SHAKESPEARE, THE BOOK OF THOMAS MORE & THE STRANGERS' CASE

If they banished you from your country, where would you go? Would you like to find a nation as barbarous as yours who would spurn you like dogs?”

MACHIAVELLI AND ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND

European Influence of Machiavelli

The influence of Niccolò Machiavelli (1469 - 1527) on European poliical and philosophical thought and literature was immense in the 16th and 17th century, particularly with his famous treatise on politics and statecraft: Il Principe (written 1513 - published 1531). This fame, however, was very much contrasted both in Italy and in Europe.

In Italy, Il Principe was officially condemned by the Church at the Council of Trento (1545) and in 1559 the book was finally included in the Indice dei Libri Proibiti because of its atheism and anthi-religious doctrines. In many European countries, on the other hand, Il Principe was considered to be he instrument of Jesuit propaganda against Protestants and Catholics because he was the first to separate politics from ethics or religion. In his treatise, Machiavelli portrayed not the ideal ruler but the kind of ruler that emerged from a study of past and present history.

SHAKESPEARE'S OUTSIDERS: OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE

These are some of the materials we used in today's class about  Othello, Venice and the clash of Civilizations in Shakespeare's tragedy: 

The Clash of Civilizations

An introduction to Venice

Venetian Women

Othello's Pre-history and Christian slaves 

SHAKESPEARE THE POET - VENUS & ADONIS

By the early 1590s, we know for sure that Shakespeare had become an actor. He was working very closely with a group of actors. They moved between a number of different companies, but it  rapidly became apparent that the leading figure among them was Richard Burbage. He would go on to become Shakespeare's closest friend and the man for whom he wrote all the great parts (Romeo, King Lear, Richatd III)
Shakespeare and those actors, such as Burbage, were just establishing themselves as some of the leading players in the early 1590s when disaster struck. There was a major outbreak of plague, and the theatres had to be closed. The point of that was that public places with large crowds in close proximity to each other were very dangerous from the point of view of the spread of infection. So,  whenever a bad outbreak of plague hit London, immediately the theatres were closed. That was a problem for the actors. What they had to do was get out on the road, tour in the provinces, and the takings were always much poorer there than they were in the city with its huge population.

It seems, though, that in 1593 and 94 while various acting companies were out in the country, Shakespeare didn't go with them. It would seem that just as he was establishing himself as a playwright, he decided on an alternative, or an additional course, for his writing. He decided to write poetry.

SHALL I COMPARE THEE ...? SHAKESPEARE IN MUSIC

Watch the video and listen to the song. It's one of Shakespeare's sonnets sung by David Gilmour (Pink Floyd): Sonnet 18 - Shall I compare thee

Worsheet   (poem and text analysis questions) .

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE - HATH NOT A JEW EYES?

                             Watch the video then answer the questions in the worksheet HERE

ANONYMOUS - WAS SHAKESPEARE A FRAUD?

READ THE ARTICLE + WATCH THE VIDEOS AND ANSWER THE QUESTIONS IN THE WORKSHEET HERE

Scholars and intellectuals have argued the subject for centuries. Was William Shakespeare, the man from Stratford-upon-Avon, the “true” writer who penned the scope of work attributed to him? Or, was the name “Shakespeare” merely a cloaked facade to shield the identity of the works’ authentic author? Have we all been “played”?

Those who believe William Shakespeare did not pen the work are called Anti-Stratfordians; these scholars believe that Shakespeare’s “life doesn’t link up to his work.” They hold that only an aristocrat would have been able to pen such articulate and elevated prose.

Anti-Stratfordian scholars that hold to the “Oxfordian Theory of Shakespeare Authorship” believe that we’ve been “played” by a very talented, stealth Elizabethan courtier named Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. These specific scholars call themselves “Oxfordians.”

Oxfordians maintain that Edward de Vere’s biographical life matches that of the author of Shakespeare’s canon (at least more so than the biography of William Shakespeare of Stratford).

HAMLET

  

Imagine you are a young university student ... Imagine you love Philosophy and Poetry ... You've got friends as well as  a beautiful girl you start fancying about...But your happy ordinary world is suddenly turned upside down by the news of your father's death. You grieve and mourn but you can cope with it...What you really can't stand is ... your mother's behaviour...After just few weeks,  she gets married again, with your uncle, your father's brother...You find it unbearable but nobody else seems to notice that unacceptable exhibition of joy and love. Then something even worse happens: your father's ghost comes back from hell, reveals you the tragic truth of his death and orders you to avenge him! Your uncle Claudius has murdered him and now he is your mother's new husband!

What would you do? Would you respect your father's will? 

This is what happens in the first act of Shakespeare's "Hamlet", one of  the most popular tragedies of all times.