appunti di Letteratura Inglese su Shakespeare e Romeo and Juliet, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica appunti di Letteratura Inglese su Shakespeare e Romeo and Juliet e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! INGLESE SHAKESPEARE▷ William Shakespeare was born apparently on (the) 23rd (of) April in 1564, the day of Saint George (who’s the patron of London), in Stratford- upon-Avon. His father John was a merchant in particular he was a glove- maker and his mother Mary Arden came from a rich family. Shakespeare probably went to the local grammar school, so he learned latin and greek; at the age of 18, in 1582 he married Anne Hathaway who was 26. They had three children: a girl named Susan (who was born six month after their marriage) and two twins named Hamnet and Judith, a boy and a girl, in 1585. We don’t have certain informations about the first years of Shakespeare’s career and how it began, but we know that in 1592 he was already a popular playwright. Shakespeare probably started to write his sonnets when London had to close theaters between 1592 and 1594 due to plague. In 1595 Shakespeare became a leading member of The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, a theatre company for which he worked as an actor, administrator and playwright for the rest of his career. He also became a member of the syndicate that built the Globe Theatre. In 1616 he died, apparently on the same day of his birthday. Shakespeare’s literary production can be divided in two: 1) he wrote 154 sonnets and two long poems 2) he wrote 37 plays SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS▷ His sonnets were written in the 1590s, but they were published later. All of them use the Elizabethan form: three quatrains and a final rhyming couplet (rhyming scheme is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG). The main themes of these sonnets are love and time: love is presented as something that outlasts time, and poetry outlasts both love and time. (We have other themes like beauty, death, friendship, exc…) The first 126 sonnets are addressed to a young aristocrat man and the remaining 28 sonnets are addressed to a mysterious dark lady. ● The sonnets to the young man are based on the theme of platonic love; in fact Shakespeare explores the sentiments the man inspires in him. We also find fascination, suffering and sadness. The most important and frequent topic is the conflict between what Shakespeare’s eyes see and what his heart knows: this conflict between beauty and truth brings him to the conclusion that appearances are often deceptive. His sadness comes from the consciousness that the young man’s youth and beauty will fade; this is why Shakespeare wants to preserve the beauty against the time. The author thinks that poetry is immortal: for this reason, with his sonnets, the young man’s beauty will be preserved forever (but also the writer himself). In the Sonnet 18 the main theme is the metaphorical comparison between the young man’s beauty and nature in full bloom. Shakespeare compares him to a summer day, but as he knows, summer is unpredictable, often too short and the weather is changeable so it doesn’t give that sense of balance and harmony the poet sees in the man’s beauty. So, in conclusion, only in the poems and with art, the young man’s beauty will never fade or die. ● The sonnets to the dark lady are based on the theme of love in all its colours. These sonnets are more realistic in terms of the love affair, and they reject the conventions of Elizabethan love poetry. The dark lady, who’s identity remains a mystery, is described as an unique woman who isn’t conventionally beautiful but has a particular natural beauty with apparent imperfections that distinguish her from the norm. In the Sonnet 130, for example, Shakespeare makes negative comparisons to describe her: he’s very realistic, but on the other hand we can’t really picture her because the author only tells us what she’s not like. SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS▷ Shakespeare’s plays deal with great universal themes such as power, love and death. All of them are composed of five acts. Shakespeare never really authorised the publication or printing of his plays, because he produced drafts of plays for the actors. Despite this his friends decided to publish a collection of his plays in 1623 named First Folio. The First Folio has 900 pages that contain 36 of his plays. It is divided into three groups, Comedies, Tragedies and Histories, but we don’t have Romeo speaks and they start a dialogue. They both know that the problem is their names, and Juliet is worried because she knows that Romeo isn’t safe with her. However, Romeo says that he’s not afraid of Juliet's family: he says that he would prefer to die by their hate than to live without her love. RENAISSANCE THEATRE▷ During Renaissance the two most important dramatists were Christopher Marlow and William Shakespeare; they both began to explore human nature and politic, changing completely dramas in theatre. Marlow’s most famous play is Doctor Faustus. Faustus makes a pact with the devil, for which he gives his soul in exchange for unlimited knowledge and power. This pact is an allegory for the humanist idea of a man escaping religion and also for the break between England and the Catholich Church. The play ends with the penitence of Faustus which represents the theme of choosing your own fate. Shakespeare too is really important because his plays explore all sides of human life, they represent all society’s levels and they analyze the problem of existence as no one has ever done. The critic Ben Jonson said that Shakespeare’s art doesn’t have an age but it’s for all time; the critic Harold Bloom said that Western Literature it’s all in some way in Shakespeare’s shadow. Before the construction of permanent theatre there were troupes of travelling players and professional actors that toured around giving public performances. The performance was staged on movable platforms usually in squares or inn yards. The first permanent theatre was built in 1576 by James Burbage in Shoreditch (near London) and its name was “The Theatre”. These permanent theatres were usually circular or polygonal. Around the walls there were three rows of galleries where the richer people sat; the other people stood in the center and there was a stage for the actors. The Elizabethan plays didn’t actually have a scenery, but costumes were really important and detailed. Until 1660 female roles were taken by boys and men because women weren’t allowed to act. Renaissance’s acting was formal and related to rhetorical education. The Globe theatre was the most important theatre of the time. It was built in London, on the south bank of the Thames in 1599. It was an open air theatre and it didn’t have lights, stage curtains and props which are objects used in the play: so the performances took place during the day and there wasn’t a break between the scenes. In 1613 the Globe burnt down, so it was rebuilt on the original foundations and it continued operating until 1642 when Puritans closed it. Two years later it was burnt down because the space had to be used for houses. Sam Wanameker decided to rebuild the Globe and in 1996 it was completed: this new Globe is near where the old one was and it’s faithful to the old Globe.