An Introduction to Shakespeare and King Richard III

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Task 1: What do you know about William Shakespeare?

I’m sure you’ve already encountered Shakespeare before…
Write down any facts you can remember about William Shakespeare
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READ THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION

SHAKESPEARE'S LIFE

William Shakespeare was baptised on 26 April 1564 at Holy Trinity in Stratford-Upon-Avon.

Traditionally his birthday is celebrated three days earlier, on 23 April, St George's Day.

SHAKESPEARE'S PARENTS

William's father, John Shakespeare, was glove maker, tanner and wool dealer who owned
property in Stratford. For a number of years he played an important role in the public life of the
town. He served on the town council and was elected bailiff (mayor). However, around 1576
John Shakespeare was beset by severe financial difficulties and he was forced to mortgage his
wife's inheritance.

William's mother, Mary Arden, was the daughter of a wealthy farmer, Robert Arden, who had left
her some land in Wilmcote, near Stratford. John and Mary Shakespeare had eight children: four
daughters, of whom only one (Joan) survived childhood. William was the eldest of the four boys.

EDUCATION

William almost certainly went to one of Stratford's junior schools where he would have learnt his
letters with the help of a hornbook (a book used for studying). From the age of around seven he
would have progressed to the King's New School where the focus would have been on Latin, it
still being the international language of Europe in the 1500s. Shakespeare probably left school
at the age of 14 or 15.
MARRIAGE AND CHILDREN

In 1582, when he was 18, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway. She was 26. Anne was the
daughter of a wealthy farmer. Their first child, Susanna, was born in May 1583. Twins, Hamnet
and Judith, were christened in February 1585. Anne’s home, now known as Anne Hathaway's
Cottage, still stands in the village of Shottery.

WRITING AND ACTING

The Plague broke out in London in 1593, forcing the theatres to close. Shakespeare turned to
writing poetry.

Shakespeare's earliest plays included Henry VI Parts I, II & III, The Two Gentlemen of Verona,
and Titus Andronicus. The sonnets (poems) were also written about this time, though they were
not published until 1609.

In 1594, Shakespeare became a founding member, actor, playwright and shareholder of the
Lord Chamberlain's Men. Richard Burbage was the company's leading actor. He played roles
such as Richard III, Hamlet, Othello and Lear. Under James VI/I, the company was renamed
The King's Men. They performed at court more often than any other company.

DRAMA IN SHAKESPEARE'S STRATFORD 

In Shakespeare's youth, Stratford was often visited by travelling troupes of professional actors.
These players probably sparked his interest in the stage, and he may have entered the London
theatre world though contacts made with them in Stratford.

We don't know when or why Shakespeare left Stratford for London, or what he was doing before
becoming a professional actor and dramatist in the capital. There are various traditions and
stories about the so-called 'lost years' between 1585 and 1592, a period for which there is
virtually no evidence concerning his life.
Task 2: Write down any new facts, in your own words, you have learnt from the
information about William Shakespeare

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 READ THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION

A VISIT TO THE THEATRE IN SHAKESPEARE’S TIME

Imagine you are living in 1592, Shakespeare’s time, and you are going to the
theatre. You set off at lunchtime. All plays take place during the day because
electricity has not been discovered yet. You may arrive at the theatre by boat
across the River Thames, but you can save your ferry fare and walk across
London Bridge. As you approach the Globe Theatre you pass the pits where bear
baiting and cockfighting take place. A flag is flying from the roof which means that
there is a performance today. People are crazy for the theatre, flocking to see the
latest plays and ogle at their favourite actors. Anyone and everyone goes to the
theatre in London. About 21,000 Londoners go to the theatre every week. That’s
over a tenth of the city’s population – so it could be a fairly busy journey!

