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Origins and Sources

• Ovid: Metamorphoses, poetry, mythological• Plautus: comedic drama from Greek plays;

low-class characters that outwit upper-class

Page 37: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Impact of Shakespeare’s Plays

• Emotional impact• Use of language to reveal or convey character• Extremes of human experience• Complexity of character, motivation, real and

three dimensional• Dialogue reveals a character through his or her

words, directly and indirectly• Much dialogue poetry; no people did not speak

this way

Page 38: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Impact

• Racy stories appealing to common person as well as educated; evolving London, cultures and classes mixing

• Ben Jonson: “not of an age, but for all time”• Coat of arms “Not without merit”• Didn’t protect his plays for posterity• Half of plays printed by time of his death, rest

by friends: First Folio

Page 39: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Was Shakespeare really Shakespeare?

• Authorship controversy• Documents show he lived and wrote the plays• Playbills named him• Plays published after performance with his

name• Shareholder in company who performed them• Other famous people wrote about him

Page 40: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Conspiracy

• Occam’s razor: the simplest explanation is often the correct one

• Commoner, country boy, son of illiterate tradesman and mother, never went to university; must have been aristocrat

• But English Renaissance and others of that time had similar backgrounds: Marlowe, Jonson, Donne, Spenser

Page 41: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Bacon

• Sir Francis Bacon: Renaissance man, royal court, prolific writer, philosophy, politics, scientific method

• How would he have had time?• Twain a proponent

Page 42: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

de Vere

• Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford: education, courtly knowledge of Elizabeth I, writer, poet, comedy, military, life parallels many plots of plays; died 1604, and Shakespeare did plays in 1609 and 1613

• Freud a proponent

Page 43: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Marlowe

• Christopher Marlowe: anti-Stratfordians, literary professional, son of tradesman, university degree, born same year as Shakespeare, but already famous when S. came to London in 1590’s

Page 44: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Marlowe

• 1593 charged with heresy as atheist and “murdered” by men in British intelligence and took up Shakespeare’s name as a cover

• Marlowe was a spy, so it’s suspicious• Marlovians’ literary analysis say “fingerprint”

the same• But stark differences in style and content,

though Shakespeare certainly influenced by him

Page 45: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Yet more conspiracy

• Sir WalterRaleigh: explorer, poet, philosopher, statesman, courtier lived until 1618, so chronology fits, never wrote a play, but did poetry

• Queen Elizabeth I herself?

Page 46: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Separated at birth?You be the judge.

Page 47: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Who was Shakespeare?

• So, was Shakespeare really Shakespeare?• Does it matter?• Shakespeare in a minute• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMkuUAD

WW2A• Original pronunciation• http://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s

Page 48: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Catholic?

• Queen Elizabeth outlawed: fined, tortured and killed if conspiring

• Parents Catholic, may have been hired as a tutor in a Catholic household

• Hoghton’s will: instruments and costumes, mentions a William Shakeshafte

• Catholics treated respectfully in his plays• No solid evidence

Page 49: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Gay?

• Historians: no such concept at that time• May not have spent much time with Anne, but

did have three children• Theatre traditional venue for gays• Shakespeare wrote love poetry to men• But also to women• Inconclusive

Page 50: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

English Renaissance

• 1485-1625• Rebirth of civilization• Started earlier in Italy (1350-1550)• Rejected “dark ages” of Medieval Europe• Revived learning of ancient Greece and Rome• Age of Exploration• Religious and political turmoil

Page 51: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Dates

• 1485 Henry VII first Tudor king• 1500 Everyman first performed (morality play)• 1534 Henry VIII Act of Supremacy, Church of

England formed• 1547 Edward VI becomes king• 1553 Mary I “Bloody Mary” becomes queen• 1558 Elizabeth I “Virgin Queen” becomes

queen

Page 52: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Dates

• 1563 20,000 Londoners die in plague• 1564 Shakespeare born• 1580 Francis Drake circumnavigates globe• 1588 English navy defeats Spanish Armada• 1594 Romeo and Juliet written• 1599 Globe Theatre opens• 1600 East India Company founded

Page 53: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Dates

• 1603 James I becomes king• 1606 Guy Fawkes executed for Gunpowder

Plot• 1611 King James Bible published• 1625 James I dies

Page 54: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Exploration

• Thirst for knowledge• Exploration by sea• Navigation advanced by compass and

astronomical knowledge• 1492 Columbus sailed the…• 1497 John Cabot reached Newfoundland

Page 55: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Religion

• Renaissance spirit and nationalism, questioning Church

• Corrupt officials, questionable teachings, hierarchy

• Erasmus and Thomas More raised questions of morality and religion, focus of Renaissance

• 1517 Martin Luther, German monk, whose protest led to split with Catholics and Protestant Reformation

Page 56: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Tudors

• 1485 Wars of the Roses over• Monarchs consolidated power over nobles

and assured stability• Henry VII rebuilt treasury, established law and

order, increased prestige of monarchy• Henry VIII Catholic, Defender of the Faith,

against Martin Luther• Catherine of Aragon no son

Page 57: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Tudors

• Henry VIII wants annulment, not granted• Marries Anne Boleyn• Pope excommunicates• Henry dissolves Catholic Church’s holdings in

England and creates Church of England• Thomas More, author of Utopia and a friend

executed for not renouncing Catholicism

Page 58: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Tudors

• Henry VIII marries six times• Mary and Elizabeth half sisters• Jane Seymour had son Edward• Edward becomes king at age nine, dies at 15• English replaces Latin in church• Book of Common Prayer required for public

worship• Protestantism more or less established

Page 59: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Queen Mary

• Mary I Catholic and restored Catholicism to Church of England and Pope’s authority

• Ordered 300 Protestants executed, “Bloody Mary” causing anti-Catholic sentiment

• Ruled five years and died• Half sister Elizabeth rules

Page 60: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Elizabeth I

• Elizabethan Age• One of longest-reigning English monarchs• Ushered in era of English supremacy and

prosperity• Renaissance education: Greek and Latin classics

and patron of the arts and writers• Reestablished supremacy over Church• Ended religious turmoil by compromises that

both sides could live with

Page 61: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Elizabeth I

• Mary Stuart Catholic cousin next in line for throne

• Imprisoned by Elizabeth for 18 years, still instigated plots

• Parliament insists on Mary’s execution, 1587

Page 62: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Stuarts

• 1603 James VI of Scotland named successor and becomes James I of England

• Son of Mary Stuart, Stuart dynasty, Protestant• Jacobean Era 1603-1625• Patron of the arts• Expanded world power of England• Established Jamestown, Virginia 1607• Power struggle with Parliament “Divine Right”• Persecuted Puritans, founded Plymouth Colony 1620 due

to religious intolerance

Page 63: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Literature

• Narratives, poetry, dramas, and comedies• Subtle and satirical criticisms of church and

monarchy• Lyric poetry over Medieval narrative poetry• Sonnet: Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare• Fourteen lines, iambic pentameter, abab,

cdcd, efef, gg rhyme scheme• Pastoral poetry: Marlowe and Raleigh

Page 64: Shakespeare International man of mystery. William Shakespeare April 23, 1564-1616 Greatest writer of English? Bard of Avon Stratford-upon-Avon 37 or 38

Elizabethan Drama and Lit

• Christopher Marlowe popular 1580s• Tamburlaine and The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus,

dies at 30• Of course, Shakespeare• King James Bible 1620 “most monumental prose

achievement of the entire English Renaissance”• Fifty-four laborers seven years to translate into English• Shakespeare was one of them• Most widely-quoted and influential work in English• Shakespeare close behind