Biografie: William Shakespeare’s period
Prologue to ‘Romeo & Juliet’:
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break the new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal lions of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;
Whose misadventure piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-marked love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
2001-03-18
Introduction.
10th century is the century that the period of drama starts. It’s starts with the priests, they told their stories in Latin and played a little bit, religion elements.
15th century:
Ÿ Mystery plays: scenes from the bible. Were played by guilders, like :
The lost Supper_ The bakers
Jonah and the wale_ The fishmongers
Noah’s Flood_ The carpenters
Ÿ Morality plays: virtues and bad qualities over personified E.G. Everyman.
Ÿ Miracle plays: lives of saints were depicted.
Then the authority said, we don’t want any plays more in the church. Then the plays played in the churchyard and later on the marketplace.
1210 pope forbade all drama activity in and around the church. Subjects became secular {=worldly}, in English not in Latin anymore. Plays were mostly performed by actors, who went from place to place{strolling actors}.
Played on pageants, drawn by horses. It was sensible to become a member of a company protected by rich persons.
Then their came theatres in the end of the 16th century, like
The Theatre 1576
The Swan
The Globe 1599
They were built in a round, based on a mixture off inn yards {warts} and bearbaiting pits.
The first theatre were built for 2000 or 3000 peoples.
I think that there’s a great difference between being an actor now or being it in the 17th century. You had to speak louder and you had to do the special effects all by your self. There wasn’t so much make-up and I think they didn’t put any make-up on their face at all because it were all men. And you get no-close-ups or lightning technology you had to play more overdone than when you have make-up and stuff like that. I think it’s much more difficult to be an actor in the 17th century then being an actor now.
William Shakespeare.
He is born in April 1564 in Stratford_upon_Ave. He baptized on 26 April. His father was a glover, reasonably well-off.
He went to grammar school, and learned some Latin. Quinton his 16 with school. When he was 18 he got married with Ann Hathaway {26) and he went to London 1590.
Became a member of the Lord chamberlain's men. Shakespeare usually performed in The Globe, which was burnt down during one of his place. After a wile he returned to Stratford in 1613 an died in 1616.
Ben Johnson said about William Shakespeare:
“He’s not of an age, but for all time!”
.Characteristics of his works:
Ÿ He showed human nature as it really is
Ÿ lively personalities
Ÿ picture of life as it really is
Ÿ all characters play an important part
Ÿ variety in plays
Ÿ exciting plots
His work:
The Comedy of Errors 1587-1592 Henry V 1597-1599
Titus Andronicus 1587-1592 Julius Caesar "
The Taming of the Shrew 1587-1592 Twelfth Night 1600-1608
Henry VI, 1, 2, 3 1587-1592 Hamlet "
Richard III 1587-1592 Troilus & Cressida "
Venus and Adonis 1593 Alls Well That Ends Well "
Starts with the sonnets " Measure for Measure "
Two Gentlemen of Verona " Othello "
Lover's Labour's Lost " King Lear "
The Rape of Lucrece 1594 Macbeth "
Midsummer Night's Dream 1594-1596 Antony and Cleopatra "
Romeo & Juliet " Coriolanus "
Richard II " Timon of Athens "
Merchant of Venice " Pericles Prince of Tyre 1609-1611
Henry IV, 1, 2 1597-1599 Cymbeline "
The Merry Wives of Windsor " The winter's Tale "
As You Like It " The Tempest "
Much Ado About Nothing " Henry VIII 1612-1616
William Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets in his life and I’m going to compare 2 sonnets: no. 18 and no. 130: They are both about someone he loves.
In sonnet no. 18 he compares her with a summers day, but even a summer day can be too hot and the sun can shine too bright. And everything that’s beautiful will be broken down by nature it selves. But she stays that way, she will not fade away but than again; she gets her beauty from nature who’s breaking all beauty down after a while, so it is possible that she loses her beauty too.
