BW5 January 2015

BRAINSTORM: What do you know about Shakespeare?

Background to Shakespeare

• Objective: 1. Students will gain background on Shakespeare’s

life, England during Shakespeare’s time, Shakespeare’s language, and Shakespeare’s theater.

2. Students will write a sonnet. • Purpose: Gain knowledge that will deepen our

understanding of Romeo and Juliet when we read it.

• Video: William Shakespeare - Mini Biography• Purpose: Gain background knowledge on

Shakespeare.

England in Shakespeare’s Day (p.983)

• Purpose: Gain background knowledge on the culture during Shakespeare’s life.

England in Shakespeare’s Day (p.983)

1. During which time period did Shakespeare write?A. Middle AgesB. Victorian Era C. RenaissanceD. Dark Ages

2. When did Shakespeare start writing his plays?A. 1560sB. 1570sC. 1580sD. 1590s

3. What was the name of Shakespeare’s theater company?A. Shakespeare’s Men B. Royal Theater C. King’s Men D. Lord Chamberlain’s Men

Shakespeare’s Language

• Objective: Students will classify and explain the 3 ways that Shakespeare communicated to his audience.

• Purpose: Unlike movies that use effects and music to communicate to its audience— books that use dialogue and description—plays, especially Shakespeare’s, communicate to audiences very differently. In order to understand Romeo and Juliet, you first have to understand Shakespeare’s language.

Shakespeare’s Language

• Costumes– Many of the costumes were

splendid versions of contemporary Elizabethan dress.

– Some attempts were made to approximate the dress of certain occupations and of antique or exotic characters such as Romans, Turks, and Jews.

– Some costumes indicated the wearer was supernatural.

Shakespeare’s Language

• Gestures and Silences – Kneeling to show humility – Refusal to kneel…– Silence to show shock, fear, the inability to find

words, etc.

Shakespeare’s Language

• Poetry and Prose – Poetry: distinctive style and rhythm. • Blank Verse: Unrhymed Iambic Pentameter • What is Iambic Pentameter?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0aAWuUX5jU

Shakespeare’s Language

• Poetry and Prose – Poetry: distinctive style and rhythm.– Prose:

• literary imitation of speech—could be used for an important speech by a king in a play, could signal somebody giving advice.

• Letters or proclamations, to sett off from poetic dialogue • Mad characters, to show normal thinking is gone • Comedy • Unimportant characters, or lower class • Dynamics—a scene may start in prose and work its way to

verse as emotion is heightened

Check for Understanding

1. Show the symbol for an unaccented syllable.2. Show the symbol for an accented syllable.3. How many syllables does a foot have? 4. What is an iamb? 5. What is iambic pentameter?6. Separate the following line into feet. Mark the accented

and unaccented syllables.

A. My only love, sprung from my only hate!B. To be, or not to be—that is the question:

Shakespeare’s Language

• Costumes• Gestures and Silences• Poetry and Prose – Blank Verse – But occasionally he rhymes… • COUPLET –The time is out of joint, O cursed spiteThat ever I

was born to set it right!–Did my heart love till now? Foreswear it, sight.For

I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.

Shakespeare’s Language

• So, what’s the purpose of a couplet? What’s the purpose of rhyming?– To convey emotional heightening at the end of a blank

verse speech. – Characters sometimes speak a couplet as they leave the

stage, suggesting closure. – Scenes generally conclude with a couplet. – Characters can be linked by rhyme, such as in when

Romeo and Juliet first meet, and they exchange a sonnet—a poem in iambic pentameter that follows a specific rhyme scheme such as ababcdcdefefgg

Shakespeare’s Language

1. Costume2. Gesture and Silences 3. Poetry and Prose

Shakespear's Theater

Shakespeare’s Language

• sonnet—a 14 line poem in iambic pentameter that follows a specific rhyme scheme such as ababcdcdefefgg

• Allows the poet to examine the nature and ramifications of two usually contrastive ideas, emotions, states of mind, beliefs, actions, events, images, etc.

Shall I compare thee to a summer day?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-_QlzUJBbU

Shakespeare’s Language

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 dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;But thy eternal summer shall not fadeNor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st 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.

Shakespeare’s Language

• sonnet—a 14 line poem in iambic pentameter that follows a specific rhyme scheme such as ababcdcdefefgg

• Allows the poet to examine the nature and ramifications of two usually contrastive ideas, emotions, states of mind, beliefs, actions, events, images, etc.

Closure

1. What are the 3 ways that Shakespeare communicated to his audience?

2. What main form of poetry are Shakespeare’s plays written in?

3. Why does Shakespeare rhyme? List three reasons. 4. Why does Shakespeare switch to prose? List 2 reasons. 5. What did costumes represent? List 3 ideas. 6. Give an example of a gesture that might been seen in a

Shakespearian play.7. How many lines does a sonnet have, and in what meter is

it written? What’s the rhyme scheme?