Great Writers
Ma An Shan
July 2009
Shakespeare & Dickens
• What do you already know about these
two famous writers?
• What would you like to know? Talk to your
colleagues and think of some questions
1. When and where was he born?
2. What do you know about his father?
3. Was he married? Did he have children?
4. Do you think he had a happy family life?
5. What jobs did he have?
6. Did he write plays, poetry or novels?
7. What famous stories did he write?
8. What themes did he write about?
9. Was he popular during his lifetime?
10. When did he die?
Early Life
• Shakespeare was born in • Like many of his characters,
Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564. His Dickens knew how hard life
exact birth date is a bit of could be. He was born on
mystery, like many aspects of February 7, 1812, in Portsmouth,
Shakespeare's life. While the England. When his father went to
exact date wasn't recorded, it prison for owing money, Dickens
has been commonly accepted as had to leave school. He went to
April 23. His father was a glove work in a factory to help support
maker and an important man in his mother and his seven
the town. Shakespeare attended brothers and sisters. Later he
school for a time and it is thought went back to school and then got
that some of his studies in a job at a solicitor‟s office. A
classical poetry, plays, and solicitor is a type of lawyer. After
history inspired his plays. that he worked several different
Shakespeare had become jobs as a newspaper reporter. In
known as a playwright and an 1833, he got some of his stories
actor in London by 1592. Some and essays published. His career
of his early works include Titus as a writer was beginning.
Andronicus and The Two
Gentleman of Verona
Family life
• It is believed that • In April 1836 Dickens
Shakespeare left school married Catherine
around the age of Thompson Hogarth, with
fourteen, which was not whom he had ten children.
uncommon at the time. They set up home in
He married Anne Bloomsbury, North
Hathaway in 1582 when London. They separated
he was eighteen years in 1858 but continued to
old. The next year they live together until she
had a daughter named died twenty years later.
Susanna. The Divorce was unthinkable
Shakespeare family grew in Victorian times,
again in 1585 with the particularly for someone
birth of twins named as famous as Dickens
Hamnet and Judith
• An outbreak of a deadly disease • Dickens was very successful
called the plague closed the with his first novel, The Pickwick
theaters in the early 1590s The Papers (1837). This work was
theatres reopened in 1594 and followed by Oliver Twist (1838)
Shakespeare returned to the and Nicholas Nickleby (1839).
stage as part of a troupe called Along with these early successes,
Lord Chamberlain's Men (later he wrote David Copperfield
the King's Men). He stayed with (1850), Bleak House (1853), A
this group as a playwright, an Tale of Two Cities (1859), and
actor, and a part-owner for many Great Expectations (1861) later
years. In 1599, the company built in his career. People loved the
the Globe, a theatre near London. interesting characters he created.
Shakespeare wrote some of his He liked to write novels about the
greatest tragedies and comedies development of his characters,
around this time. He created normally from boyhood to
Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and manhood. In his many works,
Macbeth as well as Twelfth Night Dickens wrote about both funny
and Measure for Measure here. and difficult situations. Dickens
Shakespeare's works were so saw both the moral and social
popular that even Queen purpose of art. By focusing
Elizabeth I of England had them attention on the poor, he used
performed for her . his stories to point out social
problems and awaken the
reader‟s conscience
Later years
• Shakespeare returned home to • Because of his own
Stratford-upon-Avon around experiences of poverty
1610 to 1613. He died on April Dickens empathized with the
23, 1616. Since his death, poor people, and as well as
there has been some focusing attention on them in
speculation whether he really his novels, he became actively
wrote all of the plays himself or involved in various
they were written by a group of organizations to help them.
people. Some have even Dickens died on June 9, 1870,
questioned whether he really after suffering from a stroke.
existed at all. The mysteries His stories remain popular with
surrounding Shakespeare may readers today and many have
never be solved, but there is been dramatized into films,
no arguing about the lasting musicals and television shows.
impact of the plays and poems None of his novels or short
attributed to him. stories has ever gone out of
print.
