background preloader

Shakespeare

Facebook Twitter

Shakespeare's Globe. Drama - 60 Second Shakespeare - Homepage. Shakespeare's Words: Some That Need Clarification - Essential Acting. Some of Shakespeare’s common words have changed their meaning a bit over the 400+ years and some had more power then than they may have now.

Shakespeare's Words: Some That Need Clarification - Essential Acting

Here is the start of a list of words with new or different meanings in today’s world. More suggestions are welcome! Words with changed meanings Condensed words and contractions ‘A and The Great Vowel Shift ‘A = he. This is an important vowel change! Here are Falstaff’s friends talking about his death, HENRY V.11 3: NYM; they say he cried out of sack. Cornell Notetaking Verse and Prose.

The Tempest

Much Ado About Nothing. In Search of Shakespeare . Shakespeare in the Classroom. William Shakespeare's influence exceeds that of many historical figures.

In Search of Shakespeare . Shakespeare in the Classroom

Four hundred years after his death, contemporary writers, actors and filmmakers continue to find inspiration in his work. Yet, for many educators, motivating student interest in Shakespeare remains a challenge. The education materials provided here will make teaching Shakespeare an engaging and exciting learning adventure. Shakespeare. An introduction to Shakespeare’s comedy. John Mullan considers the key characteristics of Shakespeare's varied comedies, but he also considers the ways the playwright mixes genres by bringing comedy into his tragedies and tragedy into his comedies. When the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays, the First Folio, was published in 1623, its contents page divided them into three categories: Comedies, Histories and Tragedies. The list of Comedies included Measure for Measure and The Merchant of Venice, plays that modern audiences and readers have not found particularly ‘comic’.

Also included were two late plays, The Tempest and The Winter’s Tale, that critics often now classify as ‘Romances’. If we ask ourselves what these four plays have in common with those such as As You Like It or Twelfth Night, which we are used to calling ‘comedies’, the answer gives us a clue to the meaning of ‘comedy’ for many of Shakespeare’s educated contemporaries. All of them end in marriage (or at least betrothal). McCarter Theatre - Twelfth Night Audience Guide. Shakespeare and Sex. Shakespeare. A Midsummer Night's Dream. Introduction This study guide is intended for GCE Advanced level students in the UK, but is suitable for university students and the general reader who is interested in Shakespeare's plays.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Please use the hyperlinks in the table above to navigate this page. If you have any comments or suggestions to make about this page, please contact me by clicking on this link. Preparing to study This guide is written to support your study of A Midsummer Night's Dream. If you find this guide too hard, then you should perhaps look at the more elementary guide to this play on this site. Go to basic guide to A Midsummer Night's Dream Back to top What other resources should you use?

Editions of the text The most authoritative version is the Arden (University Paperbacks) edition, edited by Harold F. Handbooks for literature Useful handbooks for the general study of English literature include The Cambridge Guide to Literature, The Oxford Guide to Literature, J.A. Recordings of the play in performance. Romeo: courtly lover. Courtly lover and madman.

Romeo: courtly lover

Shakespeare Lesson Plans - A Free Collection. Speech Analysis. Romeo & Juliet. Using this Guide List of other study guides The notes were prepared for use with an edition of Romeo and Juliet bound together with the book for West Side Story and in conjunction with a showing of Franco Zeffirelli's film version of the play, but they will be useful with any edition or production.

Romeo & Juliet

The introduction focuses primarily on comparisons with West Side Story, so it has relatively little to say about the play as such. As noted, this is often regarded as a lesser Shakespeare tragedy by scholars, but what should also be kept in mind is that audiences have made it one of the most beloved plays of all time from the Elizabethan Age to the present. Romeo and Juliet are often considered the archetypal lovers, and at one time "a romeo"--meaning a lover--was a common noun. Although Shakespeare's dialogue often reads beautifully enough on the page, please keep in mind that he never intended his words to be read. Shakespeare wrote almost no original plots. Prologue. Essential knowledge and literary terms for understanding Shakespeare. An Award winning. You - you- your- your formal and distant form of address suggesting respect for a superior or courtesy to a social equal.

Essential knowledge and literary terms for understanding Shakespeare. An Award winning

Thou - thee - thy - thine informal and close form and can imply either closeness or contempt. Gertrude: Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended. Hamlet: Mother, you have my father much offended. Gertrude: Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue. Hamlet: Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue. "Ye/you" or "thou/thee" sometimes show social classes, too. -Folger Shakespeare Library. Open Source Shakespeare: search Shakespeare's works, read the texts. ShakespeareHelp - Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Julius Caesar, Shakespeare Quizzes, Shakespeare PowerPoints, Shakespeare Lesson Plans.

ENGL 339 Home Page. English 339: Introduction to ShakespeareFall, 2013 Site Navigation PREREQUISITES: GE area A (esp. expository writing, e.g.

ENGL 339 Home Page

ENGL 134, and reasoning, argumentation and writing, e.g. ENGL 145); AND GE area C1 (a 200-level literature class, e.g. ENGL 230 or 231or 251 or 252 or 253). A WRITING-INTENSIVE, G.E. GWR: As a C4 literature class, ENGL 339 may be taken by students wishing to fulfill the Graduate Writing Requirement (GWR). ENGL 339 is designed to introduce both English or Theatre majors and G.E. students to representative plays of all genres by William Shakespeare, perhaps the finest poet ever to write in English. REQUIRED TEXTS: The SIGNET CLASSICS editions of A Midsummer Night's Dream; Henry V; Macbeth; Hamlet; and The Tempest.

NOTE: As You Like It has been dropped from the class this quarter due to the necessity of scheduling a video screening of a film available only on VHS during class time. For some ideas, click here to access the list of W12 speeches/scenes. Shakespeare Online. Everything Shakespeare - Free Essays. Shakespeare Navigators. Plot Summaries. Virtual Tour. Absolute Shakespeare - plays, quotes, summaries, essays... Enjoying "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare. Enjoying "Macbeth", by William Shakespeare by Ed Friedlander, M.D.erf@kcumb.edu This Is NOT "Family Entertainment.

Enjoying "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare

" Young people who know of Shakespeare from "Shakespeare Gardens" and "Beautiful Tales for Children" may be surprised by what happens in Macbeth. When we first hear of Macbeth, he has just cut an enemy open ("unseamed") from belly button ("nave") to throat ("chops"). The king shouts "Oh valiant cousin! Worthy gentleman! " The Real Macbeth and His Times Shakespeare got his story from Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles. I've read that Holinshed's section on Macbeth was largely derived from the work of one Hector Boece, Scotorum Historiae ("Chronicles of Scotland", 1526-7, translated from Latin into English by a John Bellenden in 1535).

It is evidently not online. Here's what we think really happened with Macbeth and the other characters. In a barbaric era, population pressures made war and even the slaughter of one community by another a fact of life. The historical Mrs. Mr. Evil?