#7 #WorkBookDay #Shakespeare

Hey!

This week is full of celebrations! Tea Day, first, and now...World Book Day! Yes, we all know, books, reading, etc but, what's special about this day in the UK? 

Shakespeare! 

First things first. The Day of the Book is celebrated all over the world on 23rd April as it is the anniversary of Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare's death (and Garcilaso de la Vega's death too!). They died on 23rd 1616, on Saint George's Day. Well, more or less. In the 17th century they didn't have strict brith dates or death dates records. In adittion, at that time, in Spain we had the Gregorian Calendar and England used the Julian Calendar so Shakespeare died around 10 days after according to the Gregorian Calendar (23rd April > 3rd May) But, anyway!

 Surprisingly, Shakespeare was born around the 23rd April too (he's baptismal record dates from the 26th...so he must have been born some days before, probably on the 23rd). What a coincidence! Although not in the same year, obviously! 

Cervantes and Shakespeare's importance is wellknown for everyone. They introduced big changes in the Spanish and English literary productions but also to the language. New words, expressions etc. Both of them are considered the fathers of literature. How impressive!

So, today, we'll get to know Shakespeare a bit more 

**Caution: I R-E-A-L-L-Y like him, so, with me you're going to learn even his foot size!! ;) 

So, Shakespeare, who was he? Find out in this video! 

The video is great, but let's see some real pictures.

This is the wonderful town were Shakespeare was born: Stratford-upon-Avon, in Warwickshire (central England) It's just 40 minutes drive from Birmingham, the second biggest city in England (by the way, I'll talk about my beloved Birmingham, its Black Country and its chocolate another day)

You can see Shakespeare's birthplace, his wife's cottage, his mother's farm, his school and Holy Trinity Church (where he was baptised and buried). Stratford has some lovely canals, too.

Stratford has a trust (=fondo national para la conservación histórica) dedicated to Shakespeare and his family's houses: Shakespeare's Birthplace Trust; and a big theatre dedicated to Shakespeare, too (obviously!): The Royal Shakespeare Company

If you go to England, please, please, visit Stratford!!

(This lovely cat is waiting for you!)

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SHAKESPEARE'S CELEBRATIONS

Shakespeare! His here! He's only 404 years old, look how young!

Wow! Look at his anniversary cake!

Yeah! We need music!

Stratford inhabitants having their teas!

Look closely....British style everywhere! 

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SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS

As you have seen in the video, Shakespeare moved to London to become an actor and write more plays. There he help build The Globe, where his plays were (massively) performed. This is The Globe (the new one, the first one was burnt)

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PLAYS 

He wrote around 36 plays! They were comedies, histories and tragedies. As you may know, many of his plays are quite bloody...you know...characters are killed most of the times.

These are probably his best known plays: 

If you want to watch the story...elementary level click here // intermediate and upper-intermediate level click here. Enjoy!!

If you want to watch the story...elementary level click here// intermediate and upper-intermidiate level click here. Enjoy!

If you want to watch the story...elementary level click here // intermediate and upper level click here. Enjoy!

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SONNETS

Shakespeare also wrote sonnets. He wrote 154. This is the beginning of the most famous one: 

Sonnet 18

What do you notice about the words? Well, it's Early Modern English. For example, 'thee' means 'you' as object pronoun, 'thou' means 'you' as subject pronoun, and 'art' means 'are'.
 If you want to read it in Modern English, click here. If you want to do it in Spanish click here.

 It's a nice poem about love and the passing of time. 

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SHAKESPEARE'S FAMOUS QUOTES

 There's a really famous monologue which I'm sure you know:

It's very well-known, right? Well, it is a monologue by Hamlet, who gets quite crazy in his play and he shares his thoughts and ideas a lot. I'm going to show you Hamlet's most famous actor (Paapa Essiedu) performing this monolgue. You may not understand, don't worry, I just want you to enjoy English and enjoy theatre for some minutes ;) 

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There's another quote form another play (As You Like It) and it's also very popular:

(=the world is a theatre, people are actors and we perform our own play)

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SHAKESPEARE'S INVENTED WORDS

Now, did you know that Shakespeare invented 1,700 words and expressions that we use today?? He was a genius! Look!



You will probably recognise:  'break the ice', 'love is blind', 'heart of gold'


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LAST BUT NOT LEAST...

I know that by now you are DESPERATE to read ALL Shakespeare's works, read ALL his poems, travel to his hometown, watch a performance in The Globe, and you even want to become actresses as well!

However, girls, we can't by now (you know, coronavirus...) BUT we can watch films!

Have you ever seen Shakespeare in Love? Or Hamlet ?



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I'm going to finish today with one of Shakespeare's plays titles:

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

Take care!

XX