Choose from the Table of Contents on the left. Also check the Resources at the bottom o f the list. MLA Citations are included. Shakespeare's plays are masterworks, but they can be hard to understand for a modern English speaker. Gain direct insight into Shakespeare's writing in this course which explains how to enter Shakespeare's world, how to grasp what's happening in his plays, and how to enjoy each play on both the page and the stage. Shakespeare's Theatre and Stagecraft.
Episode 2. She was the queen of England from to during a period of time often called the Elizabethan Age. Queen Elizabeth recognized how important the arts and theater were to her nation, creating a golden age of creativity. Although the rich and powerful people of the nobility often lived extravagant lives, they only made up a small percentage of the population.
The vast majority of people during the Elizabethan age was quite poor and uneducated. Because many were uneducated, most of the information we have about daily life during this time comes from records kept by the educated nobility. However, most people spent their lives working hard for a meager living.
It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. This website works best with modern browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. Unfortuantely, such rights dissolved with marriage. History shows as well that many daughters were heirs to a father's property, if there were no male heir, despite the tradition of promigeniture. Wives as well could find themselves in charge of a large estate after the death of a husband, until an eldest son was old enough to do so.
Although literacy rates soared much earlier in the male population with the invention of the printing press, literacy among women did not begin to spread until the late sixteenth century, primarily in response to the Protestant push for the direct experience of the scriptures.
Greenblatt notes that, "It is striking how many of Shakespeare's women are shown reading" The appearance of this new audience spawned a rash of devotional and instructional works on everything from needlework to midwifery. Fiction for female audiences appeared later, around Despite the increase in literacy among women and in works created with them in mind, the overwhelming majority of these works-for-women were written by men.
The central contention in these works was not what women should be, "chaste dutiful, shamefast and silent" 11 , but rather, whether or not they succeeded in fulfilling this requirement.
Joseph Swetnam's "Arraignment of Lewd, Idle, Forward, and Unconstant Women" was published in and inspired a handful of responses attributed to women including an anonymous play "Swetnam the Woman-hater Arraigned by Women" The majority of women who did write were the sisters, wives, or daughters of men who wrote and limited themselves primarily to devotional texts and translation.
Due to the stir caused by the Reformation in Europe, Queen Elizabeth of England sought to stabilize her country by compromising between the Protestants and Catholics. Tensions continued to mount and massacres were occurring on both sides. In , on St. This was soon after some other Protestant purging and the assassination of the Protestant leader, William of Orange. In , the pope stated that it would not be a mortal sin to assassinate the Queen of England.
Hereafter, all Catholics, loyal or not, were under suspicion. Soon, it was discovered that Queen Mary was involved in an assassination plot and "Elizabeth signed the death warrant in February , and her cousin was beheaded. However, the Spanish fleet was routed by the English, then destroyed by storms at sea. In a "victory" speech the Queen stated, "We Princes [England] are set on stages in the sight and view of all the world.
James I took the throne in His reign was lavish and extravagant. He hoped to unite Scotland and England under one title. James I longed to be crowned "King of Great Britain.
During James I's early years, his court was known for its "diplomacy, amibition, intrigue, and an intense jockeying for social position. The courtier's lifestyle was refined into an art form.
The Jacobean Court was ideal because the king was generous with money and affection. He had favorite courtiers who received exquisite gifts. King James' romantic attachments to his male courtiers spawned "rumors of widespread homosexual activities at court. James I and his courtiers were more likely expressing "passionate physical and spritual love. James I hosted celebrations, and masques were performed for court nobility.
The lifestyle witnessed during the masques led to finanical strife for James I. James I's debts rose drastically. Unpopular duties were placed upon the king's subjects.
Parliamentary disputes over the king's debts dampened King James I's court life. James's religious policy began quite radically, yet when he advanced to the throne in England in he became decidedly more conservative. While he ruled in Scotland in the 's he saw himself as sacred and felt he had insight into the agents of Satan.
In he published his Demonology, a testament of the evil that threatened his divine rule. In the 's, in Scotland, thousands of women and some men were tortured and killed for alleged witchcraft. Yet, when he claimed the throne in England, he adopted the current laws. Although England had laws against witchcraft, they were far more just and objective than the Scottish laws at that time. James also moderated other religious views.
In James wrote Basilikon Doron which undeniably was against Puritan reform. However, when presented with a petition signed by a thousand ministers, he called a conference to deal with the ceremonies of the Church of England; this led to the publication of the King James Bible.
In addition, the results persuaded James to publish the Canons, which required ministers to adhere to principles that eventually led to religious divisions and ultimately the murder of James's son Charles.