Sonnet no. 130 is also about love but she isn’t beautiful at all; she is fat and her breath smells, but he loves her no matter what. He compares everything from her with everything he likes in a girl and she doesn’t have anything he likes or he had dreamed of but he just loves her.
They both have the same rhyme scheme; a, b, a, b, c, d, c, d, e, f, e, f, g, g.
And the same rhythm. They’re both the same length but that’s because it’s a sonnet and sonnets always have 14 lines.
Elizabethan Theatre
Much of the action of the film takes place in the Rose Theatre. Historical excavations and research into documents of the period have helped our understanding of Elizabethan Theatre.
James Burbage was a leading member of a prominent troupe of players, he borrowed in 1576 capital from his brother-in-law , the grocer John Brayne to build the first permanent playhouse at shoreditch (now known as East End).
Ten years later Philip Henslowe built the Rose playhouse across the river in Bankside. Bankside was a place foe entertainers. Philip Henslowe has kept a diary from which we’ve learnt very much about the theatre; everything they played there and that the Rose was built with a timber frame sat on brick foundations.
In 1989 they discovered the remains of the Rose when they began to built in the area.
The Rose held sixteen hundred people and was most of the time full, if they played there. These early playing companies were co-operatives where some of the actors were shares in the company. The main company usually consisted of a handful of regular players with boy apprentices who played all the female roles and journeymen players who were employed for particular pieces. In England it was forbidden for women to appear on the stage on grounds of immorality.
Playhouses could be closed for many reasons, among them outbreaks of the plague, sedition and immorality which could certainly have included women appearing on stage.
It cost one penny to stand in the yard of the playhouse and a further penny for a seat of the covered galleries. A cushion to make watching the play more comfortable cost a further penny and a seat in the lords’ room cost approximately sixpence.
The important thing of the play is that love goes through everything, it doesn’t matter if your family and friends approves it, if you will be banished because of it and if you will die because of it.
“Love is strong enough to survive everything!!”
That’s why the themes are love and hate. You can see how thin the line is between love and hate! Love goes through everything; happiness and sadness, war and peace and even through a feud! Romeo and Juliet proved this! Although their families where fighting each other they where in love and after they killed themselves their families decided to break the feud and to become normal neighbours, without hate.
Romeo and Juliet use prose and rhyme because they had to sound more lovely and romantic. Prose and rhyme make this play more romantic. The nurse and the servant are just people who’re passing messengers from the principal roles, I think that that’s the reason they speak in blank verse. Prince Escalus has to sound angry and loud so that they listen to him. If he had spoken in prose and rhyme he would sound to soft!
If Romeo and Juliet would stand both on the ground instead of on a balcony it wouldn’t be such a sweet scene. They say that they love each other but if they would stand on the ground it wouldn’t be so innocent, they have to kiss each other than. It would lose the intensity of both players and become lust and also lose the love they both feel for each other.
When Tybalt killed Mercutio, Romeo became angry and he lost his mind and he killed Tybalt. That was “bad luck”. He was banished because of this! So he lost his Juliet by revenging his best-friend. Now he lost both. That’s why he said after he killed Tybalt: ,,I’m fortunes fool!”
I think Romeo is so sweet, if I ever get a husband/boyfriend I hope it is someone who will have that much respect for me, that Romeo had for Juliet.
I can’t believe that he is only 13 years old. I would believe it if you say he is 16 or 17! I think that he’s too tragically, too tender, too much in love and to sweet for a boy of his age!
”Then love-devouring death do what he dare-
It is enough I may but call her mine.”
This words remind us of the lovers’ tragic destiny.
Romeo decided his own fate on the moment that he took revenge by killing Tybalt, he knew that there would happen something awful. But his eyes were blinded with revenge, revenge for his best friend.
Juliet knows that if it’s day, if it is the lark, Romeo has to go, he’s banished, and maybe she’ll never sees him back. But if it’s the nightingale, it’s still night and they have a couple of hours to spent with each other.
