Background Information:

William Shakespeare and

The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet

Pace – English 9CP 2014

Shakespeare’s life is a mystery; scholars and historians know very little about him for certain. The things we do know:

•Born on April 23, 1564

•Died on April 23, 1616

•Home town = Stratford-on-Avon, located about 50 miles from London

•Father = John Shakespeare, political figure in their small town.

•Mother = Mary Arden Shakespeare

•Only attended the local grammar school until he was 15 (Why is this significant?)

He married Anne Hathaway in 1582. She was eight years older than him (and on top of that she was pregnant when they married – SCANDALOUS). They had three children named: Susanna, Hamnet, and Judith.

Anne Hathaway’s Cottage

Modern day Anne Hathaway

It is estimated that Shakespeare arrived in London around 1588. He was first an actor and then became a playwright. In 1594, he also became a partner in the Globe Theater. Shakespeare was a member of The Lord Chamberlain’s Men later called The King’s Men after James I took over the throne in 1603.

The Lord Chamberlain’s Men (The King’s Men) became a favorite London troupe, traveling and performing all over England; several famous actors were also a part of this traveling group – Will Kempe, a master comedian and Richard Burbage, a leading tragic actor of the day. They were patronized by royalty and made popular by the theater-going public.

Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another. 

Shakespeare is credited with having written 37 plays and 154 sonnets.

Sonnets are 14 line poems with a very specific rhyme scheme. William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, and Francesco Petrarch are considered the masters of the sonnet.

The theme of sonnets tends to be unrequited love. Shakespeare’s sonnets follow the rhyme scheme of ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG. His sonnets are easily recognizable because they end in a couplet. An example of a couplet:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,So long lives this and this gives

life to thee.

A couplet is two lines of poetry that have end rhyme.

Most “starving artists” are, sadly, only famous after their deaths. (People like: Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet, Edgar Allan Poe, Stieg Larsson, and Johann Sebastian Bach. However, Shakespeare actually experienced wealth ($$$$). He published his plays in octavo editions, or “penny copies” to his literate audience. Never before had a playwright enjoyed sufficient acclaim to see his works published and sold as popular literature in the midst of his career.

$$

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Black Death

Shakespeare lived in the Elizabethan Era (also known as The Renaissance). The Bubonic Plague, a.k.a Black Death, was highly contagious. Shakespeare is said to have had a terrible fear of the deadly disease. This is hardly surprising as it touched so many areas of his life, including his life as an actor at the Globe Theater.

There were three very serious outbreaks of the disease which led to the closure of all of the playhouses, including Shakespeare’s Globe. The outbreaks occurred in 1593, 1603, and 1608.

The Globe Theater

Thames River

Before the Globe Theater, all Elizabethan playhouses were indoor venues. These theaters: The Swan, The Rose, Curtain, etc. allowed for people to pay $.01-$.26 for admittance. They were an exclusive type of entertainment.

Inside the new Globe Theater

Enter Shakespeare and his friend Richard Burbage, who decided to do things differently. They designed The Globe Theater, a new outdoor, open air playhouse. The cost of admittance was $.01-$.03. This meant anyone could come; the playhouse was no longer a place for only the wealthy, noble, and royal.

The Globe Theater (a.k.a. the Wooden O) • No electricity, plays

performed during the day• Very little scenery/minimalist• Plays lasted between 2 and 4

hours• White flag from rooftop =

play todayblack flag = theater closed

• Performances went on rain or shine

• Proscenium Stage• All actors were males

(women forbidden from acting in the playhouses) – give this some thought…

• Burned down on June 29, 1613 (a theatrical cannon misfired during a performance of Henry VIII catching the thatched roof on fire)

All the actors were men…..

More than 2,000+ people would pile into the Globe Theater to see performances.

The Globe’s Motto:All the world's a stage,And all the men and women merely players.They have their exits and their entrances,And one man in his time plays many parts…-from Shakespeare’s play As You Like It

During performances, workers would sell oranges to those in attendance. The oranges are an Elizabethan version of our popcorn/concession stand. However, during Shakespeare’s time they served a dual purpose…they also covered up the stinch that came with the working class.Those who stood on the ground in the PIT area were called GROUNDLINGS. They paid a penny to get in and watched the play from the floor.

