William Shakespeare: his life and creation
Content
Introduction……………………………………….……
1 William Shakespeare: life and creation……….………………………………………..5
1.1 Shakespeare’s
family and born place……………………………………………5
1.4 Patriotic and historic plays………………………………………………………….10
1.5 Shakespeare creation during the Peast……………………………………………...12
1.6 Theatre……………………………………………………………
1.7 Shakespeare
and contemporary………………………………………………
1.8 Shakespeare’s
language…………………………………………………………
1.9 Famous
plays…………………………………………………………………
2 Studying
William Shakespeare on the English classes…………..………….………………………………
2.1 The project
of the out-of-class occupation “Shakespeare’s life and creation”……..…………………….........
Introduction
The title of our paper is “William Shakespeare”. We studied the life and work of the famous English writer William Shakespeare. We chose this topic, because we had been interesting in William Shakespeare for a long time already and we wanted to learn more about him. The aim of our paper is to study Shakespeare’s life and creation, we tried to analyze his works, the language which he had used in his works. Reaching the aim we dealt with the following problems:
- To find and examine sources about Shakespeare’s life;
- To analyze different periods of his creation;
- To analyze his works;
- To work out the project of the out-of-class occupation.
Working on our paper we asked a question to ourselves: if we study Shakespeare’s creation, his life what it will give us. Preparing our paper we studied a lot of material in English in the original. For example, the World Book Encyclopedia, which gives us a full picture of Shakespeare’s life and his works. Shakespeare’s life creation is presented in the book of Ray Mackay “Shakespeare’s life and time”. The basic methods which we use in our study are: to analyze the sources, to compare different ideals, to collect the information, to work out own approaches and to use in practice of our project of the out-of-class occupation. In our paper we studied Shakespeare’s life, his first play, patriotic and history plays, his creation during the Peast. And of course, we tried to show the connection between Shakespeare and his contemporaries.
William Shakespeare was born on April 23rd, 1564, and he died on April 23rd, 1616. He had written 38 plays in the space of 22 or 23 years, in addition to a large number of poems.
At that time, it was normal for a play to be performed only three or four times and very few plays were ever printed. Shakespeare had to write quickly and it is very probable that he wrote for money rather than for any idea about future fame and glory. But this only made him more interesting. In 1623 the first play (containing only 36 pages) was printed. His friend realized than he was a great writer but they could never have imagined that hundreds of years later people all over the world would know William Shakespeare’s name.
In
this work we shall explore how a simple man who never went to university
became one of the greatest dramatists in the world. We shall look at
the society he lived in, the things he wrote about, the life he led
and the effect he had on the world of literature.
1 William Shakespeare:
life and creation
1.1 Shakespeare’s
family and born plays
Shakespeare was born in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon. His family was very large: William had four sisters and four brothers.
Shakespeare’s father, John Shakespeare, moved to Stratford, a small town down of about 2000 people. It was important only because of its bridge across the river Avon. Try to imagine what it was like… the houses were made of wood and usually had thatched roof-roofs made of straw. The main streets were full of trees and animals everywhere – cows, sheep, goats, pigs, horses, donkeys. The streets were full very muddy when it rained and dusty when it was dry. There was always a lot of rubbish lying about. There were no streetlights, of course, and the fastest means of communication was the horseman. Children went to school at seven in the morning and come back home at five in afternoon, with two hours off for the midday meal. People didn’t have clocks or watches. The town bell rang at six in the morning to wake people up and again at eight in the evening no tell they should be at home.
John Shakespeare was a glove – marker and wool dealer, which means that a lot of his time would have been spent looking at animals and their skin. It is very likely, therefore, that William Shakespeare spent his early life helping his father to kill and skin animals. We know young William went to the free grammar school where he would have been taught Latin, which was the language of Roman and, at that time, still the language of academics, the Church and the State.
