~Appunti scolastici~

Shakespeare

He was born in Stratford-Upon-Avon in April 1564, was the eldest son and attendede the local grammar school, where he acquired a good knowledge of the English lenguage and of classic authors. He married Anne Hathaway when he was only 18 and had three childrens. After he left Stratfor and went to London where he had first experienced with playhouse. Shakespeare joined an important company of actors and performed at cort. After the London theatre were closed because of the plague, and Shakespeare was supported from a nobelman. When the theatre re-opened, Shakespeare became a shareholder and the main playwrite of the most succesfull company: the chamberlain man. In 1599 his company built the Globe Theatre and he died in 1616.

Evolving Sceses

Shakespeare's works are usually linked to: themes mentioned, frequent contrast between the scenes; the main scenes are preceded and followed by shorter scenes that provide information, open questions so that the audience thinks about the answer after the show is over.

Structure

The structure of Shakespearean play was flexible: he did not give great importance to the division between the acts and sometimes this division was imposed later. Finally, the scenes is over when all the characters have left the stage.

Characters

Shakespeare speaks of all social classes:man of aristocratic or royal blood, another as a nurse or servant. Another important feature is family ties and relationships, which are often in contrasting form. Finally there are symmetrical matches.

Variety of style

Shakespiere used different levels of speech and action, and there is the insertion of allegorical scenes, songs, music and dances.

Imagery

Shakespeare's lenguage is characterised by a wide variety of rhetorical figures and characteristic image motifs, like a light and dark imagery in Romeo and Juliet. These image-clusters are connected to the main themes of the plays and define their tones; he used obscured and archaics words and invented a dramatic number of new words. The variety in the verse structure is also impressive because he re-shaped the regular blank-verse line, increasingly using irregular lines from one play to the next.

Dating the plays

The Shakespeare works must be dated by combining three kinds of evidence: external that is the most valuable kind of evidence and consist of a clear mention of reference to a particular play, internal, is when the play itself includes a reference to an identifiable event; stylistic, is the most difficult and the changes in style are so noticeable that a play can reasonably be placed in a precise period.

Shakespearean sonnet

In the English or Shakespearean sonnet we have three quartines and a couplet, and rhymes with ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The poet can use the quartines to present a theme or three different topics and draw a conclusion in the last couplet.

Wyatt and Howard introduced the Italian sonnet to England, but changed the rhyme scheme to ABBA CDDC EE. CDDC EE and the Rhyme model of the Shakespearean sonnet became ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.

Elizabethan sonneteers showed their ability in the use of conceits, an extended metaphor that characterises a whole stanza or poem. During the last decades of Elizabeth's reign many poets started writing sonnets and most of the sonnet collections were named after a woman; this tradition became popular especially in England because of the veneration of Queen Elizabeth I, who was variously referred to by poets as 'Cynthia' and 'the Faerie Queene'.