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Scared of Shakespeare?
'No Fear Shakespeare', a website that translates Shakespeare text into modern English, was my first contact with Shakespearean text.
Open Days
An essential introduction to the realities of life at Drama Studio London “Really enjoyed the classes on …
Alumni
A regular TV actor for Netflix (The Crown), Fox (Tyrant), ITV (Vera) and E4, and has also had film roles including in Skyfall and The Fifth Estate.
No Fear Shakespeare
The full text of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets side-by-side with translations into modern English. No fear Shakespeare is available online and in book form at barnesandnoble.com.
Shakespeare Study Guides
Thorough summaries and insightful critical analyses of all the plays. Our most popular guides include quick quizzes, so you can test your retention before the test.
Why was Shakespeare afraid of the Charnel House?
One theory is Shakespeare’s fear of the charnel house; it was common practice at that time for the bones of the dead to be exhumed to make space for new graves. The exhumed remains were kept in the charnel house. At Holy Trinity Church, the charnel house was very close to Shakespeare’s final resting place.
How old was Shakespeare when he died?
Too Young to Die. Shakespeare died at just 52 years of age. If we take into account the fact that Shakespeare was a wealthy man by the end of his life, this is a relatively young age for him to die. Frustratingly, there is no record of the exact date of Shakespeare’s birth and death -- only of his baptism and burial.
What caused Shakespeare's death?
Unfortunately, no one will ever know the exact cause of Shakespeare's death. But there are some tantalizing facts that help us build a picture of what the most likely cause would have been. Here, we take a look at the last weeks of Shakespeare’s life, his burial and the Bard’s fear of what might happen to his remains.
When was Shakespeare baptized?
The parish register of Holy Trinity Church records record his baptism at three days old on April 26, 1564, and then his burial 52 years later on April 25, 1616. The final entry in the book states “Will Shakespeare Gent”, acknowledging his wealth and gentleman status.
Was Shakespeare ill between Merry Meeting and his death?
Certainly, there would have been a cause for celebration as Jonson would have just become poet laureate at that time and there is evidence to suggest that Shakespeare was ill for a few weeks between this “merry meeting” and his death.
Who is Lee Jamieson?
Lee Jamieson, M.A., is a theater scholar and educator. He previously served as a theater studies lecturer at Stratford-upon Avon College in the United Kingdom.
Who is John Ward?
The diary of John Ward, a past vicar of Holy Trinity Church, records some scant details about Shakespeare’s death, although it was written some 50 years after the event. He recounts Shakespeare’s “merry meeting” of hard drinking with two literary London friends, Michael Drayton and Ben Jonson. He writes:
What did Shakespeare say about the plague?
Shakespeare seems to have shared Nashe’s skepticism that there would ever be a medical solution to the plague—“Physic himself must fade” —and, from what we know of the science of his time, this pessimism was justified. He focussed his attention instead on a different plague, the plague of being governed by a mendacious, morally bankrupt, incompetent, blood-soaked, and ultimately self-destructive leader.
What plague did Shakespeare live in?
Shakespeare lived his entire life in the shadow of bubonic plague. On April 26, 1564, in the parish register of Holy Trinity Church, in Stratford-upon-Avon, the vicar, John Bretchgirdle, recorded the baptism of one “ Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakspere .” A few months later, in the same register, the vicar noted the death of Oliver Gunne, an apprentice weaver, and in the margins next to that entry scribbled the words “ hic incipit pestis ” (here begins the plague). On that occasion, the epidemic took the lives of around a fifth of the town’s population. By good fortune, it spared the life of the infant William Shakespeare and his family.
What does "modern" mean in Shakespeare's "All's Well That Ends Well"?
In Shakespeare’s English, the word “modern” meant something like trivial, as when a character in “All’s Well That Ends Well” muses that “They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons, to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless.
What is the epidemic in Shakespeare's speech?
Lord, have mercy on us! In Shakespeare, epidemic disease is present for the most part as a steady, low-level undertone, surfacing in his characters’ speeches most vividly in metaphorical expressions of rage and disgust.
What does it mean when you feel weakness?
A feeling of extreme weakness or exhaustion would give way to diarrhea, vomiting, bleeding from the mouth, nose, or rectum, and telltale buboes, or swollen lymph nodes, in the groin or armpit. Death, often in great agony, would almost inevitably follow.
What is the ill-timed quarantine?
The ill-timed quarantine is an agent of the star-crossed lovers’ tragic fate. There is one passage in Shakespeare’s work that vividly conveys what it must have felt like when the whole population of a city or a country fell into the iron grip of plague.
Is the plague in Shakespeare's plays?
The plague as an actual event figures prominently in only one of Shakespeare’s plays. Friar Laurence in “Romeo and Juliet” has asked a fellow friar to deliver a crucial message to the exiled Romeo in Mantua, informing him about the clever drug that is going to make Juliet appear to have died.