1

The Groundlings

Performances in The Globe Theater were always an exciting escape for all classes of people in the Elizabethan period. There were different sections in the playhouse for those who could afford better seats, just like today.

The interesting thing is…the most expensive seats were those up in the “nose bleeds.” Those who could afford paid up to $.03 and sat in the balcony to watch the plays.

The Globe had many unique attributes. In the ceiling over the stage area was a small trap door through which ghosts, angels, gods, etc. would appear. This small trap door was called THE HEAVENS.

It also had a trap door in the floor through which demons, monsters, and witches could appear. This door was rightfully referred to as HELL.

Actors were highly trained on many different levels. They could not count on elaborate scenery to get their point across. They had to understand the plays and be able to establish a connection with the audience based on their elocution of the mere words in the play. This is not an easy feat to accomplish.

Elocution = the skill of clear and expressive speech, especially of distinct pronunciation and articulation.

One of the most vital reasons for the continuing popularity of Shakespeare’s plays is the fact that they all involve timeless themes: love, greed, ambition, prejudices, loyalty, jealousy, etc.

Rulers during Shakespeare’s lifetime were:Queen

Elizabeth IReigned from 1558-1603. She was a liberal minded monarch who enjoyed the theater. Shakespeare gave 32 performances at court during her reign. She was the daughter of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.

King James IReigned from 1603-1625. He also wrote plays and poems. He saw many plays performed by Shakespeare as well. The Chamberlain’s Men were renamed to honor him…They came to be called THE KING’S MEN.

Shakespeare died on his 52nd birthday.

Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare,To dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed be the man that spares these stones,And cursed be he that moves my bones.

His gravestone bears an epitaph which Shakespeare himself supposedly wrote. It warns:

An epitaph is a phrase or statement written in memory of a person who has died, especially as an inscription on a tombstone

Shakespeare was buried in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-on-Avon; in 1740 a memorial statue of him was erected in Poet’s Corner, located in Westminster Abbey.

Terms to Know before reading Shakespeare:

Shakespeare used soliloquies and asides to help his audience grasp a deeper, more clear understanding of his plays.

In a SOLILOQUY the actor is alone on stage, speaking to himself and revealing to the audience his inner thoughts and feelings.

In an ASIDE the actor speaks words that the other characters on stage are not suppose to hear.

**One of the most important things to do while reading is to imagine yourself sitting inside the Globe theater seeing the play performed.

Shakespeare adhered, for the most part to the traditional definition of tragedy.

A TRAGEDY is a drama or literary work in which the main character is brought to ruin or suffers extreme sorrow, especially as a consequence of a tragic flaw, moral weakness, or inability to cope with unfavorable circumstances.

What then are the TRAGIC FLAWS in the characters of Romeo and Juliet that lead to their downfall? – Something to think

about…..

TRAGIC FLAW - a failing in the character of a tragic hero that leads to his downfall

Shakespeare uses several other literary devices to help him tell his famous story. A few notable literary devices from The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet are:

Pun - A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words.

Foreshadowing - providing advance indications of what is to come Metaphor -a

figure of speech in which an expression is used to refer to something that it does not literally denote in order tosuggest a similarity

Simile - A figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are compared, often in a phrase introduced by like or asOxymoron – two words back to

back that are opposite in meaning; oxymorons show conflicting emotions

In The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare uses BLANK VERSE, which consists of five feet to a line -- each beat consisting of an unaccented syllable followed by an accented syllable…technically known as IAMBIC PENTAMETER. (An important thing to remember about iambic pentameter is that it does not follow a rhyme scheme)

However, Shakespeare often liked to indicate to his audience when a scene was ending. He would do this by creating a COUPLET at the end of the scene. (A couplet is two lines in verse that rhyme.) This became so regular in Shakespeare’s works that it was common knowledge that when you heard a couplet there was going to be a change of scenes or acts.

Get ready it is...

“Parting is

such

sweet

sorro

w……”

-from

The Tragedy of R

omeo

and Julie

tTHE END!