Objectives:•Apply reading strategies to a nonfiction articles;

•Interpret the possible influences of historical context on literary works;

•Understand the literary term, “tragedy”;

•Understand and appreciate a Shakespearean drama;

•Identify poetry forms and devices (sonnet, blank verse, iambic pentameter) and examine the influenceof poetic devices on readers’ understanding;

•Use strategies for reading and making meaning of Shakespearean drama.

FOCUS •Write for 2-3 minutes responding to the question, “Why study Shakespeare?”  •Read: “Shakespeare’s

Impact on the English Language,” page 985.

Background for Understanding Background for Understanding Romeo Romeo and Juliet: and Juliet:

SHAKESPEARE’S WORLD

Why study Shakespeare?•Considered the greatest writer in the English language

•He contributed more words, phrases, and expressions to the English language than any other writer.• “Cultural literacy and refinement”:

appreciate the sheer beauty of his language and art.

•Wrote from 1558 – 1603

•Lived in England period known as the Renaissance.

•Renaissance: period marked by renewed interest in science, philosophy, and the arts.

•“intellectual flowering”

•Wrote during the• reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

• “Elizabethan Age”

Elizabeth I•Last member of royal house of Tudor.

•Father was Henry VIII

•Tudors brought stability and prosperity to England.

• Elizabeth was a strong ruler.

•Supported the arts in English culture.

•Shakespeare benefited from Elizabeth’s encouragement of artistic development.

•In 1590’s he began acting in and writing plays for a theater company owned by two high- ranking men in Elizabeth’s court.

•Elizabeth attended some of Shakespeare’s productions.

Terms for Understanding the Drama:

Prologuean introductory section of a play, speech, or otherliterary work

TragedyA drama that ends in catastrophe—most often in death—for the main character and often for several other characters as well.

Terms for Understanding the Drama:

CHARACTERISTICOF

TRAGEDY

Tragic hero: the main character in a tragedy, who comes to an unhappy or miserable end.

Tragic flaw: a fatal error in judgment or weakness ofcharacter, that leads directly to the protagonist’s downfall.

Comic Relief

A humorous scene, incident, or speech that relieves the overall emotional intensity.

Pun: an expression that achieves emphasis or humor by contriving an ambiguity, two distinct meanings suggested by the same word.

Example:When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.

A bicycle can't stand alone because it is two-tired.

Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer the agony of defeat.

The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.

When an actress saw her first strands of gray hair she thought she'd dye.

FOIL

A character whosepersonality orattitudes are insharp contrast toanother character

Benvolio Tybalt

Oxymoron:an expression in which twowords that contradict eachother are joined

Allusion: a reference To a historical or fictional person, place, or event with which the reader is assumedto be familiar.

ASIDE: a character’s remark,either to the audience or to another character, that the other characters on stage are not supposed to hear.Purpose: reveals character’s thoughts.

MOTIF: A conspicuous recurring element, such as a type of incident, a device, a reference, or verbal formula,which appears frequently in works of literature.

- a pattern

Monologue: an extendedspeech by one speaker.

Dramatic Monologue:a lyric poem in which a speaker addresses a silentor absent audience in amoment of high emotion.

Soliloquy

A speech that a character gives when he or she is alone on stage. The purpose is to let theaudience know what the character is thinking

Theme: a central ideaor message in a work ofliterature; generally makesa comment on life or thehuman experience

Themes tend to beuniversal, that is, themessages they conveyapplies to all people, in all ages and places.

Theme concepts in Macbeth

• False appearances - acting

- lies- deception- equivocation

(hedging)

• Evil- a force beyond human

understanding - developed through plant imagery

• Treachery• Murder• Political rebellion• Revenge

- Developed through disease images

• Consequences of choices / actions

• Guilt

• Ambition- as it erodes /

overcomes moral principles

Imagery: words and phrases that create vividsensory experiences for thereader.

Motifs in Macbeth

• BLOOD--obviously everywhere, but note how it foreshadows the deaths, morally, psychologically and mentally, of the protagonists.

•SLEEP--this is a major theme: What does Macbeth mean when he fears murdering sleep; who sleeps for him, and why can he "sleep no more?"

• Images of the theater and banquet imagery

• CLOTHING as in "borrowed robes"

• DARKNESS- symbolizes the

darkness in Macbeth’s heart?

Symbol: a person, place,object, or activity thatstands for something beyond itself.

Mood: the feeling oratmosphere that a writer createsfor a reader.

- created by diction, imagery, setting, foreshadowing,

dialogue, figurative language

Dramatic irony:occurs when the readeror audience knows something that thecharacter does not.

Blank verse: unrhymedpoetry written in iambicpentameter

Meter: The repetition of a regular rhythmic unit in poetry.

Each meter is known asa foot, consisting ofone stressed syllableand one or two unstressedsyllables.

The meter of a poememphasizes themusical quality of thelanguage.

Iambic pentameter:pattern of an unstressedsyllable followed by astressed syllable.

Anachronism: Someone or something belonging to another time

period than the one in which it is described as being.

The reference, in Shakespeare'sJulius Caesar, to "the clock striking twelve" is anachronistic, since there were no striking timepieces in ancient Rome.

The Great Chain of Being

The purpose of the Great Chain of Being wasto assign a place for everything in the universe, classified into either:

•Holy •Animal •Vegetable •Mineral

Example: If one were to examine only the earthlyinhabitants, and their place in the chain, this is what would be found:

•Perfection (God) •Angels •Humans•Beasts •Plants •Rocks

The concept of "animal, vegetable, and mineral" still survives and is a feature of many Western philosophies and cultures to this day.

The Great Chain of Being God Angels

Kings/Queens Archbishops Dukes/Duchesses

BishopsMarquises/Marchionesses Earls/Countesses Viscounts/Viscountesses Barons/Baronesses Abbots/Deacons Knights/Local Officials Ladies-in-Waiting Priests/Monks

Squires

Pages Messengers

Merchants/Shopkeepers Tradesmen Yeomen FarmersSoldiers/Town WatchHousehold Servants Tennant Farmers Shepherds/Herders Beggars

Actors Thieves/Pirates Gypsies Animals

Birds Worms Plants Rocks

•For Catholics, the Pope is at the same level or above the King.

England in Shakespeare’s day

Background for Understanding Background for Understanding Romeo and Juliet: Romeo and Juliet:

FOCUS I•Page 983-984•With a partner, read from the nonfiction article “Shakespeare’s World: England in Shakespeare’s Day.”

•STOP just before “Theater in Shakespeare’s Day” section.

•Bullet notes: Together, summarize what you feel are the 5 most important details from “England in Shakespeare’s Day” (7 minutes for the above)

•Be prepared to share out your ideas orally.