1. Shakespeare : Lane 448 Dr. Raba`a Al-Khateeb Department of European Languages & Literature

2. William Shakespeare: 1564-1616

3. Overview The life and times of Shakespeare The Shakespeare canon The publication of Shakespeare’s plays Shakespeare’s theatre and company Elements of Shakespeare’s drama Shakespeare criticism

4. Shakespeare said it 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 life plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. (As You Like It)

5. Shakespeare said it What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet. (Romeo and Juliet)

6. Shakespeare said it Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. (Macbeth)

7. Shakespeare said it To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? (Hamlet)

8. Who is Shakespeare? He is described as: The Bard; a genius; the greatest writer that ever lived; a British institution; not of an age, but for all time; the sweet swan of Stratford. He is ‘in the air we breathe, in the tap water we drink. He is unavoidable because he is everywhere.’ (Stanley Wells)

9. Facts about Shakespeare Born in Stratford-upon-Avon on 23 rd of April 1564 and died also on 23 rd of April 1616. His father was John Shakespeare, a merchant and a glover who later became the mayor of Stratford. His mother was Mary Arden who was wealthy which helped her husband to prosper. He had two sisters who died in infancy, and a bother (Edmund) who became an actor, and died when he was 27 years old.

10. Facts about Shakespeare As a boy, he was sent to the local Grammar school where he learnt Greek and Latin. He also studied rhetoric, logic and literature. He left school at the age of 15 to help his father in his trade. He was a prolific reader. In 1582 he married Anne Hathaway: he was 18 and she was 26. In 1583, he and his wife had a daughter: Susanna. In 1585, he and his wife had twins: Hamnet and Judith.

11. Facts about Shakespeare In 1592, Shakespeare appears in London. He seems to be a successful playwright. In 1596, his 11-year-old son, Hamnet dies. In 1613, the Globe theatre burns down, and Shakespeare retires and returns to Stratford.

12. Facts about Shakespeare Shakespeare buys the biggest house in Stratford (the new place), has a ‘Coat of Arms’, and becomes a ‘Gentleman’. In 1616 Shakespeare dies, leaving most of his fortune under the control of his daughter Susanna, and to his wife he leaves his second best bed. Shakespeare has no descendants.

13. Facts about Shakespeare “Shakespeare is the best biographer of Shakespeare.” R.W.Emerson

14. Shakespeare’s Times The Historical background: Queen Elizabeth I ( reigned:1558-1603) A strong monarch Dedicated to her country. Made England prosper. Defeated the Spanish Armada. Hers was a “golden age”.

15. Shakespeare’s Times King James I :James VI of Scotland (Reigned: 1603-1625). His mother was Mary, Queen of Scots, was beheaded by Queen Elizabeth I. Because Elizabeth had no heirs James became king of both Scotland and England. He was a weak king who loved to be entertained, and wrote books including one on magic

16. Shakespeare’s Times King James I

17. Shakespeare’s Times The Social background: A feudal society: most people were very poor. The Aristocracy, the nobles, owned the land which the poor cultivated in return for very little pay. Infant mortality was high, short life span, bad hygiene, and no proper medicine. Social classes clearly defined.

18. Shakespeare’s Times The beginning of the capitalist society, and the emergence of the middle class. Hence social mobility; a person can aspire to improve his status and belong to a higher class.

19. Shakespeare’s Times The cultural atmosphere: This period is also known as the Renaissance (re-birth). Humanism a new ideology and value system that is radically differed from that in the Middle Ages. Man became the centre of the universe. New interest in the Classics which were translated into English.

20. Shakespeare’s Times Ideology: World order: The beliefs of the Middle Ages continued to dominate the period. Every created being has its place within a hierarchy. The vast chain of being: the whole universe is connected in the form of a chain of 6 links.

21. Shakespeare’s Times: The 6 links in the chain are: 1-God, 2- Angels 3- Man 4-The sensitive class 5- The vegetative class 6- At the bottom the inanimate class Every link in the chain affects the others.