The Globe
The play begins at 2
Theatre o’clock sharp and in
order to hurry people
along a loud shot is
heard from a tower.
Performances always
take place at the same
time on every day of the
week except Sunday and
during Lent. The theatres
were also shut from
October to April because
the audience is not fully
protected from the
weather and people do not want to watch plays in the freezing cold.
You enter the building and see the stage in front of you. Two pillars on the
stage support a roof for the actors. This is called the ‘Heavens’ and is painted with
stars, a sun and a moon. At the back of the stage is the musicians’ gallery.
Musicians with trumpets, drums and other instruments play tunes and make
sound effects. As you look around at the audience you will see lots of different
types of people. At the top of the building there are galleries where merchants,
sea-captains and clerks sit. They have paid between 2-6 pence for their seats.
There are ‘Gentlemen’s Rooms’ or boxes for rich and famous people and these
cost a shilling. Finally the lower class citizens, or servants and apprentices, are
standing in the yard or ‘pit’ in front of the stage and are known as ‘groundlings.’
They have only had to pay a penny. It’s not always fun for the people standing in
the ‘pit’ because sometimes a play can last four hours!
 Once the trumpet has sounded and the audience is in their correct places
the play will commence. The actors will have been rehearsing all morning and
usually have to learn eight hundred words a day. They also have a double up
parts, design sets, produce special effects, sell tickets and refreshments and
prompt the actors on stage. By the end of the day they must be exhausted. Don’t
be surprised when the actors playing the female parts are not women. Instead
young men dressed up as women play these parts. Women are not allowed to act
in 1592 because it is considered shameless and unladylike.
The audience make a lot of noise during performances – more like
spectators at a modern football match than a visit to see a play – cheering,
hissing, clapping, booing and crying. You can tell if they do not like the
performance as they will heckle and if they enjoy it they might start to sing along
to any songs. Pedlars, or street sellers, go amongst the crowd selling food and
drink to anyone who is hungry or who simply wants to throw something at the
actors. It’s a very smelly place. You may be able to detect the smell of sweaty,
dirty bodies, food and also the open buckets that are used as toilets!
So sit down and enjoy the show, but remember to keep a lookout for
pickpockets as they also have a good time at the theatre!

VOCABULARY

Task 3: Use the space below to write down any words from the text you
are not sure of – can you use a dictionary to find out their meanings?
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CHECKING FOR UNDERSTANDING

Task 4: Read through the following questions carefully – the answers are in the text you
have just read.

Write your answers in full sentences:

1. Why did all the plays take place during daylight hours?
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2. What time exactly did the performances begin?

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3. In which two ways did people travel to the theatre?

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4. What sort of activities might they pass on the way to the theatre?
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5. What did it mean when the flag was flying on top of the theatre?
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6. How many people visited the theatre in one week in London in 1592?
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7. Why, do you think, stars, a sun and a moon were painted on the roof above the stage?
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8. Who made the sound effects for the performance?

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9. Who sat in the ‘Gentlemen’s Rooms’ or boxes?
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10. Name five jobs that an actor may have done for the theatre group.
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11. Why weren’t women allowed to act at this time?

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12. What did pedlars sell during the performance?

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13. What might the audience do during the performance?

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14. Why did the theatre often smell unpleasant?

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15. Who, other then the audience, enjoyed visiting the theatre and why?
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 The Globe
Thefrom the outside
Middle Gallery The view from ‘TheThe
Pit/Yard’
Upper Gallery The Lower GalleryThe Stage

‘The Heavens’ (the stage roof) ‘Hell’ (The trap door in the stage)

CREATIVE WRITING:

Task 5: Using the information from the sheet, and your imagination, describe a day at the
theatre as if you are one of the following: (a) an actor (b) someone in the audience (c) a
pedlar OR (d) a pickpocket.

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Vocabulary
Playhouses – Theatres
Thames – the river that runs through London
Respectable – regarded by society to be good, proper, or correct.
Noble – having or showing fine personal qualities
Riles - make (someone) annoyed or irritated.
Corrupt – to act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain.
Sinners - a person who goes against godlike law by committing an immoral act.

