William Shakespeare

Discover Shakespeare's world! Fun worksheet on plays, idioms, and language history for young learners.

William Shakespeare in a Nutshell Watch the video and fill in the blanks. William Shakespeare, also known as "The Bard", was a famous English playwright. He lived during the Elizabethan era (16th century). He began his career as a member of the Lord Chamberlain's company, which would later become the King's Company. The Globe Theatre was their very own first stage.In those times, women were not allowed to pursue a career in acting.His plays became famous because they had something for everyone in the audience. Both the common people and the aristocracy liked them.Besides plays, Shakespeare also wrote sonnets and poems. At first, his work consisted almost exclusively of histories and comedies. Later, he also started writing tragedies.Shakespeare's poems and plays influenced the English language. He invented new words which are still part of the English vocabulary today, like 'lonely' and 'gossip'.He died in 1616 at the age of 52, but his plays are still performed today. Explain why Shakespeare's plays appealed to both the common people and the aristocracy. Dividing Shakespeare's plays into categories Shakespeare's works fall into three main categories: the plays, the sonnets, and the poems. The plays are further divided into three categories: the comedies, the histories and the tragedies.The comedies have common elements: they involve lovers and they almost always have a happy ending.The central theme of the history plays is the gain and loss of power, and, in particular, the theme of divine right. Shakespeare spends a lot of time discussing what makes a good, wise, and successful ruler in his history plays.All the tragedies have a hero (or protagonist) that must overcome external and internal obstacles. Often, the protagonist has a 'tragic flaw' that leads to his ultimate destruction. Comedies A Midsummer Night's Dream The Merchant of Venice The Tempest The Winter's Tale Histories Richard III Henry VIII Richard II Tragedies Romeo and Juliet Hamlet Macbeth Shakespeare's Idioms Shakespeare is the world’s most quoted poet and dramatist, but most people who regularly quote him, have no idea that they are doing so. His expressions have simply entered the language and become common English idioms.Idioms are fixed combinations of words where the meaning may not be obvious from looking at the individual words. For example, the idiom, ‘to melt into thin air’, which comes from The Tempest, simply means to disappear suddenly and completely. Sometimes, though, the meaning is pretty clear., For example, the idiom ‘to come full circle’ (from King Lear), where the idiomatic meaning, ‘to end up in the place where you started,’ is close to the literal meaning.Because idioms are fixed, we can’t change the word order or substitute any of the parts of the idiom. For example, the idiom ‘neither here nor there’, from Othello, which means ‘irrelevant or unimportant’, cannot be expressed as ‘neither there nor here’.’The meaning of some of Shakespeare’s idioms would have been clearer in the sixteenth century,. For example, the idiom, ‘a laughing stock’ (from The Merry Wives of Windsor), which means someone that everyone is laughing at. The phrase, which is actually found in earlier writings than Shakespeare’s, refers to the way that people used to be punished for small crimes by being locked into wooden stocks, and having people throw things, such as rotten fruit and vegetables, at them. ‘Mum’s the word’ (Henry VI pt2), is usually assumed by modern- day speakers to refer to mothers, or mums for short. However, it actually refers back to a kind of theatre performance, called ‘mumming’, which was done silently. So ‘Mum’s the word’ means ‘Don’t talk about it’.’Other Shakespearean idioms have changed meaning slightly over the years. For example, ‘in a pickle’ nowadays means in a difficult or problematic situation, but when Shakespeare used it in The Tempest, he simply meant that Trinculo was drunk. And Shakespeare used ‘the game is up’ in Cymbeline, to mean that a series of events had ended badly. Nowadaysit tends to mean that we have discovered someone’s bad or criminal behaviour.At the time that Shakespeare was writing, Modern English was less than 100 years old, and Shakespeare was the first author to write much of it down. He is also thought to have created around 1,700 words himself by changing verbs to nouns or adjectives, adding prefixes and suffixes and so on.: Forexample, ‘amazement’, ‘bedroom’, ‘dawn’, ‘unreal’, ‘hurried’, ‘luggage’, and many, many more. Without Shakespeare, the English we speak today would be very different. 1. Shakespeare is quoted more often than any other playwright. true false 2. It is always impossible to understand the meaning of an idiom from just the individualwords. true false 3. Shakespeare invented Modern English. true false 4. The meaning of some of Shakespeare’s idioms has changed since he first usedthem. true false 5. Shakespeare added around 1,700 new words to the English language. true false Shakespeare's Idioms Match the idiom with the corresponding picture. To Melt into Thin Air To Come Full Circle A Laughing Stock In a Pickle The Game is Up Mum's the Word Complete each sentence with the correct idiom. 1. The city grew and prospered by manufacturing cars in the 1970s, became poorer in the 1990s, but it has now come full circlewith the growth of new IT- based industries.2. Mum's the word! Don’t tell him, or it won’t be a surprise!3. I got myself in a pickle when I forgot to fill the car with petrol and ran out miles from anywhere.4. OK, the game is up, I know what you’ve been doing and I’m going to tell your parents.5. I can’t possibly wear that ridiculous hat. I’ll be a laughing stock.6. No -one knows where he has gone. He seems to have melted into thin air.