22. The Shakespeare Canon Shakespeare’s canon means all the plays and poems that were written by Shakespeare. Shakespeare started by writing poems not plays. He never thought of himself as a great playwright, but a good poet. His sonnets include the best love poems in English literature. His plays have been translated into many languages and are performed all over the world.

23. The Shakespeare Canon Shakespeare the poet: Long poems: Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece and The Passionate Pilgrim. 154 sonnets. Shakespeare published his poetry.

24. The Shakespeare Canon The sonnets fall into two groups: - Numbers 1-126 seem to be addressed to a young man, a friend of the poet, perhaps his patron, the Earl of Southampton. - Numbers 127-154, feature poems directed to a darkly featured woman, addressed as the poet’s difficult lover. She has come to be known as the ‘Dark Lady.’

25. The Shakespeare Canon The Earl of Southampton

26. The Shakespeare Canon Who will believe my verse in time to come If it were filled with your most high deserts? Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb Which hides your life and shows not half your parts. If I could write the beauty of your eyes, And in fresh numbers number all your graces, The age to come would say ‘This poet lies; Such heavenly touches ne’er touched earthly faces.’ So should my papers, yellowed with their age, Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue, And your true rights be termed a poet’s rage And stretche`d metre of an antique song. But were some child of yours alive that time, You should live twice, in it and in my rhyme. (Sonnet 17)

27. The Shakespeare Canon Shakespeare the dramatist: Shakespeare wrote 38 plays, Edward III was discovered only recently. Shakespeare began his dramatic career by writing history plays. They deal with political issues e.g. what makes a good king, what makes a good citizen, what are one’s duties towards one’s country?

28. The Shakespeare Canon The Early Comedies: e.g. The Comedy of Errors and The Taming of the Shrew in which Shakespeare is very much influenced by Plautus, the Latin playwright. The Mature Comedies: e.g. Much Ado about Nothing and Twelfth Night. Shakespearean comedy is romantic, its major theme is love and it usually ends in marriage. It is very funny, but includes serious issues.

29. The Shakespeare Canon The Earliest tragedies: Titus Andronicus and Romeo and Juliet. The Great Tragedies: King Lear, Macbeth, Hamlet and Othello. Shakespeare’s tragic heroes: - Tragic mistake or fault - Self-realization and awareness At the end: a sense of regeneration and of turning a new leaf despite the tragic events.

30. The Shakespeare Canon The Problem Comedies: A mixture of tragedy and comedy. Serious plays about grave issues but end happily. E.g. All’s Well That End Well and Measure for Measure. The Roman Plays: Based on Roman history. Political plays. Shakespeare turned to Roman history when there was a ban on writing plays about English history. They are: Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus.

31. The Romances or the Late plays (tragicomedies): Pericles, The Winter’s Tale, Cymbeline and The Tempest (Shakespeare’s last play). Written at the end of Shakespeare’s dramatic career, they show signs of his maturity. They are about families, family separations and reunions, love and forgiveness. The Shakespeare Canon

32. The Sources of Shakespeare’s plays Shakespeare was a master story-teller but he had in fact borrowed most of his plots. His sources included folktales, Greek Romances, Latin plays, Italian novellas. He used Holinshed for his history plays and Plutarch for his Roman plays. Only his last play, The Tempest, of which scholars could not trace a source.

33. Dating the plays Three ways to determine approximate dates for Shakespeare 'splays: External direct reference to a given play. Internal topical allusion; reference within a given play to a current event. Style; Shakespeare’s style shows signs of maturity. Used collectively, the three methods may help us to determine fairly closely the dates of the plays.

34. Publication of Shakespeare’s Plays Quartos 16 of Shakespeare's plays found their way into print during the playwright's lifetime, but there is nothing to suggest that he took any interest in their publication. These 16 appeared separately in editions called quartos.