Task 6:
You must defend the theatre against the puritans!
Otherwise Shakespeare will not be allowed to oduce great plays!
Write a short response to the puritan argument, your argument must support
the playhouses.
Ideas to defend the theatre:
• The theatre adds to the English language
• The theatre can inspire goodness
• The theatre allows people to consider social issues
• The theatre can be educational
• The theatre is a place to meet new people
• The theatre is entertaining and fun!
• The theatre earns money for the economy

Persuasive Devices:
• Anecdote
• Rhetorical question
• Rule of three
• Counter argument
• Emotive language
• Statistics
• Expert opinion (quotation)

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King Richard III

‘Richard III is a play about evil, violence and murder. It charts the rise of
Richard, Duke of Gloucester, a cold-blooded and dastardly villain who
slaughters his family and even marries his victim’s widow to become king.
It’s a history play, but the plot isn’t necessarily true to events: Shakespeare
wrote the play during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The hero of the play,
who ends Richard’s reign of tyranny, is Richmond, who goes on to become
King Henry VII, Queen Elizabeth’s grandfather’
Plot Overview
After a long civil war between the royal family of York and the royal family of Lancaster, England
enjoys a period of peace under King Edward IV and the victorious Yorks. But Edward’s younger
brother, Richard, hates Edward’s power and the happiness of those around him. Nasty, power-
hungry, and bitter about his physical deformity, Richard begins to secretly want the throne—and
decides to kill anyone he has to so he can become king.
Using his intelligence and his skills of dishonesty and political manipulation, Richard begins his
fight for the throne. He manipulates a noblewoman, Lady Anne, into marrying him—even though
she knows that he murdered her first husband. He has his own older brother, Clarence,
executed, and moves the feeling of guilt onto his sick older brother King Edward in order to
quicken Edward’s illness and death. After King Edward dies, Richard becomes lord protector of
England—the person in charge until the elder of Edward’s two sons grows up.

Next Richard kills the court noblemen who are loyal to the princes, Lord Hastings, the lord
chamberlain of England. He then has the boys’ relatives on their mother’s side—the powerful
kinsmen of Edward’s wife, Queen Elizabeth—arrested and executed. With Elizabeth and the
princes now unprotected, Richard has his political friends, mainly his right-hand man, Lord
Buckingham, fight to have Richard crowned king. Richard then imprisons the young princes in
the Tower and, in his bloodiest move yet, sends murderers to kill both children.

By this time, Richard’s time in power of terror has caused the common people of England to
fear and hate him. When rumours start about a challenger to the throne who is gathering forces
in France, noblemen join his forces. The challenger is the earl of Richmond, a descendant of a
secondary arm of the Lancaster family, and England is ready to welcome him.

Richard, in the meantime, has his wife, Queen Anne, murdered, so that he can marry young
Elizabeth, the daughter of the former Queen Elizabeth and the dead King Edward. Though
young Elizabeth is his niece, the marriage would secure his claim to the throne. Nevertheless,
Richard has begun to lose control of events, and Queen Elizabeth manages to stop him.
Meanwhile, she secretly promises to marry young Elizabeth to Richmond.
Richmond finally invades England. The night before the battle that will decide everything,
Richard has a terrible dream in which the ghosts of all the people he has murdered appear and
curse him, telling him that he will die the next day. In the battle on the following morning,
Richard is killed, and Richmond is crowned King Henry VII. Promising a new era of peace for
England, the new king is promised to young Elizabeth in order to unite the warring houses of
Lancaster and York.

Task 7: Richard III Storyboard

- Using the plot overview, choose six parts of the play to draw into the boxes below:
 Shakespeare text Modern translation
RICHARD
RICHARD
Now is the winter of our discontent
Now all of my family’s troubles have come
Made glorious summer by this son of York,
to a glorious end, thanks to my brother,
And all the clouds that loured upon our house
King Edward IV. All the clouds that
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
threatened the York family have vanished
5Now are our brows bound with victorious
and turned to sunshine. Now we wear the
wreaths,
wreaths of victory on our heads. We’ve
Our bruisèd arms hung up for monuments,
taken off our armor and weapons and hung
Our stern alarums changed to merry
them up as decorations. Instead of hearing
meetings,
trumpets call us to battle, we dance at
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
parties. We get to wear easy smiles on our
Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled
faces rather than the grim expressions of
front;
war. Instead of charging toward our
10And now, instead of mounting barbèd
enemies on armored horses, we dance for
steeds
our ladies in their chambers, accompanied
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
by songs on the lute. But I’m not made to
He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber
be a seducer, or to make faces at myself in
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
the mirror. I was badly made and don’t have
But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
the looks to strut my stuff in front of pretty
15Nor made to court an amorous looking
women. I’ve been cheated of a nice body
glass;
and face, or even normal proportions. I am
I, that am rudely stamped and want love’s
deformed, spit out from my mother’s womb
majesty
prematurely and so badly formed that dogs
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
bark at me as I limp by them. I’m left with
I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,
nothing to do in this weak, idle peacetime,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
unless I want to look at my lumpy shadow in
20Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time
the sun and sing about that.
Into this breathing world, scarce half made
up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable Task 8: Find quotations from the
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them— Shakespearean language box (on the left
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, hand side) that present Richard III as:
25Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to see my shadow in the sun - Grateful ‘
And descant on mine own deformity.

