Shakespearean Times

1. SHAKESPEAREAN TIMES
Saturnino Figueroa Guerola
Cynthia Soler Morera

2. SHAKESPEARE´S BIOGRAPHY
English poet and playwright
Greatest pre-eminent dramatist.
Born: Stratford-upon-Avon, 23 April 1564
Died: Stratford-upon-Avon, 23 April 1616.
First published play: Henry VI,(1594).
Total number of plays: 37

3. SHAKESPEARE’S GEOGRAPHY
Stratford town is situated approximately one hundred
miles northwest of London.
It was a small market town.

4. 1. Strattford town
The population was between 1,500 and 2,000
habitants. There were many craftsmen such as
blacksmiths, carpenters, shoemakers, brewers and
bakers.

5. John Shakespeare (a glover) married Mary Arden,
the daughter of a farmer from Wilmcote. Their son
William Shakespeare was born in a house in the
Henley Street.

6. Shakespeare attended the free
school in Stratford where he learned Latin and Greek.

7. 2. LONDON

The population of Elizabethan England was less than
five million. London was the biggest city in Europe
with between 130,000 and 150,000 inhabitants, the
city was the heart of England.

8. A rising merchant middle class had a productive life,
and the economy boomed.
Agricultural labourers crowded into London in search
of better wages and prospects.

10. It was a colourful metropolis and contained the best
and worst of city life.
It was lively but dangerous. And the city also acted
as a reclaim for beggars.
In this time the Church owned about 1/4 of the
territory of London.

11. Shakespeare lived in four different houses until 1613
when he could buy his own property near the
Blackfiars theatre (Ireland Yard)
London was an ideal place for theatre because of the
literary expansion that this genre suffered.

12. 3. SOCIETY
In Shakespeare's time, the English had a strong
sense of social class -- of belonging to a particular
group because of occupation, wealth, and ancestry.
Being a member of one of these social classes made
a real difference to almost everything in the life of a
person.

13. Social classes:
The Nobility:
At the head of each noble family is a duke, a baron,
or an earl. A person became a member of the
nobility by birth, or by a grant from the queen or king.

14. The Gentry:
They were knights, squires, gentlemen and were the
most important social class in Shakespeare's
England. Wealth was the key to becoming part of the
gentry.

15. The Yeomanry:
They were people who saved enough to be
comfortable but who could be plunged into poverty.
They are farmers, tradesmen.

16. Craft Guilds:
They were a group of artisans engaged in the same
occupation (like bakers or shoemakers) and they
would associate for protection and mutual aid.
Their purpose was to maintain a monopoly of a
particular craft especially against outsiders.

17. The poor:
It was the period of time with most poverty, but there
were also the sick, the disabled, the old, the feeble,
and soldiers unable to work.
To control the poverty the Elizabethan Poor Laws
were created.

18. Shakespeare’s class:
Shakespeare belonged to a middle-class family (his
father belonged to a guild), and in his last years of
life he had a lot of money.
The price of his plays was very cheap (one penny)
which allowed the audience filled up the theatre.

19. 4. ARCHITECTURE
During this period many large manor houses were
erected by the court nobility. The plans and façades
tended toward symmetry.
The great hall of medieval manors was retained, and
features were added to increase the occupants'
comfort. Some examples are Wollaton Hall and the
Longleat House.

22. The globe:
It was constructed in 1599. It stood next to the Rose,
on the south side of the Thames, and was the most
attractive theatre yet built.
The Globe was the primary home of Shakespeare's
acting company beginning in late 1599.

23. The Outside of the Globe
It is as an hexagonal structure with an inner court
about 55 feet across. It was three flours and had no
roof. The open courtyard and the galleries could hold
more than 1,500 people.

25. 5. LANGUAGE:
Shakespeare played a major role for the English
language. Shakespeare had a vocabulary of
approximately 17.000 words, four times larger than
the vocabulary of the average educated person of
the time.

26. He is famously responsible for contributing over
3.000 words to the English language because he
was the first author to write them down.
Shakespeare had helped to establish a new
grammar and a much wider vocabulary for the early
form of modern English.

27. Shakespeare perfectly combined the classic and
new traditions in literature.
There is a big quantity of words proceeding from the
old tradition of the English, but he also introduced
latinate words (or inkhorn terms).
In his works Latin and Greek terms formed
approximately one fifth of all words.

28. Except for the writers of the Bible, Shakespeare is
the most frequently quoted writer in English.
Some words and expressions he invented:
•'assassination'
•'dead as a doornail'
•'neither rhyme nor reason'

29. 6. Conclusion:
He started a linguistic revolution mixing cultures and
patterns that gave the idea of a complete language
when the English was in a process of creation.
The new English culture was accompanied by a new
literature. He was the leader of this movement.

30. 7. BIBLIOGRAPHY:
©http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/
©http://www.bardweb.net/man.html
©
http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/plays_numlines.php
©http://www.localhistories.org/stratford.html
©http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/poverty_01.shtml
©http://wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/16century/topic_4/stow.htm
©
http://www.brandonsd.mb.ca/crocus09/library/social_classes_in_shakespeare.htm
©http://www.localhistories.org/timeline.html
©http://absoluteshakespeare.com/plays/plays.htm
©http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Elizabethan+architecture
©
http://www.rsc.org.uk/education/resources/shakespeares-language.aspx
©http://www.garretwilson.com/essays/languages/en/englishgreek.html