He probably didn’t get to study many books in English because for just over a hundred years and his school would not have had a great deal of money to buy these new books. Schools then were very different from those of today. If a child misbehaved he or she was given the birch [7].
In 1582 Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway who was eight years older than William (he was eighteen at that time). Whether Anne was beautiful in reality we do not know; but she was to be our Shakespeare’s wife, and so she is of interest for all ages.
William
had three children. His son Hamnet died when he was eleven years and
six months. His daughters Susannah and Judith grew up to womanhood,
married and survived their father a number of years. They must have
been well educated and well brought up [8].
1.2
“The lost years” period
A man called Henry Peachman wrote a very interesting description of some of his teacher: “I know one he in winter would, on a cold morning, whip his boys for no other purpose than to get himself, with horrible oaths”.
The
next seven years are often called “the lost years” because no one
knows what Shakespeare did during this time. It is safe to assure that
he read a lot of and also that he saw some of the plays performed by
the travelling groups of players who toured England. The next thing
we know is that he was in London, possibly having followed a group of
actors. We don’t know exactly when he went no London, but it must
have been round 1589 because two years later he was writting great drama
and that is something that (he had three children and was 25 years of
age) is not learning in a moment. What could have made him suddenly
give up his life in Stratford and move London where he would be poor
and in much greater danger from illness, discase and violent crime?
No on know. Perhaps it was a family quarrel; perhaps he felt that he
had to go and seek his fortune; perhaps he realized that he we good
with language and could earth money through writting go. We don’t
but we are very glad that he did because London was going to turn him
into one of the greatest dramatists in the world [7].
1.3 First play
Shakespeare’s first play “Titus Andronicus” is one of the most violent, bloody and cruel plays ever written. It is a real horror story.
If some made realistic film of today, many of the scenes would be so disgusting that no cinema would be allowed to show it. In this play many people are murdered; young women is raped and has her hands cut off and her tongue cut out so that she cannot identify her attackers; a father killed his daughter; a mother is tricked into eating a pie which contains her own children; a man is buried up to his neck and starred to death. Some of the worst scenes take place in a forest and here we can see that Shakespeare is describing something which he knows well – after all, Stratford was a town of only 2000 inhabitants, surrounded by wooded countryside.
Here is Aaron, the most evil character in the play, giving his two sons advice about murder and rape:
The forest walks are wide and spacious,
And many unfrequented plots there are
Fitted by king for rape and villainy…
The place full of rape of fongues, of eyes, and ears:
The woods are ruthless, dreadful, deaf, and dull,
There speak and strike, brave boys, and take your turns,
There serve your lusts, shadow’d from heavens eye…
We see Aaron’s truly evil nature when, at the end of play, he says that he is sorry if he ever did a good deed:
If one good deed in all my life I did,
I do repent it from my very soul.
For
an audience who had recently lived though an attempted invasion and
for whom death was an everyday occurrence, a play of this kind would
have been very exciting. Indeed, most of the plays being written at
this time were very violent [5].
1.4 Patriotic and historic plays
A patriot is someone who is true to his realer and his country. It was not difficult for ordinary people living at the time of Elizabeth I to be patriotic because England seemed to be doing very well. As we shall see, there were problems, the main one being religion, but it is true to say that Shakespeare grew up in very different. This was not a happy time in England history – France eventually French territory, but, worse still, there had been a terrible civil war of the Roses, which were fought between the two greatest families of England – the Houses of York (the white rose) and Lancaster (the red rose). Although these wars had ended in 1485 with the defeat of the House of York at Bosworth, they were still part of the consciousness of people. As a young dramatists writing 100 years later Shakespeare did what writers throughout the ages have done – he began writing about the recent history plays that he wrote were “Henry VI” Parts 1,2 and 3 (1591/1593) and later on “Richard III” [9].
