| Why is Queen Elizabeth important to theatre? | Promoted the arts, loved the arts, and encouraged learning |
| The dates of the English Renaissance and the Elizabethan Era. | English Renaissance: 1558 – 1642Elizabethan Era: 1558 – 1603 |
| Additional names for the Elizabethan Era. | English Renaissance, Golden Age, and Elizabethan Era |
| Why drama was the main form of literature? | People were illiterate |
| Additional names for Elizabethan Theatre. | Elizabethan Theatre, Early Modern English Theatre, and English Renaissance Theatre |
| The typical Elizabethan audience was made up of what three categories? | Groundlings, Middle Class, and Royalty |
| What did each category like? | Groundlings: Dirty jokes and fighting; Middle Class: Enjoyed music; and Royalty: Poetry |
| Why did women not act? | Considered socially unacceptable; against the law; considered a man’s job |
| Acting requirements? | Good voiceGood memoryGood dancerGood healthAbility to singPlay an instrumentGood with a sword |
| Ben Johnson’s upbringing? | Formal education at Westminster School where he studied under renowned scholar William Camden |
| Why was he arrested? | Manslaughter after a duel in 1598; saved him because he was literate |
| Famous for writing? | Satiric comedy; style of play he was famous for Masque |
| When was Christopher Marlowe? | Canterbury, England in February 1564 |
| Age at death? | 29 |
| How did he die? | Murdered in a bar fight |
| Considered 2nd only to who? | William Shakespeare |
| Famous for writing? | The Tragicall History of Doctor Faustus |
| Why were theatres closed in 1592? | People were terrified of getting the Plague; decree made that you could not go to any public event unless it was church. |
| Why did Puritans not like theatre? | Saw it as ungodly (men dressing as women, opposing political views, plays where characters conjured the Devil, gamblers and prostitutes coming to plays) |
| Shakespeare’s birthday and day of death? | Born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon in London (possibly April 23 but not confirmed because they didn’t keep birth records back then). Died on April 23, 1616 in the same place. |
| Shakespeare’s wife? | Anne Hathaway (26 when married; Shakespeare 18) |
| How many children did they have? | Three children: Susanna, Hamnet (died at eleven), and Judith |
| What was Shakespeare’s acting company called? | Lord Chamberlain’s Men; best acting company at the time; changed to The King’s Men after Queen Elizabeth I died |
| Formed with whom? | Founded by William Shakespeare along with Richard and Cuthbert Burbage (patron was Lord Hudson) |
| Globe Theater sits on which river? | Thames River |
| How many sides? | Eight |
| What are the levels? | Heaven, Stage, and Hell |
| What happened to it in 1613? | Burnt down due to cannon backfiring during a play |
| How many plays did Shakespeare write? | 37 plays |
| Three categories of his plays? | Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies |
| How many sonnets did he write? | 154 sonnets; most of his sonnets were not published until 1609 |
| How did Shakespeare make money? | Owned a small portion of Blackfriars Theatre and 12.5% of the Globe Theatre; his profits came from the ownerships of theatres. |
| What is the First Folio? | Considered one of the most influential books ever published in the English language; 36 plays and we know where 233 out of 750 copies in the world |
| Who published at? | John Heminge and Henry Condell |
| When printed? | About 1623; 7 years after Shakespeare’s death |
| What are “foul papers”? | Original copy of play that are shared with many and written (messy first drafts) |
| How were Shakespeare’s plays printed? | 1. The author writes a play down on paper. 2. The foul papers are sent to the printing house.3. The printing house creates the fair copies.4. A typesetter chooses all of the letters needed to print a page.5. The ink is rolled onto the letters.6. The paper is set.7. The paper is placed on top of the letters, and the inky letters and the paper are pressed together. |
| What is the “instability of the text”? | Printers would try to read what it says and make another cleaner copy to print, a fair copy, but each printer would intemperate a word or two differently than others. Plus spelling had not really been in the picture during that time, so the printer could always add on letters to make the presentation look better; the fair copy would be different from the original copy (depending on the printer) |
| Why do we study Shakespeare today? | Include the history they portray, grammar and language used, themes are universal and the writing style |
| Know the difference between the Oxfordians and the Stratfordians. | Oxfordians believed Shakespeare was a fraud. Stratfordian believed Shakespeare wrote everything. |
| Know why the Oxfordians believe Shakespeare, the famous playwright, could not have existed. | Shakespeare’s family was illiterate; his death went unnoticed; Shakespeare had an unusually large vocabulary; didn’t leave anybody any books in his last will and testimony; and that Shakespeare had to have been multilingual because he knew a lot about other countries or any evidence that Shakespeare traveled. |
| Romeo and Juliet was classified as a | tragedy |
| The prologue is a | sonnet |
| The play is set in | Verona, Italy during the Italian Renaissance |
| It was written in | 1591 – 1597 by William Shakespeare |
| It was originally a | narrative poem written by Arthur Brook |
Elizabethan Era, The Black Plague, William Shakespeare, The Globe Theatre, Oxfordians vs. Stratfordians, and Romeo and Juliet
November 25, 2019