Shakespeare's Life and Times

• Renaissance means rebirth, but do you know what the time period was characterized by?
• What was life like in Elizabethan England?
• Did playwrights make a lot of money or not?
• Drama was a popular activity at schools and universities, but what are interludes and masques?
• Who is this Christopher Marlowe I've read so much about?
• Why is he so well known even though he died at such an early age?
• The Renaissance is often thought of as The Age ofShakespeare whose dramas reflect the influence of early church ceremonies. I am always surprised when I hear people argue that he never wrote his great canon of plays. Are you?
• What makes Shakespeare so famous anyway?
• How did Elizabethan audiences know whether the scene was a night scene or not if there wasn't any artificial lighting?
• I know that dramatic terms are boring, but can you tell me what a soliloquy and an aside are?

Finally, there are people who are anti-Shakespearen - They feel that few of any of the plots for Shakespeare are original. They say that Shakespeare "borrowed" stories from real life and altered them for the stage.
·     Is that true for "Macbeth"?
·  Do you know or can you find the source of Macbeth's story?