“Henry VI” Part 1 deals with the war against the French and, in particular, with the part plays by Joan of Arc. It is interesting to see Shakespeare dealing with a character who is obviously meant to be evil (because she French and anti – English) but, at the same fine, very brave. Joan is the first in a long line of Shakespearean villains who are allowed to speak wonderful lines of poetry. Her last speech, when she curses the English, is a good example:
Then lead me hence; with whom I leave my curse.
May never glorious sun reflex his beams
Upon the country where you make abede,
But darkness and the gloomy shade of death
Environ you, till mischied and despair.
Drive you to break your necks or hand yourselves!
Just as when we watch a horror film and see a knife shining in the moonlight and know that something terrible is going to happen, so much Shakespeare’s audience have felt a shiver of fear when they heard these lines. Joan of Arc is looking into the future and prediety the darkness and gloomy shade of death which was to be War of Roses. And just as a good film director lets the audience see the knife before it is used, order to built up the suspense and excitement, Shakespeare prepares his audience for the terrible fighting to come. Very early on this play, in a famous scene (Act 2, Scene IV), the nobles of England are shown in a garden, each one picking either a white or red rose. The preparations are being mode for civil war has broken out.
The most interesting thing about these three plays in the introduce one of Shakespeare’s of kingship later but we cannot leave our discussion “Henry VI” Part 3 without seeing why Richard is such a great tragic figures of “Richard III”. In this soliloquy from Act 3 Scene 2, he opens his heart to the audience and lets them see his real feelings. Because the image he uses – that of a child on his way home who is lost in a wood and is getting at by all the thorhsis (lost in a wood and is getting) a very simple one, we feel sorry for him:
And yet I know not how to get the crown;
For many lives stand between me and home.
And I like one in a thorny wood,
That rends the thorns and is rent with the thorns,
Seeking a way and straying from the way,
Not knowing how to find the open air,
But toiling desperately to find it out…
But we must beware. This is not a sweet child who is lost this is a monster:
Why, I can smile, and murder while I smile…
And went my checks with artificial tears,
And frame my face to all occasions.
But the end of the play, he is waiting like a speeder, ready to strike [7].
1.5 Shakespeare’s
creation during the Peast
It
is hardly possible to imagine what London must have been like during
the Plague. One writer described what it was like to walk through the
streets at midnight: “Striking up alarm, servants crying for their
masters, wives for their monsters…” When the plague was discovered,
men come along to shut up the house and the people who lived there were
not allowed to leave for 28 days. So people used to hide the bodies
of any family member who died, carry them out of the houses at night
and leave them to be found in the morning. Shakespeare would have known
all about the plague because it was verve common in Elizabethan England.
However, in 1592, a new wave of the Black Death came to London and killed
ten per cent population. All public meeting were stopped and, in June
of that year, all the theatres were closed. They did not open again
until May 1594. Shakespeare’s life at this time is a mystery. Maybe
he went back home to Stratford. But one thing we know – the plague
years were very important for Shakespeare’s development as a writer.
Before the theatres closed, he was a popular dramatist, but certainly
nit the best: Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd were better. By the
end of 1594, both Marlowe and Kyd were dead. Shakespeare had become
a principal member of a theatre company; he had written some great poetry
and had mode some powerful friends [5].
1.6 Theatre
Think for a moment about going to the theatre. You arrange to meet a friend in the foyer a 7.45 p.m. for a play that being at 8 p.m. The price of the ticket may be quite high if you are going to see a popular play. If the play is successful, it may run for several months. The building is modern and wells – designer, with air – conditioning, good lighting and very comfortable seats. You and your friends sit down slowly and the audience becomes very quiet. The play has begun…
If we are going to try to understand Shakespeare’s plays he have do get rid of this picture completely because Elizabethan theatre was nothing like this at all. First of all, we must understand that plays and theatres were very new. The first English dramas were based on The Bible and developed into Morality Plays, which fried to teach people how to behave as well as entertain them. But 16th century London, the growing population wanted entertainment and, to meet that tenant, professional theatres were established.