Answer the questions
• Many of Dickens‟ • What is the big
novels were mystery about
„autobiographical‟. Shakespeare‟s life?
What does it mean?
• “Hamlet is without question the most
famous play in the English language.
Probably written in 1601 or 1602, the
tragedy is an important step in
Shakespeare‟s dramatic development; the
playwright achieved artistic maturity in this
work through his brilliant depiction of the
hero‟s struggle with two opposing forces:
moral integrity and the need to avenge his
father‟s murder.”
• Hamlet is the son of the
King of Denmark, who
died two months before
the start of the play.
• After the King’s death,
his brother, Claudius,
becomes King, and
marries the King’s
widow, Gertrude
(Queen of Denmark).
Hamlet is very angry
that his mother has
married his uncle!
• Later, Hamlet sees
the ghost of his father.
The ghost tells
Hamlet privately that
Claudius had
murdered him by
pouring poison in his
ear. Hamlet is really
angry now and plans
to revenge his father's
death.
• Hamlet is really angry,
but confused. Can he
believe the ghost? He
behaves like a crazy
man… he is even
rude to Ophelia, the
woman he loves. He
is angry with
everybody, but should
he kill the new King?
Please read the original
speech made by Hamlet
The English is difficult (it‟s more than
400 years old), but can you understand
what Hamlet is talking about?
Discuss your ideas with a partner.
Next, watch the play & listen
Think about these questions
• How could Hamlet stop his problems?
• Why doesn‟t he do it?
• What 6 life problems does Hamlet
describe?
• Which metaphor does Hamlet use to
describe death?
• How does Hamlet‟s famous speech relate
to the story?
Read a modern English
version of the speech
Is it easier to understand now?
Now, try to answer the questions
• How could Hamlet stop his problems?
• Why does Hamlet compare sleep and
death?
• What 6 life problems does Hamlet
describe?
• Which metaphor does Hamlet use to
describe death?
• How does Hamlet‟s famous speech relate
to the story?
Which are the most famous
books in Chinese literature?
Do you know their titles in English?
Chinese classics
• Journey to the West • San guo yan yi
• Dream of the Red • Xi you ji
Mansions
• Hong lou meng
• Outlaws of the Marsh
• Shui hu zhuan
• The Three Kingdoms
What are these 4 classic
Chinese books about?
Can you write a synopsis for one of them?
100 -150 words
Now work with a partner and edit your work
Synopsis
• It‟s a romance / action / comedy / mystery
/ tragedy / history
• It‟s about …
• The main character is …
• It starts with … / In the beginning …
• It finishes with … / At the end …
• “Hamlet” is a tragedy. It‟s about the main
character‟s struggle with life; with what is right
and wrong. At the beginning of the play,
Hamlet‟s father, the King of Denmark, dies, so
his uncle becomes the new king and marries
Hamlet‟s mother. Hamlet is very angry, but,
when he discovers that the new king, Claudius,
probably murdered his father he begins to plan
his revenge. However, Hamlet has many doubts
about what he should do and he delays his
revenge. Finally, at the end of the play, Hamlet
kills Claudius, but Hamlet‟s mother, girlfriend, as
well as Hamlet himself, also die.
DAVID COPPERFIELD
CHAPTER 1
I AM BORN
Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life,
or whether that station will be held by anybody else,
these pages must show. To begin my life with the
beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have
been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve
o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began
to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.
I was born at Blunderstone, in Suffolk, or 'there by', as
they say in Scotland. I was a posthumous child. My
father's eyes had closed upon the light of this world six
months, when mine opened on it. There is something
strange to me, even now, in the reflection that he never
saw me; and something stranger yet in the shadowy
remembrance that I have of my first childish
associations with his white grave-stone in the
churchyard, and of the indefinable compassion I used
to feel for it lying out alone there in the dark night,
when our little parlour was warm and bright with fire
and candle, and the doors of our house were - almost
cruelly, it seemed to me sometimes - bolted and
locked against it.
Jacques: All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking* in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard*,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the canon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon* lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws* and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon*
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his* sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans* teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
(As You Like It, 2. 7. 139-167)