william shakespeare presentation prezi

William Shakespeare’s��Life and Times

April 23, 1564 - April 23, 1616

Hall’s Croft

• Shakespeare was born in 1564 in Stratford-on-Avon
• Son of John Shakespeare & Mary Arden
• Studied Latin, Greek, World History, and British History at Stratford Grammar School
• Never went to college

Shakespeare’s Career

• (1592) Arrives in London
• (1594-1603) Works for the acting company called The Lord Chamberlain's Men
• (1603) The company changed their name to The King’s Men for King James I
• (1610) Shakespeare retired to Stratford-on-Avon
• (1616) Death of Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

• 1582 - married Anne Hathaway (he-18, she-26)
• Children: Susanna, Judith, and Hamnet (who died as a child)
• 37 Plays that continue to be read 400 years after his death.
• 17 Comedies
• 10 Histories
• 10 Tragedies
• 154 Sonnets

Plays/ Shakespeare’s life (cont)

• Universal themes of humanity
• The comedies were mostly written earlier in his career
• Most of the tragedies, histories, and romances came later.

Playwrights were not thought of as important, so much of his life is lost to history.

Objections to Theaters�

• Large assemblies of people
• Spread diseases
• G uilt by association
• Protestant government was against plays
• The theaters were shut down several times during Shakespeare’s life due to the Black Plague.
• The competition between playwrights was fierce.
• Located on the south bank of the Thames
• The most famous London Playhouse
• Flew a flag to announce a performance
• Acting companies used men to play female roles.
• Audience was participatory
• **Suspend your disbelief: Disguise ALWAYS WORKS in Shakespeare.

The wealthy’s view of the stage

“The Heavens”

as seen by the groundlings

• Soliloquy –
• Monologue –

Long speech given by a character while alone on stage to reveal his or her private thoughts or intentions

Character’s quiet remark to the audience or another character that no one else on stage is supposed to hear

Speech given directly to the audience, not to himself/herself.

• Hyperbole –
• “There is no world without Verona walls, / But purgatory, torture, hell itself.”
• Juliet – “Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!” (Act III Sc.2).

deliberate exaggeration

juxtaposition of two words with opposing meanings

• Situational irony –
• Dramatic irony –

Opposite of what is expected happens

the audience or the reader knows something the characters do not know

Shakespeare Geek

Shakespeare makes life better.

Shakespeare 101, on Prezi

I don’t know what Prezi is, exactly, but I like the idea behind this presentation on Shakespeare’s Biography . It’s as if someone laid out a whole bunch of index cards on a big screen, some text, some graphics, and then played connect the dots with them. The player/browser walks you through the cards in the intended sequence, but be sure to click the X inside a circle (next to the Play button) which will bring up the entire map at once and yet you jump around. I’m not linking this for the quality of the Shakespeare info. It’s ok, and even covers some info that’s often overlooked (like the deer-poaching story, or the fact that when people speak of Shakespeare “inventing” words, that doesn’t really mean what you think it means). But it’s also pretty light on everything else, and never really mentions any plays at all, just timeline stuff. What’s interesting to me is the potential for something like this. Play with it first, so we can discuss it. Got it? Ok, good. Imagine this thing on an iPad. You’re using your fingers, getting in there and driving your way around Shakespeare’s life. Now like I said, this particular sample is pretty shallow – but imagine a really deep one that went into all the plays? Or even better something that had a certain amount of wiki to it, where people could continually comment and add ideas? It’s easy to write one sentence that says “Shakespeare had twins Judith and Hamnet, and Hamnet died at 11.” But think about all the different places throughout Shakespeare’s work where you could link possible examples of how his son’s death impacted his work. Imagine it interactive! This was apparently created by a teacher, for his class. So why not have something in there were students could post questions back to the teacher? Or have homework where they have to create their own branches? I love stuff like this that’s got obvious educational potential.

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Hamlet, Introduction to Shakespeare's Hamlet, Introductory Prezi & Google Slides

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What educators are saying

Description.

Grab every eye in the room with this 30-slide lecture (downloads in Prezi, Google Slides, and PDF versions) that provides all of the background information your class will need as you launch your study of William Shakespeare’s classic play, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.

The presentation includes a quickwrite topic that will help make Hamlet’s situation relevant to your students (15 minutes for writing and discussion). Then, launch into the 30-minute lecture which covers the time period and setting, profiles of eight important characters, detailed maps explaining Fortinbras’ military designs on the region, conflicts/themes, foils, and allusions to Julius Caesar.

Want a study question set to take your students through their study of Hamlet? Click HERE for scene-by-scene worksheets for Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet .

Want more lesson materials to get your students excited about Shakespeare? Click HERE to view my full catalog of Shakespeare lesson materials .

Thanks for stopping by!

Cover image credit: Pixabay, Public domain

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