James Burbage built the first theatre, or playhouse, in 1576. It was simply called The Tearre and was very successful. Soon other people started their own theatres to satisfy the growing demand for more and more plays.
These we performed in the afternoon by men and boys only. Woman never took part and this may explain why company of Shakespeare’s plays present young men dressing up as a woman.
Most of the theatres, which built, were very large and could hold several thousand people. All sorts of people, rich and poor, came to see the plays. The people who paid the lowest price didn’t even get a seat – they had to stand. Because they stood on the ground, they were called groundlings. Some people sat on the stage itself while other sat in galleries around and above the stage. The main stage was usually brave.
The audience had to imagine the scene by listening to the language of the actors, which was very descriptive [5].
1.7 Shakespeare and
contemporary
It is important to remember just how different Shakespeare was from the other great dramatists of the time. Christopher Marlowe, who was born in the same years as Shakespeare, 1564, developed his writing ability much faster. His first great play, Tamburlance the Graat, was produced in 1587 and after that he wrote five plays in very quick succession: Dr. Faust, The Jew of Malta, Edward II, The Massacre at Paris and Dido, queen of Carthage. He died at the early age of 29 in very mysterious circumstances – stabbed to dearth by his companion in a tavern. The fight was said to have been about who was going to play the bill. Although Marlowe was a violent man who had previously been charged with attacking someone with a knife, it is very likely that he was murdered because he was involved in spying against powerful Catholic nobles.
Certainly his friend end fellow writer, Thomas Kyd, was involved in some secret plot. The two men shared the same logins and, when certain papers were found in their room, Kyd was tortured on the rack and confessed.
Kyd’s great revenge play, The Spanish Tragedy, first performed in 1587 or 1588, had a great influence on Shakespeare’s early writing and it is clear Titus Andronicus, for example, is his attempt to copy what Kyd was doing. After having been tortured, Kyd was a broken man physically and mentally and he died, in poverty and disgrace, in 1594.
Both of these great dramatists had not died, it is interesting to speculate whether Shakespeare would have been as famous as his today. Certainly, if Shakespeare had died at the sometime as Marlowe, it is Marlowe who would be remembered as the greater writer. Shakespeare needed a few more years before he began to produce his best work [7].
Another contemporary of Shakespeare’s and of his best friends, was the playwright Ben Jonson (1572 - 1637). During his career, Jonson was imprisoned several times for attacking the Government through his writing convinced of killing a man and almost centrally a government spy as Marlowe had been before him.
Shakespeare
seems to have stayed a way from all types of conflict, personal or political.
He doesn’t seem to have fought any duels, spied on his colleagues,
been involved in drunken fight in taverns, been thrown into prison or
done any of the other things typical of Elizabethan gentlemen. In his
way he was very different from his friends and fellow writers – not
a very Elizabethan man at all, in fact [5].
1.8 Shakespeare’s
language
As we have learnt, in 1592 the theatres closed because of the plague. From this time, until 1600, Shakespeare produced a series of plays, which include most of his best comedies. Some writers look back over his career and describe the plays he wrote during this period as immature. To a certain extent this is a true but we must remember that they are not immathey compared to the work of other dramatists – they are only immatury when we compare them with his other plays.
During this period he also wrote a series of poems. If we remember that, in addition to all of this, he was still a principal actor who had to learnt his lines and rehearses his parts, not only in plays written by himself but in other people’s plays as well, we can see that he must have been a very hard working writer, determined to be successful.
The title of this section is The Rising Tide and it is intended do suggest a period in which Shakespeare was becoming better and better at writing but not yet at his peak. By comparing Shakespeare’s progress to a tide of the sea, which rises until it is full, we are using an image. The two most common types of images are metaphors and similes.