35. Publication of Shakespeare’s Plays The First folio In 1623, Mr. William Shakespeare's comedies, histories and tragedies were published. This printing offered readers in a single book containing 36 of the 38 plays written by Shakespeare (Pericles was not included). 16 plays have never been printed before. The plays were printed in a style that was reserved for serious literature and scholarship. They were arranged in double columns on pages nearly a foot high.

36. Publication of Shakespeare’s Plays The cover page of the First Folio

37. Publication of Shakespeare’s Plays Later folios included all 37 plays: 2 nd Folio (1632) 3 rd Folio (1663) 4 th Folio (1685) The first edition of Shakespeare’s plays appeared in 1709, by Nicholas Rowe.

38. Authorship of the plays Some parts of the canon are of suspected authorship e.g. some scenes in Pericles and Macbeth. On the other hand, there are 50 anonymous plays which remain outside the Shakespeare canon, but which are strongly suspected to be by Shakespeare. These plays are referred to as the Shakespeare Apocrypha.

39. Elements of Shakespearean Drama It is a common sense in literary criticism that Shakespeare is the greatest writer that ever wrote in the English language. Studying the elements of Shakespearean drama perhaps helps us to understand why.

40. Elements of Shakespearean Drama The content of any Shakespeare play comprises five key elements: Story Character Language Theme Dramatic effect All elements are intertwined; language is character, story and theme are organically connected and everything contributes to dramatic effect.

41. Elements of Shakespearean Drama 1-Story: Stories fascinate people of all ages and cultures. Shakespeare is a master storyteller. He borrowed heavily, but he had the ability to change simple stories into wonderful dramas. G.B. Shaw said: ‘Shakespeare was very good at telling a story, provided somebody else has told it to him first.’

42. Elements of Shakespearean Drama 2-Character: Shakespeare’s plays include a huge gallery of fascinating and complex characters. He was able to use profound psychology while drawing his characters, long before psychology became a branch of knowledge. He delved down into human nature and depicted it in his characters. His characters are credible because they have motives for their actions. Some become imprinted in the memory of Shakespeare’s readers or audiences, e.g. in Othello, he successfully draws the character of a jealous husband.

43. Elements of Shakespearean Drama 3-Language: Shakespeare’s vocabulary is enormous: 21,000 words plus. He wrote at a time when the English language was still developing. Shakespeare made most of the situation; if a word did not exist, he used his dramatic imagination to re-mould an old one or make up a new one. He turned nouns into verbs and linked adjectives together to form new combinations and borrowed words from other languages.

44. Elements of Shakespearean Drama Here are some words that Shakespeare invented: Amazement Blanket Generous Lonely Worthless Hurry

45. Elements of Shakespearean Drama Shakespeare added many compound words to the English language such as: Heartsick Housekeeping Hot-blooded Naked-truth Long-haired Green-eyed

46. Elements of Shakespearean Drama Shakespeare realized the power of language to fire the imagination, to persuade the intellect, and to move emotions. He used powerful and highly dramatic language. People used to go to the theatre to ‘hear’ rather than to ‘see’ the plays. Shakespeare’s plays explore the widest range of human experience: love and hate, peace and war, longing and fulfillment.

47. Elements of Shakespearean Drama Everyday language: If you say that something ‘smells to heaven’, that you see something in your ‘mind’s eye’, that something is a ‘foregone conclusion’, or that ‘the course of true love never did run smooth’, then you are speaking Shakespeare. These and hundreds of other Shakespearian expressions have become part of our everyday language.

48. Elements of Shakespearean Drama Changing language: Some words that Shakespeare used have now changed their meaning. In the following list, the meaning that Shakespeare probably had in mind is given in brackets: Silly (simple, innocent) Still (always) Marry (indeed) Sudden (violent) Several (separate) Quick (alive, living) Awful (capable of inspiring awe)

49. Elements of Shakespearean Drama Other words that Shakespeare used have dropped out of use altogether, such as: Haply (perhaps)

50. Elements of Shakespearean Drama Shakespeare used blank verse which is a poetic form but unrhymed. It has a meter called iambic pentameter. Blank verse resembles natural, everyday speech. Shakespeare also created imagery and used personification often.

