Shakespeare and Elizabethan times

Queen Elisabeth IAKA The Fairie QueenThe Virgin Queen : 

Queen Elisabeth IAKA The Fairie QueenThe Virgin Queen 1558-1603 Tudors Daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn (Half-)sister Mary (daughter of Katharine of Aragon)

Elisabethan Age : 

Elisabethan Age Great changes in England (religion etc) Great changes in Europe (Spain vs England) Great changes in the world (colonies etc) Pressure for an heir, traditional role of women

Elisabethan Age = Golden Age : 

Elisabethan Age = Golden Age Great freedom BUT repression of Catholicism Stimulation of the arts BUT Puritans rising Arts flourish

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William Shakespeare aka ‘the Bard’ 1564-1616

William Shakespeare : 

William Shakespeare The world’s best-known writer in the world but… we know very little about him

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Born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon Married to Ann Hathaway 3 children Moves to London

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Actor Co-owner of theatre company The Globe Theatre Playwright and poet

Plays : 

Plays Comedies e.g. Midsummer Night’s Dream TheTaming of the Shrew Much Ado about Nothing Tragedies Histories

Plays : 

Plays Comedies Tragedies e.g. Romeo and Julie Histories

Plays : 

Plays Comedies Tragedies e.g. Hamlet Histories

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Plays Comedies Tragedies e.g. Othello Histories

Plays : 

Plays Comedies Tragedies Histories e.g. Richard III Henry IV

Sonnet : 

14 lines Usually 4-4-3-3 Strict rhyme Volta Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) Laura Sonnet

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Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed. But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st; Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st, So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. Sonnet 18

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My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;Coral is far more red than her lips' red;If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.I have seen roses damasked, red and white,But no such roses see I in her cheeks;And in some perfumes is there more delightThan in the breath that from my mistress reeks.I love to hear her speak, yet well I knowThat music hath a far more pleasing sound;I grant I never saw a goddess go;My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rareAs any she belied with false compare. Sonnet 130

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William Shakespeare today His plays His poems His characters