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=English 9= = = =Ms. Byrne and Mrs. Sims=



Birth and Parents:
Shakespeare was baptised in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon on 26 April 1564. This is as close as modern scholars can come to his official birthday. He was the eldest son of John Shakespeare, a glover, and Mary Arden, the daughter of a local farmer. Neither of Shakespeare's parents were well-educated, however, his father did become fairly important in the community holding many notable positions, including that of mayor. John and Mary Shakespeare had 8 children, of whom 5 survived into adulthood - William, Gilbert (1566-1612), Joan (1569-1646), Richard (1574-1613), and Edmund (1580-1612).

Education:
Shakespeare was probably educat ed at the King's New School, Stratford-upon-Avon, beginning at age 6. Here, he would have learned such subjects as Latin, Greek, rhetoric, and logic. Here, Shakespeare received an average public education. But because his family was not of the highest class, his education was also not of the best quality. This often makes scholars question his talented writing ability, and whether he actually wrote the plays and poems he is credited for writing.

Marriage:
It is recorded that Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway on 27 November 1582. Their first child Susanna was baptised in Stratford on 26 May 1583, followed by twins, Judith and Hamnet, on 2 February 1585. Shakespeare is known to have been in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1587, when he was mentioned in connection with a lawsuit.

Life in England:
Shakespeare was alive for during the reign of two different monarchs:  Shakespeare was born under the reign of Queen Elizabeth. This period in British history is called the Elizabethan period. Queen Elizabeth loved the theater, so she encouraged Shakespeare and other playwrights to continue to create and produce plays. This is also a time known as the Renaissance which was known for its advancements in science. After Elizabeth, King James took the throne.

From a disease standpoint, Shakespeare was living in arguably the worst place and time in history. Shakespeare's overcrowded, rat-infested London, with raw sewage flowing in the Thames, was the hub for the nastiest diseases known to mankind. It is little surprise that the plague was the most dreaded disease of Shakespeare's time. Carried by fleas living on the fur of rats, the plague swept through London in 1563, 1578-9, 1582, 1592-3, and 1603 (Singman, 52). The outbreaks in 1563 and 1603 were the most ferocious, each wiping out over one quarter of London's population. Lucky Elizabethans would contract the basic bubonic plague with their odds of survival around fifty percent. Symptoms would include red, grossly inflamed and swollen lymph nodes, called buboes (hence the name bubonic), high fever, delirium, and convulsions. However, if the bacterial infection spread to the lungs (pneumonic plague) or to the bloodstream (septicemic plague) the unfortunate victim would certainly die, usually within hours with symptoms too horrific to recount.
 * Plague **

The Plays:
Shakespeare is credited for writing approximately 37 plays and hundreds of poems. The plays are grouped into three categories: Tragedy- involves a main character, known as a tragic hero, who has a tragic flaw that often leads to the death of this main character. (Examples include: Macbeth, Othello, Romeo and Juliet) Comedy- Uses comedic or sarcastic language, typically has a pair of lovers who undergo an obstacle, and/or has a plot driven by characters with mistaken identity. (Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shew) History- present the history of real people and/or events. (Julius Caesar, King Lear)

Shakespeare soon grew tired of only writing plays, and eventually began to also act in his plays. He owned (or paid for) a group of actors known as the Lord Chamberlain's Men, which later became known as The King's Men.

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre
The Globe Theatre was constructed in 1599, out of timber taken from the Theatre. It stood next to the Rose, on the south side of the Thames, and was the most elaborate and attractive theatre yet built. The Globe was designed and constructed for the Chamberlain's Men by Cuthbert Burbage, son of the Theatre's creator, James Burbage. The lease for the land on which the Globe stood was co-owned by Burbage and his brother Robert, and by a group of five actors -- Will Kempe, Augustine Phillips, John Heminge, Thomas Pope, and William Shakespeare. Much of Shakespeare's wealth came from his holdings in the Globe. The Globe was the primary home of Shakespeare's acting company beginning in late 1599, and it is a possibility that //As You Like It// was written especially for the occasion. On June 29, 1613, during a performance of //Henry VIII//, a misfired canon ball set the Globe's thatched roof on fire and the whole theatre was consumed. Swift reconstruction did take place and the Globe reopened to the public within a year, with the addition of a tiled roof. The new Globe theatre lasted until 1644, at which time it was demolished, and housing was quickly built where it once stood. Recent attempts have been made to re-create the Globe, and replicas have been built in Tokyo and in London. **The Outside of the Globe**

The exterior appearance of the Globe can only be pieced together from sketches of the theatre found in sweeping Elizabethan city scenes, and the interior appearance from the drawing of the Swan Theatre. From these images we can describe the Globe as a hexagonal structure with an inner court about 55 feet across. It was three-stories high and had no roof. The open courtyard and three semicircular galleries could together hold more than 1,500 people.