51. Elements of Shakespearean Drama 4-Theme: Themes are the recurring issues or topics that define the preoccupations of the play. They are the subject matter that Shakespeare explores dramatically through the experience of his characters.

52. Elements of Shakespearean Drama Shakespeare’s Most Common Themes: Conflict Appearance and reality Order and disorder Change

53. Elements of Shakespearean Drama 5-Dramatic Effect: Shakespeare took the plots for his plays from all kinds of sources and transformed them into enthralling dramatic action. he is a master of dramatic construction, transforming simple stories into effective dramas.

54. Elements of Shakespearean Drama Because he did not invent the stories for his plays, some critics have denied his ability as storyteller, claiming that his genius lies entirely in language. Spoken in German, Japanese, and a host of other languages, his plays are still successful. Such worldwide success is testament to his skill as a dramatic storyteller.

55. Particular Effects of Shakespearean Drama Judgment: As we judge him as an artist and judge his characters, we also come to judge ourselves. Hope: Despite the greed, the evil, the destruction in tragedy, Shakespeare always conveys hope in life, in human nature. That is why his last four plays are about forgiveness. He always ends his plays – even his tragedies – on a happy note. He is optimistic.

56. Particular Effects of Shakespearean Drama Challenge: Shakespeare’s depiction of what it means to function as a genuinely humane and human being in a harsh puzzling universe constitute a challenge… what kind of courage and magnanimity can we summon up for the conduct of our lives? How can we preserve our humanity in this crazy world?

57. Particular Effects of Shakespearean Drama Engagement and Detachment: Shakespeare strikes a good balance between the two. In Hamlet, he says a play holds a ‘mirror up to nature’ but the work though written to be experienced as a second nature, is likewise to be experienced as art. Elizabethan theatre fostered a balance of engagement and detachment and proclaimed the stage to be the world and the world to be the stage. Shakespeare constantly alludes to this interplay of fact and dream.

58. Shakespeare’s Company Was known as ‘The Lord Chamberlain’s Players’ It was competing with another company called ‘The Lord Admiral’s Players.’ In 1603 King James became the patron of Shakespeare’s company which then came to be known as ‘The King’s Men.’ Richard Burbage was the lead actor of tragic roles while Robert Armin was good at playing a clown.

59. Shakespeare’s Company There were no women in the company, and women’s roles were played by boys before their voices broke. To circumvent this problem, Shakespeare often used the disguise motif. In the rest of Europe women were acting on the stage. In Hamlet, Shakespeare describes actors as ‘the abstract and brief chronicles of the time.’

60. Shakespeare’s Company Shakespeare was the playwright who wrote plays for his company to perform. He was also a share-holder in the company; perhaps he made more money from this than from writing plays. He was also an actor who played some minor roles, e.g. the ghost of the late King Hamlet in Hamlet.

61. Shakespeare’s Theatre The Theatre, built in 1576 by James Burbage, was the first purpose-built theatre in London. At the order of the authorities, it was dismantled and transferred, piece by piece, to the south bank of the river Thames. This theatre came to be known as The Globe or ‘the Wooden O’, as Shakespeare calls, is the theatre where Shakespeare’s company used to perform his plays. It was built in 1599.

62. Shakespeare’s Theatre Shakespeare’s Globe

63. Shakespeare’s Theatre This is how Shakespeare's Globe would have looked like from the inside.

64. Shakespeare’s Theatre The Globe was an outdoor theatre. It was round in shape. On the banner hanging on its door appears the figure of Hercules carrying the globe, and the writing: ‘all the world’s a stage.’ The stage was nearly bare with minimum scenery. Shakespeare made up for this by using richly descriptive language and elaborate costumes. Performance usually takes place in the afternoon. A black banner or flag would indicate that a tragedy will be performed; an embroidered, colorful banner would indicate that a comedy will be performed.