We use a metaphor when we compare two things, by saying one thing is something else. For example, when Romeo is hiding in Juliet’s garden, she comes to the window and she is so beautiful that when Romeo sees her, he says:
But soft who light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun…
We use a simple when we compare two things by saying one thing is similar to something else – for example in Julius Caesar is asked to change his mind about something but he reuses, sayings:
I am constant as northern star
Images are more often used in poetry than in prose. Shakespeare is a great dramatic poet and uses unforgettable imagery.
However Shakespeare dramatic poetry is not only about beauty. Some of his most powerful speeches concern violence, betrayal, war and death [5].
1.9 Famous plays
What is true, however, is that very troubled period in Elizabethan’s reign, Shakespeare wrote a play which tells the story of a highly intelligent man who is faced with a very difficult decision. This play was Hamlet – probably the best know of all Shakespeare’s plays.
The opening scene of play takes place at night on the walls of a castle, where a soldier, Francisco, is on guard. It is very cold so he has wrapped his cloak around himself. Suddenly, there is a shout:
Bernardo: Who’s there?
Francisco: Nay, answer me. Stand and untold yourself.
Bernardo: Long live the king!
Francisco: Bernardo?
Bernardo: He.
Now, this is very strange. Francisco is on duty and Bernardo has come to relive him because it is now Bernardo’s turn. It should be Francisco who speak first, to find out who this nevermore is. There is obviously something strange happening because even when Bernardo gives the password (the secret word(s) which tells soldier that they are fighting for the same side – “Long live the king”), Francisco is still not sure who this period is. He thinks it’s Bernardo but he is not certain, so he turns the name into a question – “Bernardo?”. It is only when Bernardo replies that the two soldiers are satisfied and starts their conversation. Only fifteen world have been spoken so far but Shakespeare has already made us aware that there must be some reason why these two soldiers are acting so frightened, even though they in their own castle. By the end of Act 1 we have discovered that the ghost is tat of Hamlet’s father, the old king. He tells Hamlet that he was murdered by his brother, who then married his window, Hamlet’s mother. The ghost demands that Hamlet should take revenge by punishing his evil brother who is now the king.
Hamlet is probably the most popular of Shakespeare’s plays. People have studied it and discussed it for hundreds of years and millions of words have been written about it. Most British schoolchildren are forced to read it and they useful have to learn. Hamlet’s soliloquies by heart [9].
One funny story may share you how much the play has affected the English language. In the 18th century, King George II went to see the play for the first time, but he didn’t like is very much because, he said, it was full of quotations.
The tragedy of Othello is that we, the audience, know what is going to happen because Iago explains it all to us, but we cannot do anything to spare Othello any of the torture that he suffers.
Act V Scene 2 is the most terrible scene of play, where Othello ask Desdemona to confess:
I never did offend you in life.
But Othello is now so mad with jealous that he cannot believe her and so, as she is beginning for opportunity to say just one prayer, he killed her.
Othello is a heart braking play, because almost all adults know what it is like to experience sexual jealousy. What makes this play so tragic is the innocence of Desdemona destroyed by the pure evil of Iago. At the very end of the play, when he is asked why he did what he did, Iago says:
Demond me nothing. What you know, you know
From this tome forth I never will speak word.
So Othello, who kills himself with a sword, never even gets the stisfactition of knowing why Iago destroyed his life. We do not see death of Iago. At the end of the play we are told that he will be tortured. Iago will suffer physical torture as punishment for mental which he made Othello suffer.
Between
1608 and 1613, Shakespeare wrote five mores plays; Pericles, - Cymbeline,
The winter’s Tale, The Tempest and Henry VIII. The first four of these
together are called “The Lake Comedies” while the fifth was obviously
specially commissioned by the court. By far the greatest of these plays
is The Tempest. In terms of pure entertainment and beautiful poetry,
it mat be Shakespeare’s best play. In the Tempest, Shakespeare says
farewell to the theatre, to his friend and to the people who went to
see his first play twenty-five years before and who had followed his
career. I that sense it is a very sad play [5].
