Shakespeare for the terminally terrified

And Breathe Do you know the play? No getting round that one, I'm afraid. You need to know the story and who's who. ( AO1 ) You can't write about what you don't know.    Ah - you do know the play? Excellent news. What now? You can make better sense than this, honest.   OK - this is a general guide. I don't know which play you've studied or what the question will be in May, but I do mark the paper and I know what makes a good answer.  Read the question carefully and find the key words . They tell you what to write about. It will always say: 'Starting with the extract, explore how Shakespeare presents ( key word/s ) in the extract and the play as a whole'. The extract/speech will focus on the key word/s in the question. No-one is trying to trick you.   Good news - unless it helps you to get going, you don't need to write an introduction .  In any case never write 'In this essay I am going to write about key word/s in th...

If the comedies end in church, tragedies end in the churchyard. Spoiler alert - the protagonist/eponymous hero dies. All the tragedies are named for the anti/hero. Titus Andronicus - 1592 . First known performance Jan 1594 at The Rose for Sussex's men. Usually considered to be a collaborative play with George Peele (and Vickers makes a very good case for this).  No-one ever does this in school. Romeo and Juliet - 1595 . For The Lord Chamberlain's Men at The Rose as the company did not have access to The Theatre.1596. Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love. Boy and girl are separated by a series of unfortunate events and the  attitudes of their families. They get married anyway and die at the end by mistake. The two families make up.  Adaptations : West Side Story - 1957. Film - 1961 (Bit of trivia: George Chakiris who played Bernardo was paid $100 a week.) There are lots more adaptations - too many to list. Best film version : Zeffirelli - 1968 Globe v...

It probably isn't Shakespeare. Certainly not as he wrote it.  Q1 - 1597 Q2 - 1599 Q3 - 1609 Same play, but they are all different. You can compare them here .  Different quarto versions exist for 17 of the plays. The rest only exist in the folio versions and none (except Thomas More) are in Shakespeare's hand . Before any play by any writer(s) was printed, it went through the following stages: 1. It's written, by hand using a quill and corrected as it's being written (see 'Thomas More' above). There is one copy. 2. It's delivered, with all the crossings out and corrections and sometimes in installments, to the company and you'd better hope that the handwriting is legible. Jonson's is a beautiful Italianate script. Shakespeare's Secretary Hand is rather more challenging to a modern eye. Co-authored scripts would come separately and in different hands. (Several of Shakespeare's plays are co-authored.) 3. A 'fa...

You don't need to learn them all! Just choose the ones you understand. Fate : Prologue : ' fatal loins' ' Star-cross'd lovers' Why?   Links to the theme of fate throughout the play.  Links to   Romeo : Some consequence yet hanging in the stars (I.iv) - Just before the masked ball where he meets Juliet Romeo : 'black fate (III.i) - after Mercutio has been killed Romeo : I defy you stars (V.i) - after he has been told that Juliet is dead Romeo : 'inauspicious stars ' (V.iii) - just before he kills himself What does it tell us about Romeo's character? Love: Lots of different kinds of love in the play.   Romantic love : Romeo : Did my heart love till now? (I.v) - he has just glimpsed Juliet at the ball Romeo : It is my lady. Oh, it is my love (II.ii) - he has seen Juliet at her window  Juliet : be but sworn my love (II.ii) -  about Romeo, whom she does not know can hear her Juliet : If thou dost love , pronounce i...

All Shakespeare's tragic heroes have one - right ?  Macbeth - ambition Hamlet - indecision Othello - jealousy Lear - ? being old?  Romeo and Juliet - being in love? Antony and Cleopatra - being in love? Richard III - ambition? Julius Caesar - ambition? Titus Andronicus - being too conventional? Timon of Athens - being angry? Coriolanus - being angry? Wrong! The problem is that the theory is too simplistic to apply to all the tragedies - even all the great ones. It didn't exist before A C Bradley, who formulated it in 1904.  You can read the book here   We also tend to misunderstand 'fatal' as equating to leading to death, but it doesn't actually mean that in this case. It is concerned with Fate, not fatality.  It cannot be denied that in all the plays fate leads to the leading character's deaths, of course, but so many of the tragedies have characters who try, and fail, to defy Fate.  Romeo  'I defy you stars' Cassius   T...

Struggling with The Bard? I can help. Tailored master classes for KS3, 4 and 5. England and Wales. I'm not familiar with the Scottish system. All plays commonly taught offered - or just some basic 'coming to grips' classes.  I can offer practical drama and/or text based classes as well as CPD.  Tell me what you need and I'll tell you if I can cover it. If I can't, I won't pretend I can.  I charge £50ph (minimum 2 hours) or £200 a day (5 hours) plus expenses. I'll provide resources but ask you to undertake any necessary photocopying. If I use a ppt, I'll leave it with you. I mark AQA Lit paper 1 (AQA) and I have marked A2 Shakespeare (AQA B) and KS3 SATs when it existed.  email me with any queries.  

Comedies A comedy is a play which ends in a wedding. Note: all Globe DVDs are cheaper from Amazon. You can also utilise The Globe Player .   The Taming of the Shrew - possibly Shakespeare's earliest play.  Lots of debate about that one. 1591 at the latest. Two sisters - horrible, bad-tempered, rude Kate and lovely, sweet innocent Bianca, both unmarried. Bianca can't marry till someone takes Kate on. Enter Petruccio who marries Kate and turns her into the ideal wife whilst Bianca is finally shown in her true colours. Best adaptation: Ten Things I Hate About You - 1999 Musical: Kiss Me Kate - 1948 on Broadway/1953 film Best sequel: The Tamer Tamed - John Fletcher - 1611 for The King's Men. Globe version . (I love this production.) The Two Gentlemen of Verona - 1590 . Performed at Gray's Inn. Two couples, Valentine and Sylvia and Proteus and Julia marry at the end of the play after undergoing lost of difficulties including kidnap, women disguised as me...