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A. William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
William Shakespeare (WS)
Shakespeare is as famous as he is a mystery. Very little is known about his life, although he is now deemed the best playwright in history. He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564, and died in 1616. He was given a relatively little education as he had to become an apprentice so that he could take over his father’s business. However, he became a playwright and actor. In parallel, he married Ann Hathway with whom he had three children. In 1587, he started working in a theatre. His first play was performed in 1591. He was a prolific playwright and actor throughout the Elizabethan and Jacobean ages of English literature. Altogether Shakespeare's works include 38 plays, 2 narrative poems, 154 sonnets, and a variety of other poems (1). How did he come up with so many plots? Actually, his stories essentially grow out of his predecessors’. He found inspiration in other previous stories. He is known to be a great borrower: he is indebted to his predecessors.
What Kind of Plays?
Bear in mind that Shakespeare did not come up with the four catagories below. They were created by scholars later on
The Comedies
Shakespearian comedies are known to be carefree (no pessimism) and witty at the same time (WS plays with language). Shakespeare mainly resorts to two devices, i.e mistaken identities and disguise to create ironic situations in his plays. It often borders on farce, a coarse (crude, boorish) genre with bawdy puns (sometimes humoristically indecent).
Bawdy means lewd (lustful) or smutty. Actually, Shakespearian style is suffused with lustful jests (jokes).
In his later work, WS’s comedies are murkier with disillusioned characters consumed (tormented, wracked by) by melancholy.
The History Plays
Bearing in mind the historical context in WS’s time, the theme of rebellion and the fall of a King is a key feature of WS’s plays. In those plays, the plot mostly revolves around the rise and fall of Kings before the Tudor dynasty. The playwright might have intended to warn others about the vicious outcome of divisiveness and the dire need for authority.
The Tragedies
Derived from the latin term fatum, fate is the crux of Shakespeare’s plays. A tragedy is a sombre play whose plot ends up being tragic, with death. The narrative pattern is mostly alike: it is the story of high-born protagonists hit by a sudden strong passion which eventually alters their common sense. Their behaviour wreaks havoc
The Last Plays
In this category are sorted out all WS’s last plays, written by an older and wiser playwright whose writing was greatly swayed by his experiences.
However, these four categories are not water-tight (rigid). William Shakespeare actually interweaves (entwines) numerous genres in each play. For example, in Henry IV, the scene is unexpectedly set in an inn, while the reader would expect the King to be in his castle. Moreover, both characters speak in prose, while high-born characters are supposed to speak in verse. What for? The inn and the prose are harbingers of chaos. WS foreshadows the upcoming pandemonium the King will soon be put through.
Until 1576, plays were performed in private homes or inns. When permanent theatres started being built in the following years, they were open-air theatres, built round an inner court or pit (where the groundlings stood) surrounded by galleries for the wealthier members of the audience. The stage – a thrust stage – jutted out into the pit, meaning a closer relationship between actors and groundlings. Consequently, soliloquies were of paramount importance in that configuration.
Plays were performed before an audience composed of various social classes, from the lofty to peasants alike. Women’s parts were performed by men, which gave rise to endless play on disguise and sexual ambiguity. Performances were set in the afternoon, in daylight, because there was no other lighting.
The Globe Theater was a theatre where William Shakespeare performed many of his plays. It was built in 1599 on the southern bank of the Thames, in the Southwark district. The Globe is a sixteen-sided polygon called the “wooden O” in Henry V. It was a 100-feet high building made up of three main parts (building proper, stage and tiring house, that is to say the backstage area). The Globe could hold up to 3,000 people simultaneously. The spectators who paid one penny to watch the play were called the groundlings. Those who could pay more, usually the wealthiest, sat in the galleries. More precisely, the Tiring House contained machinery and dressing rooms.
All in all, the Globe was partly owned by WS himself, and he was an iconic figure of the Globe. He gained unprecedented fame during Elizabeth I’s reign and King James I.
However, the Globe was burnt to the ground in 1613 during a performance of Henry VIII. Though it was rebuilt a year later, the Globe would officially be shut down in 1644 by the new Puritan government, whose members believed that plays were immoral.
B. How to recognise a typically Shakespearian scene?
Witty Humour
First, WS always demonstrates his cleverly humorous manner of writing and how he genuinely makes Romeo–a clever and reason-full character–a ridiculous character whose passion for young Juliet causes him to breach his parents’ authority and lack common sense.
Sexual innuendos
Then, the reader cannot but be flabbergasted, if not shocked, when discovering W.S’s uncountable sexual innuendos. For example, when Julit enumerates different parts of Romeo’s body, W.S puts a sexual implication
Dramatic irony
Dramatic irony is a typical situation in W.S’s plays where one character is not aware of something, whereas the audience is. For instance, when Romeo listens in on Juliet, without Juliet knowing it (II, 2).
Tragic irony
Tragic irony is a literary technique, originally used in Greek tragedy, by which the full significance of a character's words or actions is clear to the audience or reader although unknown to the character. To put it differently, it is when a character does not realise the scope of the words he/she has just uttered, while the audience is aware of the character’s lot.
Philosophical dimension
Like the arbitrariness of language in Romeo and Juliet, W.S’s plays, albeit witty and overly humours, are imbued with more philosophical debates.
B. Analysis of Act 2, Scene 2, Romeo and Juliet [The Balcony Scene]
Introduction | What is Romeo and Juliet about?
Part ONE | A ridiculously passionate Romeo
Part TWO | A near-philosophical Juliet
(1) William Shakespeare Biography. Who was William Shakespeare?, www.shakespeare.org.uk
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