- Studying William Shakespeare on the English classes
- The project of the out-of-class occupation “Shakespeare’s life and creation”
Theme: Shakespeare’s life and creation
Class: 9.
The aim of occupation is to study Shakespeare’s life and creation.
The occupation consists of two parts:
- The presentation of Shakespeare’s life and creation.
- The presentation of Shakespeare’s sonnets.
I. Teacher: Dear pupils, today we’ll study William Shakespeare’s life and creation. He was one of the greatest of all playwriters and poets of all times. And now you’ll presentation each other some information about William Shakespeare. Who is the first? You’re welcome.
Pupil 1: William Shakespeare was born on April 23rd, 1564. He was born in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon. His family was very large: William had four sisters and four brothers. Young William went to the free grammar school where he would have been taught Latin, which was the language of Roman and, at that time, still the language of academics, the Church and the State [6].
He probably didn’t get to study many books in English because for just over a hundred years and his school would not have had a great deal of money to buy these new books.
Pupil 2: In 1582 Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway who was eight years older than William (he was eighteen at that time). Whether Anne was beautiful in reality we do not know; but she was to be our Shakespeare’s wife, and so she is of interest for all ages.
William had three children. His son Hamnet died when he was eleven years and six months. His daughters Susannah and Judith grew up to womanhood married and survived their father a number of years. They must have been well educated and well brought up [8].
Teacher: Now we’ll speak about Shakespeare’s career. Who is the next?
Pupil 3: At the same time, Shakespeare was an actor, a poet and a writer of drama. He wrote 154 sonnets, 2 poems and 37 plays, where he showed his creative genius.
The first period (1590 - 1600) of his creative work consists of comedies and histories. In this period Shakespeare wrote such histories as “King Henry IV”, “King Henry V”, “King Richard II”, “King Richard III” and others. Here the author showed historical events and dramatic characters.
“Romeo and Juliet” is one of Shakespeare’s best plays. It is tragedy, but it was written in the first period of his creative work. This play is full of love, youth and humanism [7].
Pupil 4: All of Shakespeare’s famous tragedies appeared between 1600 and 1608. This was second period of his literary work. In the plays of this period the dramatist reaches his full maturity. He presents great human problems. This period began with the tragedy “Hamlet”, which was a great success.
The following plays belong to the second period: “King Lear”, “Othello”, “Macbeth” and others.
Pupil 5: Shakespeare’s plays of the third period (1609 - 1611) are called Romantic Dramas: “The Tempest”, “The Winter’s Tale”, “Henry VIII”.
In 1612, Shakespeare left London. He decided to live in Stratford. Since that time Shakespeare didn’t act any more and since 1613 he no longer wrote plays.
Nobody knows what Shakespeare did during the last years of his life. Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616, and he was buried in this church in Stratford [5].
Teacher:
We start the presentation of Shakespeare’s sonnets.
II. Pupil 6 (sonnet 66): Tired with all these, for restful death I cry;
As, to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimmed in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled,
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly, doctor –like, controlling skill,
And simle truth miscalled simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill:
Tired with all these, from these would I be gone
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone [1].
Teacher:
OK! It is good for you. Next.
Pupil 7 (sonnet 90): Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now,
Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,
Join with the spite of Fortune, make me bow,
And do not drop in for an after-loss.
Ah, do not, when my heart hath `scaped this sorrow.
Come in the reaward of a conquered woe;
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
To linger out a purposed overthrow.
If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
When other petty griefs have done their spite,
But in the onset come: so shall I taste
At first the very worst of Fortune’s might;
And other strains of woe, which now seen woe,
Compared with loss of thee will not seem so [1].
Teacher:
Great! Go on.
Pupil 8 (sonnet 91): Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill;
Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse;
And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure
Wherein it finds a joy above the rest.
But these particulars are not my measure;
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