Juliet is very afraid before she’ll take the potion, mostly she’s afraid that it doesn’t work and she has to marry Paris, but she’s also afraid that she’ll die or that she never meet Romeo again.
The movie Shakespeare in love
Burbage and Marlow can I identify from the film.
‘Romeo & Juliet’ is about love and hate, everybody recognize it, everybody has seen it happen by a friend or it happened to himself or they once want to experience it themselves. I know that there are still people who are so much in love with someone that they are able to kill themselves for their lover, sometimes even when their lover doesn’t feel the same way about this.
Viola de Lessep’s father gives his daughter to marriage Lord Wessex and she doesn’t want to because she is in love with William Shakespeare. Juliet’s father gave his daughter also to marriage. She also didn’t want to because she was in love with Romeo.
Queen Elizabeth approves the love between Viola and Will in her heart, but on the outside she has to pretend she doesn’t approve it, because of her status. That’s way she didn’t do anything while she knows it’s happening. She tolerates it.
Most of the movies ends well so I expected that this movie also ended well, but it didn’t. I liked the end this way, just because you don’t expect it.
I don’t know, I’ve never tried to understand him at all. I was only interested in his play: ‘Romeo & Juliet’ and I never taught about the writer. But I think I understand him better now!
I liked the whole movie, but especially the lyrics of ‘Romeo & Juliet’. I have the modern movie of ‘Romeo & Juliet’ and I’ve seen it a thousand times so I recognized a lot. I didn’t liked the things about the theatres, they were closed and then they weren’t and then they where and then they weren’t!
I liked the story; it’s just like ‘Romeo & Juliet’ only it’s not that dramatic. I cried every time I saw ‘Romeo & Juliet’, but I didn’t cry when I saw this movie. That doesn’t matter but I think I prefer ‘Romeo & Juliet’!
There are such sacrifices in war, I can’t tell you one but I’m sure it happens. And there are that parents who forbid their daughter or son to see their boy- or girlfriend anymore. Sometimes the children obey their parents and sometimes they make such a sacrifice as Romeo and Juliet.
Gijs Seeder
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break the new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal lions of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;
Whose misadventure piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-marked love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
2001-03-18
Introduction.
10th century is the century that the period of drama starts. It’s starts with the priests, they told their stories in Latin and played a little bit, religion elements.
15th century:
Ÿ Mystery plays: scenes from the bible. Were played by guilders, like :
The lost Supper_ The bakers
Jonah and the wale_ The fishmongers
Noah’s Flood_ The carpenters
Ÿ Morality plays: virtues and bad qualities over personified E.G. Everyman.
Ÿ Miracle plays: lives of saints were depicted.
Then the authority said, we don’t want any plays more in the church. Then the plays played in the churchyard and later on the marketplace.
1210 pope forbade all drama activity in and around the church. Subjects became secular {=worldly}, in English not in Latin anymore. Plays were mostly performed by actors, who went from place to place{strolling actors}.
Played on pageants, drawn by horses. It was sensible to become a member of a company protected by rich persons.
Then their came theatres in the end of the 16th century, like
The Theatre 1576
The Swan
The Globe 1599
They were built in a round, based on a mixture off inn yards {warts} and bearbaiting pits.
The first theatre were built for 2000 or 3000 peoples.
I think that there’s a great difference between being an actor now or being it in the 17th century. You had to speak louder and you had to do the special effects all by your self. There wasn’t so much make-up and I think they didn’t put any make-up on their face at all because it were all men. And you get no-close-ups or lightning technology you had to play more overdone than when you have make-up and stuff like that. I think it’s much more difficult to be an actor in the 17th century then being an actor now.
William Shakespeare.
He is born in April 1564 in Stratford_upon_Ave. He baptized on 26 April. His father was a glover, reasonably well-off.
He went to grammar school, and learned some Latin. Quinton his 16 with school. When he was 18 he got married with Ann Hathaway {26) and he went to London 1590.
