Shakespeare – Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear

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Autor: kaprik
Typ práce: Referát
Dátum: 05.07.2009
Jazyk: Angličtina
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Shakespeare – Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear

The time of the Renaissance

‘Shakespeare’s era’ was the time of Renaissance and the time of ‘Elizabethan Age’. England became the sea power, the trade rapidly grew and there were also big changes in culture. The Renaissance was a period of revival antic ideals, especially ideals of human physical and psychical beauty, ideals of relations between man and woman etc. People began to love and enjoy their life again. The Renaissance and Humanism brought into literature and drama a new wave of realism and satire, which most important representative was W. Shakespeare. 

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564, at Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of seven he started attending the local grammar school and was educated there. When he was eighteen he married Anne Hathaway, eight years older girl from a nearby village. Six months after the wadding, their first daughter Susanna was born and two years later they had a twins – a boy Hamnet and a girl Judith.

We know only a little about Shakespeare’s life during next seven years but in 1592 he left his wife and children and became an actor and playwright in London where existed two very favourite theatres – The Theatre and The Swan – under the patronage of the King. Shakespeare joined a group of actors called the Lord Chamberlain’s Men in 1594 and worked as their leading actor and dramatist. This all-male company of experienced and talented players built their own theatre – the Globe. It was open to the sky and its owners, including Shakespeare, shared its profits.

For the next decade the Globe, on the Thames at Bankside, became one of the main London’s theatre and the home of Shakespeare’s work. Many of his greatest plays were written during those ten years, and were acted here.
In 1613 the Globe was destroyed by fire but the former Lord Chamberlain’s Men, by now called the King’s Men (under the patronage of James I), had leased 2 another smaller playhouse. In 1612, Shakespeare returned home.

His son Hamnet had died when only eleven, but his two daughters were in Stratford with his wife Anne. He was now a rich man and he bought a handsome house, New Place, the second largest in Stratford. It had two gardens, two orchards and two barns 3.  Here, with his family, he spent the last years of his life and died on April 23, 1616 (the same date he was born; the legend said that Shakespeare died after the noisy birthday celebrations with his friends). He is buried at Hole Trinity Church in Stratford.

William Shakespeare wrote 37 plays, mostly in blank verse, which were commonly divided into: tragedies (T) which were mostly written during the first decade of the 17th century and show us the negative side of the new society, the mood of pessimism; comedies (C) express the typically spirit of the Renaissance, the pleasant aspect of the happy an beautiful life; others are historical plays (H) and romances (R).

The best and the most known of them are:

As You Like It (1599) – C
Hamlet (1601) – T
Othello (1604) – T
King Lear (1605) – T
Macbeth (1605) – T
Anthony and Cleopatra (1606) – H/T
The Winter’s Tale (1610) – R
The Tempest (1611) – R
Richard III (1592) – T
The Taming of the Shrew (1594) – C 4
Romeo and Juliet (1594) – T
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595) – C 5
The Merchant of Venice (1596) – C
Henry IV (1597) – H
The Merry Wives of Windsor (1598) – C
Julius Caesar (1599) – H

Beside the plays Shakespeare wrote also sonnets in his own special forms.

Shakespeare’s heroes, moral questions and human suffering inspired many artists of the periods after him, e.g. G.Verdi, S.Prokofjev, L. van Beethoven etc. The most important Czech translator of Shakespeare’s work was J.V.Sládek in the 2nd half of the 19th century.

·  Romeo and Juliet

This tragedy is different from the other Shakespeare’s plays – the heroes aren’t destroyed by faults in their character and nature 6 but by the hate of their families.

The story tells us about the long hate between the two powerful houses in Verona – the House of Montague and the House of Capulet. Romeo, a Montague, falls in love with Juliet, a Capulet, at the ball and secretly marries her. Juliet’s cousin Tybalt challenges Romeo to a duel. Romeo refuses 7 but his friend Mercucio fights and is killed. In anger and revenge, Romeo kills Tybalt and has to run from Verona.

Juliet is commanded by her father to marry Paris, a nobleman. The Friar Laurence 8, who had secretly married them, helps Juliet by giving her magic drops which makes her seen dead, so she is put into the family vault. Romeo mistakenly believes 9 that Juliet is really dead, kills Paris at her graveside and than take poison. When Juliet wakes and find her lover’s body beside her, she stabs herself by Romeo’s dagger 10 . After this horrible events the warring families made peace.

In fact, I don’t like this play very much because of the theme – I don’t like emotional and sensitive stories like this and, in my opinion, this theme is now – at the end of the 20th century – quite leftovers 11.

·  Hamlet

It is the tragedy of the suffering and hesitation of an honest, strong and responsible man who isn’t able to kill or punish without having a clear proof of guilt. Hamlet, the son of the dead king of Denmark, learns the truth about father’s death from a father’s ghost at Elsinor Castle. But to make sure he pretends madness and tests the ghost’s story by having a play – resembling his father’s murder 13 – acted before his uncle Claudius, who murdered Hamlet’s father and married his mother, the queen.

The king decides to destroyed Hamlet and send him to England to have him killed there. But Hamlet returns and sees Ophelia’s funeral. Ophelia loves Hamlet but they cannot fulfil their love because of Hamlet’s plans. Claudius sends Leartes, Ophelia’s brother, to a match with Hamlet. He is wounded by Leartes’s poisoned sword but he is manages to stab 14 Claudius. The queen dies too after she drinks poisoned wine destined for Hamlet.

(Zda žít či nežít – to je oč tu běží:
zda je to ducha důstojnější snášet
střely a šípy rozkácené sudby,
či proti moři běd se chopit zbraně
a skoncovat je vzpourou. Zemřít – spát -
Nic víc…)

To be or not to be – that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to také arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? – to die, – to sleep -
No more…

·  King Lear

King Lear had three daughters and he decided to divided his kingdom among them. He asked them to tell him which of them loved him best. The two elder Goneril and Regan – both already married – said they love him above all, but it wasn’t true.

His youngest and most favourite daughter Cornelia, who really loved him wouldn’t tell lie and said that she give half her love to her father and half to her future husband. The king became angry and drove her away from home. All to late he recognised that his two older daughters had not spoken the true. He left their castles, wandered in a terrible storm and became mad 15.

Cordelia, who had married the king of France, came to the England with an army to help her father. But her army is defeated, she and also her father became prisoners. Cordelia was hanged in prison and after King Lear saw her death, his heart broke and he died too.

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