William ShakespeareHis Life, London, Romeo and Juliet

Shakespeare’s Birth/Early Life• Baptized 4/26/1564• No official B-day• Stratford-Upon-Avon• One of eight children• Working class family• Attended local

grammar school; no university

• Married Anne Hathaway in 1582

Married & Professional Life• Susanna born in 1583• Twins Hamnet and

Judith born in 1585• 1585-92 “Lost Years”• 1590-1592 his first

plays are performed• Henry VI, Richard

III, The Comedy of Errors

Shakespeare: Actor and Playwright

• Theaters close in 1593 because of the plague.

• 1594 he becomes a shareholder in Lord Chamberlain’s Men

• 1599 construction of the Globe Theater

• Groundlings, Theater setup

Rulers of England 1558-1603

Queen Elizabeth I

King of England 1603-1625

King James I

In The Reign of King James I• Lord Chamberlain’s

Men becomes The King’s Men

• Plays concerning the power of court

• Retires by 1612 to Stratford-Upon-Avon

• Life during retirement is unknown

The Death of Shakespeare• Died on April 23, 1616• Wrote 38 plays, 154

sonnets, and two narrative poems

• First Folio published in 1623; most plays

• Today--$25,000 per week in royalties just on Othello alone

Information about Romeo and Juliet

• Approximate 1st performance date: 1594-95• Not printed until 1597

• Direct source for Shakespeare’s R&J is Arthur Brooke’s Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet (1562)• Based on a prose piece from Pierre Boistuau (1559)• Based on a version from an Italian Bandello (1554)• Based on a version from Luigi da Porto (1525)• Based on a version from Masuccio Salernitano (1476)

• Romeo and Juliet is filled with language games• Paradox: Statement or situation that seems to be a

contradiction but reveals the truth• Oxymoron: A figure of speech in which apparently

contradictory terms are combined to produce an epigrammatic (a neat, witty, often paradoxical remark)effect

• Rhyming Tricks• Verbal Echoings• Puns: Play on the multiple meanings of a word or on

two words that sound alike but have different meanings.

• Try to catch these “games” Shakespeare plays