Shakespeare Facts Flashcards
Categories of Shakespeare’s plays
Tragedy, comedy, history
Shakespeare’s 4 great tragedies
Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, and Othello
Shakespeare’s most widely taught plays
Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar
2 Shakespearean comedies
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The Taming of the Shrew
2 Shakespearean histories
Henry V, Richard III
Theatre he made famous
The Globe
River running through London
The Thames
Home town
Stratford on Avon
Wife
Anne Hathaway
Plays MUST be
Italicized (underlined if written)
Ben Jonson
Contemporary who said “Shakespeare is not of an age but for all time”
Monarch on the throne at the beginning of career
Elizabeth I
Monarch on throne at the end of his career
James I (James VI of Scotland)
Shakespeare’s theatrical groups
Lord Chamberlain’s Men
King’s Men
Scholars who believe Shakespeare wrote his atrributed plays
Stratfordians
Group of scholars believing Edward DeVere wrote the Shakespeare attributed plays
Oxfordians
Earl of Oxford many people believe wrote the Shakespeare attributed plays
Edward DeVere
Original collection of Shakespeare’s works
First Folio
Name given to the common people who stood in “the pit” for plays
Penny Knaves/Groundlings
Aside
Line spoken by actor to the audience that no one on stage hears
Soliloquy
Dramatic (usually long) speech given by a characte to himself, usually revealing his thoughts or reflections
Sonnet
A poem of 14 rhyming lines
Couplet
2 lines of poetry that usually rhyme
Exposition
Beginning/part of the story that reveals the basics of the tale
Rising action
Increase in the conflict/intensity of the conflict
Crisis/turning point
A significant event or change occurs that will affect the outcome of the story
Falling action
What comes after the climax and leads to the conclusion
Denouement
Resolution/end of the story
History
English Monarch
Comedy
Happy ending, usually marriage
Tragedy
Death
Blank verse
Poetry with regular meter (often iambic pentameter), but no rhyme. Most of Shakespeare’s plays are this
Iambic pentameter
Shakespeare’s sonnets, unstressed then stressed syllables, 5 metrical feet (iamb pairs)
Quatrain
Stanza of 4 lines, often with an alternating rhyme
Rythm
Regular pattern of something
Meter
A way of organizing and counting beats in poetry
“A little more…
than kin, and less than kind”-Hamlet
“Oh that this..
too too solid flesh would melt”-Hamlet
“Frailty,…
thy name is woman”-Hamlet
“Neither a…
borrower nor a lender be”-Polonius
This above all,…
to thine own self be true
“The dram…
Of evil”
“Something is rotten…
in the state of Denmark”
“There are more things…
in heaven and earth, Horatio / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy”-Hamlet
“Brevity…
is the soul of wit”-polonius
“More matter…
with less art”-queen
“Words,…
words, words”-Hamlet
“Though this be…
madness, yet there is method in’t”-Polonius
“There is / nothing…
either good or bad but thinking makes it so”-Hamlet
“What a piece…
of work is a man”-Hamlet
“I am but mad…
north-north west: when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw”-Hamlet
“The play’s…
the thing / wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king”-Hamlet
“O heavy…
burden”-king
“To be…
or not to be”-Hamlet
“Ay, there’s…
the rub”-Hamlet
“What dreams…
may come”-Hamlet
“Thus conscience…
does make cowards of us all”-Hamlet
“Get thee…
to a nunnery”-Hamlet
“O what a noble…
mind is here overthrown”-Ophelia
“O woe…
is me (I)”-Ophelia
“Madness in great ones…
must not unwatched go”-stuncle Claudius
“Suit the action to the…
word, / the word to the action”-Hamlet
“Purpose is…
but a slave to memory”-player king
“Our thoughts are…
ours, and their ends none of our own”-Player king
“It would cost you…
a groaning to take off mine edge”-Hamlet
“Tis now the very…
witching time of night”-Hamlet
“May one be…
Pardoned and retain the offense”-Claudius
“For use almost can…
change the stamp of nature”-Hamlet
“I must be cruel…
only to be kind”-Hamlet
“Hoist with…
his own petar(d)”-Hamlet
“O ‘tis most…
most sweet / When in one line two crafts directly meet”-Hamlet
“Good night,…
mother”-Hamlet
“Alas, poor
Yorick!”-Hamlet
“Sweets to the
sweet, farewell”-Queen Gertrude
“Goodnight sweet prince…
and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest”-Horatio
“The rest…
is silence”-Hamlet
