William Shakespeare lived in Elizabethan England. London was noisy and crowded with inns and taverns, workshops, stables and stalls. Imagine you are a young man or woman living during that era. What clothes would you have worn? What would your house have looked like and what would it have been made of? And how would you have earned a living? Do some research on the internet and in the library and discover for yourself what it would have been like to live in Shakespeare’s time.
Choose one of the retellings in this collection and write an updated, modern version – set in your neighbourhood.
See how many famous quotes from Shakespeare’s plays you can find – for example: ‘Good night, Good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be tomorrow.’ Romeo and Juliet [Act II, scene ii]
The life of Shakespeare and his family was devastated by recurrences of the Black Death (also known as Bubonic Plague). Several of his brothers and sisters and his only son, Hamnet, died when he was just eleven years old as a result of the Plague. There were repeated outbreaks of this terrible disease. What was it and how did it spread? What did people do to try and ease the symptoms? Was there a cure? Find out all you can about the Plague.
One of the best ways to experience and understand Shakespeare is to see one of his plays performed live on stage. Keep an eye out for a stage production at a theatre in your area and go along!
There have been many excellent adaptations of Shakespeare’s stories for the stage and screen. Some are set in Shakespeare’s time, using the original dialogue; some are present-day in modern English. For example, Cole Porter’s musical Kiss Me Kate, film director Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet and Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing. And there’s the classic movie for teenagers, starring the late Heath Ledger, Ten Things I Hate About You, which is based on The Taming of the Shrew. Why not rent a DVD and see for yourself?