WebQuest on
William
Shakespeare’s Life
Directions
Step 1: Go on a “quest” to find a trusted website on
William Shakespeare’s life and works.
Usually, you can trust a university site. After you complete the webquest by filling in
the blanks, list your sources at the bottom.
Step 2: Add three images that demonstrate aspects of
Shakespeare’s life and works.
Some suggested sites
for you:
William
Shakespeare’s Life and Works
William
Shakespeare was born on April 23rd, 1564, and died on April 23rd, 1616. During his lifetime and after his death, he
was nicknamed the “Bard” or the "Bard of Avon". When Shakespeare was eighteen years old, he
married Anne Hathaway of the town Stratford on Avon. She was 8
years older than he was. They had
3 children and their son named Hamnet later died in childhood. Shakespeare’s father was quite a prosperous
merchant as a glove maker, which allowed William to attend school as a boy and
study grammar Latin classes. In 1580,
Shakespeare left Stratford and moved to London to write and act in plays.
Throughout his
writing career, William Shakespeare wrote 37
plays and 154 sonnets and 3 poems.
Shakespeare’s London
William
Shakespeare was living during an exciting time in the history of Great
Britain. Queen Elizabeth was the ruler
of Great Britain and she reigned for 60 years.
The time period (1500’s – 1600’s) was known in Great Britain as the
Renaissance, which means “rebirth.”
Three areas in which Great Britain was thriving in during this period of
its history were literature, visual art, and music. After the above monarch (ruler) dies, King
James rose to the throne.
One popular form of
entertainment during Shakespeare’s life was the theatre. William Shakespeare worked with a company of
actors called the Lord Chamberlin's Men or the King's Men and they performed
their plays at the famous Globe Theatre, located on the bank of the Thames
River. For the first time in English
history, people of all classes were allowed to attend play performances at the
Globe Theatre. Three interesting facts
about this theatre were that the Globe Theatre was built from reused wood from
a theatre called The Theatre, that the theater was able to hold up to 3,000
people, and that the crest above the theatre's entrance read "totus mundus
agit histrionem", which is Latin for "the whole world is a
playhouse". During Shakespeare’s drama writing career, he wrote four of
the most accomplished tragedies in literary history. These four tragedies that he wrote between of
1604-1607 were Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear. Eventually, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and
other theatres were shut down by the religious groups and the Black Plague
(which wiped out the population of half of Europe). In 1613, the Globe Theatre was demolished by
fire due to malfunction of special
effects.
After William Shakespeare’s death at the age
of 52, his critic and friend Ben Johnson helped to gather all of Shakespeare’s
works in order to get it published in one central bound book. This collection
was titled First Folio.
Today, audiences all
over the world are still captivated by such plays as the one we are about to
read entitled A Midsummer Night's Dream, one of William Shakespeare’s most
popular love comedy.
