Why do we have a lesson on a writer who died hundreds of years ago? Don’t worry. There’s method to my madness! The poet and playwright William Shakespeare has had a big influence on the English language. Many of he words and expressions that he invented are still in use today, and we often don’t realize it. In this lesson, I will introduce you to some of the most common expressions which first appeared in print hundreds of years ago and are still used today. So come on. Break the ice, and watch the lesson!
Paul Edmondson presents Shakespeare afresh as a dramatist and poet, and encourages us to take ownership of his works for ourselves as words to be spoken as well as discussed. We get a sense of what his life was like, his language, and cultural legacy. We catch glimpses of Shakespeare himself, how he wrote, and see what his works mean to readers and theatre practitioners. We see how Shakespeare tackled the biggest themes of humanity: power, history, war, and love.
In The Taming of the Shrew, Katharina learns to love Petruchio only after she has learnt to be an obedient wife. Romeo and Juliet’s love is destined to end in tragedy. In Twelfth Night, love is romantic but also painful, while in Othello love turns into jealousy. And in the final story, Antony and Cleopatra’s passionate love has tragic consequences. Dossiers: The Life of William Shakespeare Courtship and Marriage in Elizabethan Times Answer key included.
In a magnificent feat of re-creating sixteenth-century London and Stratford, best-selling biographer and novelist Peter Ackroyd brings William Shakespeare to life in the manner of a contemporary rather than a biographer. Following his magisterial and ingenious re-creations of the lives of Chaucer, Dickens, T. S. Eliot, William Blake, and Sir Thomas More, Ackroyd delivers his crowning achievement with this definitive and imaginative biographical masterpiece.
The original Globe Theater, which once stood along the banks of the Thames river in London, was the most popular playhouse in Elizabethan England. The Globe staged plays by the greatest playwright of his day, William Shakespeare, had its life cut short by fire, and, in the twentieth century rose again to entertain thousands of visitors.
