Interesting Facts about Shakespeare

Elizabethan Theatre

-         Capacity: 2500 people

-         The stage was bare (open to the sky)

-         Three floors of galleries

The main focus of the plays was on characters themselves and what they said.

The setting was not very important.

Night scenes were performed using light torches. It was a hazardous practice, as the theatres were made of wood

Women roles were played by young men. Because people taught women had not capacity to take this role.

Soliloquy

It is a speech made by a character when he/she is alone on the stage. Shakespeare often used lyric poem, highly emotional, or philosophic content and poetic in expression.

During a play the main character used to have several soliloquies and the antagonist, only one.

Dramatic purposes:

-         Reveal the mood of the speaker

-         Reveal the character of the speaker

-         Reveal his opinion of some other important character on the play

-         Create suspense, often by foreshadowing events

-         Reveal the motives of the speaker

-         Advance the plot

Shakespeare’s London

London was the centre of England, the centre of everything.

During Shakespeare era there were a lots of diseases in London. Most of all diseases were transmitted by a rat plague.

The life of William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England in 1564. And he died on April, 23, 1516.

William was the third of seven children. On his childhood he attended a very good grammar English school, where his instructors were Oxford graduates and his learned Latin.

Shakespeare was married with Anne Hathaway and had three children, two girls and a boy.

Clothing, cosmetics and food

People hardly ever washed their clothes, because the colours would run. The technique of setting colour in fabric had not yet been perfected.

Cosmetics:

-         A white lead based powder was used on the face to achieve a fashionable “pallor”.

-         Wigs were often used

-         Blue “veins” were drown into resemble a child’s skin.

-         Red paint was used on slips

Normal people usually ate meat and bread. Meat was bad cooked and they only used knifes.

Vegetables and fruits were not seen very often.

Lots of people caught germs by tapeworms and ringworms.