Became a member of the Lord chamberlain's men. Shakespeare usually performed in The Globe, which was burnt down during one of his place. After a wile he returned to Stratford in 1613 an died in 1616.
Ben Johnson said about William Shakespeare:
“He’s not of an age, but for all time!”
.Characteristics of his works:
Ÿ He showed human nature as it really is
Ÿ lively personalities
Ÿ picture of life as it really is
Ÿ all characters play an important part
Ÿ variety in plays
Ÿ exciting plots
His work:
The Comedy of Errors 1587-1592 Henry V 1597-1599
Titus Andronicus 1587-1592 Julius Caesar "
The Taming of the Shrew 1587-1592 Twelfth Night 1600-1608
Henry VI, 1, 2, 3 1587-1592 Hamlet "
Richard III 1587-1592 Troilus & Cressida "
Venus and Adonis 1593 Alls Well That Ends Well "
Starts with the sonnets " Measure for Measure "
Two Gentlemen of Verona " Othello "
Lover's Labour's Lost " King Lear "
The Rape of Lucrece 1594 Macbeth "
Midsummer Night's Dream 1594-1596 Antony and Cleopatra "
Romeo & Juliet " Coriolanus "
Richard II " Timon of Athens "
Merchant of Venice " Pericles Prince of Tyre 1609-1611
Henry IV, 1, 2 1597-1599 Cymbeline "
The Merry Wives of Windsor " The winter's Tale "
As You Like It " The Tempest "
Much Ado About Nothing " Henry VIII 1612-1616
William Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets in his life and I’m going to compare 2 sonnets: no. 18 and no. 130: They are both about someone he loves.
In sonnet no. 18 he compares her with a summers day, but even a summer day can be too hot and the sun can shine too bright. And everything that’s beautiful will be broken down by nature it selves. But she stays that way, she will not fade away but than again; she gets her beauty from nature who’s breaking all beauty down after a while, so it is possible that she loses her beauty too.
Sonnet no. 130 is also about love but she isn’t beautiful at all; she is fat and her breath smells, but he loves her no matter what. He compares everything from her with everything he likes in a girl and she doesn’t have anything he likes or he had dreamed of but he just loves her.
They both have the same rhyme scheme; a, b, a, b, c, d, c, d, e, f, e, f, g, g.
And the same rhythm. They’re both the same length but that’s because it’s a sonnet and sonnets always have 14 lines.
Elizabethan Theatre
Much of the action of the film takes place in the Rose Theatre. Historical excavations and research into documents of the period have helped our understanding of Elizabethan Theatre.
James Burbage was a leading member of a prominent troupe of players, he borrowed in 1576 capital from his brother-in-law , the grocer John Brayne to build the first permanent playhouse at shoreditch (now known as East End).
Ten years later Philip Henslowe built the Rose playhouse across the river in Bankside. Bankside was a place foe entertainers. Philip Henslowe has kept a diary from which we’ve learnt very much about the theatre; everything they played there and that the Rose was built with a timber frame sat on brick foundations.
In 1989 they discovered the remains of the Rose when they began to built in the area.
The Rose held sixteen hundred people and was most of the time full, if they played there. These early playing companies were co-operatives where some of the actors were shares in the company. The main company usually consisted of a handful of regular players with boy apprentices who played all the female roles and journeymen players who were employed for particular pieces. In England it was forbidden for women to appear on the stage on grounds of immorality.
Playhouses could be closed for many reasons, among them outbreaks of the plague, sedition and immorality which could certainly have included women appearing on stage.
It cost one penny to stand in the yard of the playhouse and a further penny for a seat of the covered galleries. A cushion to make watching the play more comfortable cost a further penny and a seat in the lords’ room cost approximately sixpence.
The important thing of the play is that love goes through everything, it doesn’t matter if your family and friends approves it, if you will be banished because of it and if you will die because of it.
“Love is strong enough to survive everything!!”