 * The Globe Stage **

The stage had two primary parts: 1) The outer stage, which was a rectangular platform projecting into the courtyard, from the back wall. Above it was a thatched roof and hangings but no front or side curtains. 2) The inner stage was the recess between two projecting wings at the very back of the outer stage. This stage was used by actors who were in a scene but not directly involved in the immediate action of the play, and it was also used when a scene took place in an inner room.

Underneath the floors of the outer and inner stages was a large cellar called "hell", allowing for the dramatic appearance of ghosts. This cellar was probably as big as the two stages combined above it, and it was accessed by two or more trap-doors on the outer stage and one trap door (nicknamed "the grave trap") on the inner stage. Actors in "hell" would be encompassed by darkness, with the only light coming from tiny holes in the floor or from the tiring-house stairway at the very back of the cellar.


 * General Structure of Shakespeare's Theatres **

Regarding the structure of the Elizabethan playhouses, it is important to note that, unlike our modern auditoriums with cloaked main stages, and seating limited to the front view, the Elizabethan playhouses were open to the public eye at every turn, and scenery could not be changed in between scenes because there was no curtain to drop.

It is no coincidence that in all of Shakespeare's plays, the scene, no matter how dramatic or climatic, ends on a denumount, with the actors walking off or being carried off the stage. If the play required a change of place in the next scene, most times the actors would not leave the stage at all, and it would be up to the audience to imagine the change had occurred. If props were used, they were usually placed at the beginning of the play, and oftentimes would become unnecessary as the performance went on, but would remain on the stage regardless. As G. C. Moore Smith mentions in the Warwick edition of //<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">Henry V //<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">, "properties either difficult to move, like a well, or so small as to be unobtrusive, were habitually left on the stage . . . whatever scenes intervened" (Addendum).

<span style="font-family: Arial,Verdana,Tahoma; font-size: medium;">For very large objects that were vital in one scene but became an obstacle to the actors on stage in the next scene, it is most likely that the action was halted for their prompt removal. Due to the lack of props and scenery, the acting troupes relied very heavily on costumes. Even though Elizabethan audiences were deprived of eye-catching background scenes, they were never disappointed with the extravagant, breathtaking clothes that were a certainty at every performance.

**Cost of entry.**

Open to all for the modest fee of just one-penny (roughly 10 % of a worker’s daily wage), you could stand in the yard at the center of the playhouse. Without an overhead roof, such a view was exposed, but with the stage set at eye level some 5 feet off the ground, you got the closest view in the house. For a little more (roughly two pennies), you could pay to sit in one of the playhouse's three circular galleries; the gentry with time on their hands and comfort on the minds frequently paying more for the comfort and status, the gallery seats conferred. The least expensive "seats" in the Globe were not seats at all; the lowest class would stand right in front of the stage and make up what is known as the groundling level. While they were closest to the stage, they had to continually look up at the stage, so this was not the best seat in the house. It was also quite smelly and dirty because the lower class did not have the same bathing opportunities as upper class citizens.

Actors:
All of the actors in Shakespeare's company, and all throughout London, were men. Acting was not a favorable profession, therefore it was not morally right for women to be on stage. This meant that all of the roles, even that of women, were played by men.

**Burnt to the ground and rebuilt again.** Tragedy struck the playhouse when amidst a performance of Henry VIII on June the 29th, 1613, a cannon fired during the play ignited the playhouse's thatched roof burning the playhouse to the ground. Rebuilt just one year later, the famous playhouse again opened its doors for business but on the opposite side of the Thames river in 1614, with the original's dangerous straw thatched roof now wisely replaced with tiles. **End of an era.** In 1642 as Puritanical forces made their presence felt in England, playhouses no longer were a place of laughter but one of evil sin. Predictably then, all of England’s playhouses were promptly closed down to protect the good people of England. Just two years later in 1644, where Hamlet was once performed, the famous playhouse was taken down, its presence replaced by housing instead. One of the greatest eras in playhouse was at an end...

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