Prior to these theaters, the only plays that were being held in the towns of England were the "mystery plays. However, with the Protestant Reformation in full swing, these plays soon became produced less frequently because there was a push to get rid of Catholic influence in England. Early English theater took on a role that parodied some of the mystery plays and it became more popular as plays that addressed secular concerns became more predominant. With the addition of minstrels, common actors, and morality topics, the Early English theater became a rival to the church.
Church leaders found themselves denouncing these secular plays because they found some of the themes blasphemous. However, in reality it was the competition between the church and the success of the professional players that was the real problem. The Church would never admit to this rivalry. Playacting was a form of art that was often accompanied by music and dance.
Whether comedy or tragedy, the music and dances incorporated into the plays were important additions to the theatrical world during Shakespeare's time--very frequently during this period a dance would signify the closing of a play. The importance of dancing on stage was a reflection of dance's widespread popularity throughout the Renaissance period. However, even more central to the stage was music, which obviously is very closely related to dancing.
The early part of the sixteenth century showed a loss of interest or even resentment towards music and as a result many organs of the church were destroyed and school choirs were shut down.
But later in the century music made a comeback and began to spread until it was again incorporated into many aspects of everyday life. This quote acts as a good example of the importance of music to Shakespeare's world, but sadly much of the music incorporated into Shakespeare's plays has been forgotten because their popularity may have been cause for nobody to write them down.
Despite the popular sway wielded by touring players-and maybe even because of it, the stage evoked an enormous amount of hostility from the ecclesiastic and civic officials of Shakespeare's day. Social critics, for one, cited numerous concerns for the safety of the audiences, targeting among other things the unruly mobs of theater-goers, the unsanitary viewing conditions, and the unsavory rabble of prostitutes and riff-raff who frequented the spectacles.
The atmosphere was, in their opinion, "inherently disorderly," and therefore represented a serious threat to the public well-being. Not to be outdone, though, the primary brunt of opposition seems to have been initiated by church officials who questioned the unwholesome moral content of the plays. Occasions of subversive blasphemy and theatrical transvestism eventually earned the stage a reputation as "Satan's domain," a place where decent, God-fearing people were led astray from the path of duty and piety.
Summarizing the puritanical stance of William Prynne--a typical fanatic--and his select group of antitheatricalists, Greenblatt writes, "stage plays were part of a demonic tangle of obscene practices proliferating like a cancer in the body of society" In light of such adversity it is amazing that the theater was not abolished altogether.
However, with the financial backing of powerful patrons, the stage was able to weather such attacks and persevere until more receptive times. Since William Shakespeare lived more than years ago, and many records from that time are lost or never existed in the first place, we don't know everything about his life. For example, we know that he was baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, miles northwest of London, on April 26, But we don't know his exact birthdate, which must have been a few days earlier.
We do know that Shakespeare's life revolved around two locations: Stratford and London. He grew up, had a family, and bought property in Stratford, but he worked in London, the center of English theater. As an actor, a playwright, and a partner in a leading acting company, he became both prosperous and well-known. Even without knowing everything about his life, fans of Shakespeare have imagined and reimagined him according to their own tastes, just as we see with the 19th-century family scene at the top of this page.
Primary sources: Shakespeare Documented Visit Shakespeare Documented to see primary-source materials documenting Shakespeare's life. This online resource of items from the Folger and other institutions brings together all known manuscript and print references to Shakespeare and his works, as well as additional references to his family, in his lifetime and shortly thereafter.
William Shakespeare was probably born on about April 23, , the date that is traditionally given for his birth. He was John and Mary Shakespeare's oldest surviving child; their first two children, both girls, did not live beyond infancy. Growing up as the big brother of the family, William had three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard, and Edmund, and two younger sisters: Anne, who died at seven, and Joan.
Their father, John Shakespeare, was a leatherworker who specialized in the soft white leather used for gloves and similar items. A prosperous businessman, he married Mary Arden, of the prominent Arden family.
John rose through local offices in Stratford, becoming an alderman and eventually, when William was five, the town bailiff—much like a mayor. Not long after that, however, John Shakespeare stepped back from public life; we don't know why. Shakespeare, as the son of a leading Stratford citizen, almost certainly attended Stratford's grammar school.
Like all such schools, its curriculum consisted of an intense emphasis on the Latin classics, including memorization, writing, and acting classic Latin plays. Shakespeare most likely attended until about age On Shakespeare Documented: Primary-source materials relating to Shakespeare's family.
A few years after he left school, in late , William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway. She was already expecting their first-born child, Susanna, which was a fairly common situation at the time.
When they married, Anne was 26 and William was Anne grew up just outside Stratford in the village of Shottery.
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