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- Selfish ‘______________________________________________________________’
RICHARD SLEEPS
[…]
KING RICHARD III STARTS OUT OF HIS
DREAM
KING RICHARD III
Give me another horse! Bind up my wounds!
Have mercy, Jesu! Soft, I did but dream.
O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict
me!
The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight.
Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.
What do I fear? Myself? There’s none else by.
Richard loves Richard, that is, I am I.
Is there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am.
Then fly. What, from myself? Great reason
why—
Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself?
Alack, I love myself. Wherefore? For any good
That I myself have done unto myself?
O no! Alas, I rather hate myself
For hateful deeds committed by myself.
I am a villain; yet I lie, I am not.
Fool, of thyself speak well; fool, do not flatter:
My conscience hath a thousand several
tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
Perjury, perjury, in the highest degree;
Murder, stern murder, in the direst degree;
All several sins, all us’d in each degree,
Throng to the bar, crying all, “Guilty! Guilty!”
I shall despair; there is no creature loves me,
And if I die no soul will pity me.
And wherefore should they, since that I myself
Find in myself no pity to myself?
Methought the souls of all that I had murder’d
Came to my tent, and every one did threat
Tomorrow’s vengeance on the head of
Richard.
RICHARD SLEEPS
KING RICHARD III WAKES SUDDENLY
OUT OF HIS DREAM
KING RICHARD III
Give me another horse! Bandage my
wounds! Have mercy, Jesus!—Wait, I was
only dreaming. Oh cowardly conscience,
how you’re torturing me! The candles burn
blue—that means it’s the dead of night. I’m
sweating and trembling with fear. But what
am I afraid of? Myself? There’s no one else
here. Richard loves Richard, that is, there’s
just me and myself here. Is there a murderer
here? No. Yes, I am. Then run away. What,
from myself? Yes, to avoid taking revenge
on myself. Unfortunately, I love myself.
Why? Did I do anything good to myself? Oh,
no. Alas, I hate myself instead, because of
the hateful deeds I’ve committed. I am a
villain. But I’m lying; I’m not a villain. Fool,
speak well of yourself. Fool, do not flatter
yourself.
My conscience has a thousand separate
voices, and each voice tells a separate
story, and each story condemns me as a
villain. Perjury, perjury, in the highest
degree; murder, ominous murder, in the
highest degree; all kinds of sins, all done in
each degree—bad, worse, and worst—all of
these crimes cry out "Guilty! guilty!" I will
despair. There is no one who loves me, and
if I die no one will pity me. And why should
they, since I can't even find any pity for
myself in myself? Just now it seemed like
the souls of all those I murdered came to my
tent, and every one of them threatened that
vengeance would fall on my head tomorrow.
Task 9: Using the modern translation above can you identify the meanings of the
following words?

 Coward
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 Afflict
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 Trembling
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 Revenge
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 Flatter
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 Several
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 Condemns
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 Villain
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 Perjury
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Task 10: Try using the words below in a sentence of your own:

Several:
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Trembling:
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Revenge:

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Task 11: Create your own Villain below, label their personality qualities around your
image:
Task 12: Descriptive writing

Use the information you have come up with about your villain to write a thorough
description of them below, putting all of their personality traits and features into detailed,
descriptive sentences.

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