Content

Introduction……………………………………….……………………………………...3

1 William Shakespeare: life and creation……….………………………………………..5

1.1 Shakespeare’s family and born place……………………………………………5                    1.2 “The lost years” period……………………..………………………………………...7                      1.3 First play……………………………………………………………………………...8

1.4 Patriotic and historic plays………………………………………………………….10

1.5 Shakespeare creation during the Peast……………………………………………...12

1.6 Theatre………………………………………………………………………………13

1.7 Shakespeare and contemporary……………………………………………………..14

1.8 Shakespeare’s language……………………………………………………………..16

1.9 Famous plays………………………………………………………………………..18

2 Studying William Shakespeare on the English classes…………..………….………………………………………………...………….21

2.1 The project of the out-of-class occupation “Shakespeare’s life and creation”……..…………………….................................................................................21 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………26Literature………………………………………………………………………………..27                                                                    Appendices……………………………………………………………………………...28 
 
 
 
 
 

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 23^rd, 1564, and he died on April 23^rd, 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…

                                                                    (Act 1 Scene 1)

      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.

                                          (Act 5 Scene 3)

      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!

                                                                       (Act V Scene VI).

      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 16^th 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.