That’s why the themes are love and hate. You can see how thin the line is between love and hate! Love goes through everything; happiness and sadness, war and peace and even through a feud! Romeo and Juliet proved this! Although their families where fighting each other they where in love and after they killed themselves their families decided to break the feud and to become normal neighbours, without hate.
Romeo and Juliet use prose and rhyme because they had to sound more lovely and romantic. Prose and rhyme make this play more romantic. The nurse and the servant are just people who’re passing messengers from the principal roles, I think that that’s the reason they speak in blank verse. Prince Escalus has to sound angry and loud so that they listen to him. If he had spoken in prose and rhyme he would sound to soft!
If Romeo and Juliet would stand both on the ground instead of on a balcony it wouldn’t be such a sweet scene. They say that they love each other but if they would stand on the ground it wouldn’t be so innocent, they have to kiss each other than. It would lose the intensity of both players and become lust and also lose the love they both feel for each other.
When Tybalt killed Mercutio, Romeo became angry and he lost his mind and he killed Tybalt. That was “bad luck”. He was banished because of this! So he lost his Juliet by revenging his best-friend. Now he lost both. That’s why he said after he killed Tybalt: ,,I’m fortunes fool!”
I think Romeo is so sweet, if I ever get a husband/boyfriend I hope it is someone who will have that much respect for me, that Romeo had for Juliet.
I can’t believe that he is only 13 years old. I would believe it if you say he is 16 or 17! I think that he’s too tragically, too tender, too much in love and to sweet for a boy of his age!
”Then love-devouring death do what he dare-
It is enough I may but call her mine.”
This words remind us of the lovers’ tragic destiny.
Romeo decided his own fate on the moment that he took revenge by killing Tybalt, he knew that there would happen something awful. But his eyes were blinded with revenge, revenge for his best friend.
Juliet knows that if it’s day, if it is the lark, Romeo has to go, he’s banished, and maybe she’ll never sees him back. But if it’s the nightingale, it’s still night and they have a couple of hours to spent with each other.
Juliet is very afraid before she’ll take the potion, mostly she’s afraid that it doesn’t work and she has to marry Paris, but she’s also afraid that she’ll die or that she never meet Romeo again.
The movie Shakespeare in love
Burbage and Marlow can I identify from the film.
‘Romeo & Juliet’ is about love and hate, everybody recognize it, everybody has seen it happen by a friend or it happened to himself or they once want to experience it themselves. I know that there are still people who are so much in love with someone that they are able to kill themselves for their lover, sometimes even when their lover doesn’t feel the same way about this.
Viola de Lessep’s father gives his daughter to marriage Lord Wessex and she doesn’t want to because she is in love with William Shakespeare. Juliet’s father gave his daughter also to marriage. She also didn’t want to because she was in love with Romeo.
Queen Elizabeth approves the love between Viola and Will in her heart, but on the outside she has to pretend she doesn’t approve it, because of her status. That’s way she didn’t do anything while she knows it’s happening. She tolerates it.
Most of the movies ends well so I expected that this movie also ended well, but it didn’t. I liked the end this way, just because you don’t expect it.
I don’t know, I’ve never tried to understand him at all. I was only interested in his play: ‘Romeo & Juliet’ and I never taught about the writer. But I think I understand him better now!
I liked the whole movie, but especially the lyrics of ‘Romeo & Juliet’. I have the modern movie of ‘Romeo & Juliet’ and I’ve seen it a thousand times so I recognized a lot. I didn’t liked the things about the theatres, they were closed and then they weren’t and then they where and then they weren’t!
I liked the story; it’s just like ‘Romeo & Juliet’ only it’s not that dramatic. I cried every time I saw ‘Romeo & Juliet’, but I didn’t cry when I saw this movie. That doesn’t matter but I think I prefer ‘Romeo & Juliet’!
There are such sacrifices in war, I can’t tell you one but I’m sure it happens. And there are that parents who forbid their daughter or son to see their boy- or girlfriend anymore. Sometimes the children obey their parents and sometimes they make such a sacrifice as Romeo and Juliet.
Gijs Seeder