65. Shakespeare’s Theatre Shakespeare’s Globe was accidentally burnt down on 2 nd of July 1613. This symbolized the end of Shakespeare’s dramatic career, for he stopped writing plays then and retired to Stratford. A second Globe was built on the same sight, but was eventually brought down in 1644. Shakespeare had nothing to do with this theatre. A third Globe, known as The New Globe, was opened in 1999 (on the 400 th anniversary of Shakespeare’s Globe with a performance of Julius Caesar, just like Shakespeare’s Globe did). It was built, it is believed, on the sight of Shakespeare’s Globe.

66. Shakespeare’s Theatre The New Globe

67. Shakespeare’s Theatre Features of Shakespeare’s Globe: There were no ‘blackouts’ – no time when the ‘lights’ (actually, candles) went out. So any time a character died in front of the audience the body had to be carried off the stage. Rhyming couplets often alerted the audience to the end of a scene. The end of a scene was also signaled by the departure of all the characters from the stage. Women’s parts were played by men. It was a public playhouse, i.e. the audience came from all walks of life; Shakespeare tried to please them all.

68. Shakespeare’s Theatre Blackfriars: an indoor theatre built in 1606. Shakespeare’s company performed in it in winter. It is more elaborate and sophisticated than the Globe due to the use of lighting and scenery. Because it cost more to enter Blackfriars, the audience belonged to the aristocracy and nobility, as well as the intellectual class. Shakespeare's late plays, written to be enacted here, were more complex and sophisticated than his earlier plays.

69. Shakespeare’s Criticism People started to talk about Shakespeare since he was alive and never stopped till today. The first reference to Shakespeare was in 1592. It was rather disguised; it was only a hint at him. It came from Robert Greene on his death-bed. He was warning his fellow dramatists from the players who grow rich from the products of the brains of dramatists like him.

70. Shakespeare’s Criticism Greene goes on to say: ‘Yes, trust them not, for there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger’s heart wrapt in a Player’s hide (Henry VI, part III), supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.’ Green’s words which seem to attack Shakespeare, in fact imply that Shakespeare was so successful as a dramatist that he caused Greene to be envious of him.

71. Shakespeare’s Criticism The first praise of Shakespeare comes in 1598 from Francis Meres in his book Palladis Tamia, which was an anthology of specimens of fine writing. Shakespeare was his favorite English author: ‘As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy among the Latins: so Shakespeare among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage.’ He enumerates a number of Shakespeare’s plays including a play called Love Labour’s Won, which does not exist today.

72. Shakespeare’s Criticism Ben Jonson, Shakespeare’s fellow dramatist and rival. praised him in the preface to the First Folio (1623), saying that ‘he was not of an age, but for all time’ and affectionately called him ‘the sweet swan of Stratford,’ In private he attacked him. He said the Shakespeare ‘wanted art.’ When he was told that Shakespeare was naturally gifted to write poetry and that he never blotted a word, he said: ‘I would he had blotted a thousand.’ Jonson also pointed out some of the faults in Shakespeare’s plays such as the coast of Bohemia in The Winter’s Tale. Jonson, unlike Shakespeare, was a university graduate, and in his opinion, Shakespeare knew ‘little Latin and less Greek.’

73. Shakespeare’s Criticism Due to Ben Jonson’s attack on Shakespeare, critics mostly rated him below some of his fellow dramatis such as John Fletcher. Thomas Rymer condemned Shakespeare for mixing the comic with the tragic. Shakespeare was also criticized for failing to observe the unities of time and place prescribed by the rules of classical drama. This negative criticism of Shakespeare held sway for several decades.

74. Shakespeare’s Criticism John Dryden, in his Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668), praises Shakespeare generally, but particularly as an untutored genius, who was naturally gifted, and who wrote effortlessly: ‘To begin then with Shakespeare he was the man who of all Modern and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the Images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes anything, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of Books to read Nature: he looked inwards, and found her there.’

75. Shakespeare’s Criticism Comparing Ben Jonson with Shakespeare, Dryden said: “I admire him, but I love Shakespeare.”

76. Shakespeare’s Criticism During the 18th century, critics began to respond to Shakespeare in a positive way. They recognized what they called his ‘natural genius.’ A series of scholarly editions of his work, among which are those by Samuel Jonson in 1765 and Edmond Malone in 1790, added to his growing reputation.

77. Shakespeare’s Criticism In the 19 th Century, Shakespeare was no longer a faulty genius (his mistakes were glossed over, and explained and excused). He was considered as a great English dramatist, if not the greatest. Shakespeare grew into a god-like figure (the deification and Idolization of Shakespeare became almost a preposterous view). Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one of the two leaders of the Romantic Movement was principally responsible for this conception (that Shakespeare was perfect), but later on, people began to see that he is human. Shakespeare had become a science: Shakespeareology.

78. Shakespeare’s Criticism There were many changes and developments in Shakespeare criticism in the 20 th Century. In 1904 appeared a series of lectures originally delivered in the University of Oxford by A.C. Bradley who was not a critic but a philosopher. They were published in a book called Shakespearean Tragedy This book presented the culmination and the best example of over a century of Shakespearean criticism. Bradley’s attitude was psychological, though he wrote long before the present interest in Freud’s views. He talked mainly about Shakespeare’s characters and treated them like real human beings. Bradley’s book is among the last and the best of the romantic school of critics.

79. Shakespeare’s Criticism Scholarship advanced with R.B. Mckerrow who edited the works of the Elizabethan pamphleteer Thomas Nash, and W.W. Greg who edited the Diary and Papers of Phillip Henslowe. Both were fine pieces of scholarship that discovered a lot about the printing, the stage, and dates of plays. It was quickly realized that once the conditions under which Shakespeare wrote were known, much light would be thrown on the making of his plays, and on their meaning. Thus we have now two approaches to the study of Shakespeare’s plays: the critical and the scholarly.

80. Shakespeare’s Criticism The scholar says, in effect, that ‘Shakespeare’s plays were now about 4 centuries old; and that since Shakespeare wrote his plays the English language, manners, and ideas had changed greatly. To understand him therefore we must know Shakespeare’s environment and examine his plays in the conditions of their original composition.’ The attitude of the critic, on the other hand, is that great literature is timeless and therefore perpetually modern. He is not concerned with antiquity but with certain works of dramatic art and how they concern him. That a work of art exists not because of what it told its contemporaries, but because of what it tells us.

81. Shakespeare’s Criticism Studying Shakespeare should be based on both approaches: the literary and the scholarly. Literary scholarship is elitist; it involves mostly scholars and experts. Literary interpretation is egalitarian; anyone can practice it.

82. Shakespeare’s Criticism Shakespeare criticism is so vast and very specialized. Shakespeare’s plays are often praised for their ‘universality’, their ability to stand outside time and history and ‘speak to’ all people. In all English-speaking countries the plays are often described as part of a common cultural heritage which transcends the issues of national origin and politics. Contemporary Shakespeare criticism looks instead at issues of power and social injustice; it is interested in gender, race and sexuality as concepts that are not only alive in the plays but important in our lives today. Shakespeare criticism has become social and political.

83. Shakespeare’s Criticism New trends in criticism have appeared in the last 3 decades of the 20 th Century: Theory: Structuralism, deconstruction, historicism, new materialism, feminism, audience-response, and psychology. All of them have been applied to Shakespeare but subsided now. The most sensible, down-to-earth approach to Shakespeare is the close reading of his plays, relying to some extent on scholarship but not treating it as essential. This is the approach we are going to follow in this course.

84. Thank You