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LITERATURAS DE LÍNGUA 
INGLESA 
AULA 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Profª Patricia Barreto Mainardi 
 
 
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GETTING STARTED 
The modern English language and its major author: William Shakespeare 
This lesson offers a historical overview of the formation of the English 
language, its first literary manifestations and the importance of William 
Shakespeare for English-language literature and world literature. The student 
must be able to understand the conditions of formation of the English language, 
from Indo-European to Old English, Middle English and finally Modern English; 
to mention the main founding works of English-language literature in each of the 
periods along the evolution of the language from its earlier forms to the 
Elizabethan Age, their authors, characteristics and their production contexts; and 
to understand the relevance of Shakespeare's work, mainly the sonnets and the 
plays (historical, tragedies and comedies) in the Elizabethan period and for later 
literature. 
TOPIC 1 – THE FORMATION OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND ITS FIRST 
LITERARY MANIFESTATIONS 
Even though English is not the most spoken first language in the world, it 
is the most used as a second or foreign language. It means that English is used 
every day between people from different countries, origins, and cultures to share 
information and knowledge. It is the language of science and business and has 
reached an important status in the globalized society we live in. So much so that 
we often refer to it as an International Language, World English and as a Lingua 
Franca. 
However, there is much history behind the current status of English. It 
traces back to 5,000 b.C., with Proto-Indo-European, the parent language of most 
of the languages spoken in the world today. 
 
 
 
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Figure 1 – Indo-European Languages in a nutshell 
 
As shown in Figure 1, English is a Germanic language derived from Proto-
Indo-European, just as many other modern languages, such as Dutch and 
German. In the Roman branch we can see the Latin languages and find 
Portuguese, along with French and Spanish, among others. 
When English emerged, according to Baugh and Cable (2002, p. 42) in 
the midst of the 5th Century (brought to the British Isles by the Jutes, the Saxons 
and the Angles, invading Germanic tribes), it was very different from the language 
we know and speak nowadays. Throughout its history, English has undergone 
three major periods: Old English, Middle English and Modern English. 
The language spoken before the 11th century is referred to as Old English. 
It employed a different writing system, using runic characters at first, and was 
used in some parts of the British Isles along with Celtic languages, such as Gaelic 
(which is still spoken in Ireland and Wales). Overtime, the Latin alphabet was 
introduced by the Romans, but due to the differences of the writing system, 
reading an original text in Old English demands study of the characters and its 
organizational features: 
In fact a page of Old English is likely at first to present a look of greater 
strangeness than a page of French or Italian because of the 
employment of certain characters that no longer form a part of our 
 
 
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alphabet. In general the differences that one notices between Old and 
Modern English concern spelling and pronunciation, the lexicon, and 
the grammar. (Baugh; Cable, 2002, p. 47) 
It is important to know that Old English was not a monolithic language and 
presented, as any other language, variation. The known dialects are 
Northumbrian, Mercian, Kentish, and West Saxon. Most samples of written 
language ever found and analyzed by scholars date from the 8th century on and 
were recorded in West Saxon, including the first well-known literary work of the 
English Language, Beowulf. 
Composed by an anonymous poet between the 8th and the 11th centuries, 
Beowulf is an epic poem in Old English, compiled from legends and traditions of 
the Germanic and Scandinavian tribes, which stories have been transmitted 
orally before being recorded in writing. Regarding form, Beowulf was written in 
verse, with approximately 3,000 unrhymed long lines, which employ four stresses 
and alliteration (the repetition of consonants in the beginning of words). It tells the 
story and adventures of Beowulf, a Scandinavian hero, who helps Hrothgar, the 
king of the Danes, to save his people by slaying a monster named Grendel. 
Afterwards, Grendel’s mother attacks the Danes in revenge for her son’s death 
and is also destroyed by Beowulf. The hero moves to Sweden, where he 
becomes the king of Geatland, his homeland. He reigns for fifty years, until he 
faces his final challenge, a fire-breathing dragon. Beowulf succeeds once again 
in battle, but ends up fatally wounded and perishes saving his people. 
The poem thematizes values of loyalty between leaders and followers, 
bravery, but mainly the finitude of human life and the inevitability of fate: even the 
bravest will succumb and find their demise. If it is impossible to escape fate, the 
sacrifice of Beowulf transforms him in a savior and a glorious hero to be recalled 
for ages. 
Below you will find an excerpt of Beowulf, translated by the Irish poet 
Seamus Heaney: 
Prologue – Early history of the Danes 
So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by 
And the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness. 
We have heard of those princes’ heroic campaigns. 
 
There was Shield Sheafson, scourge of many tribes, 
A wrecker of mead-benches, rampaging among foes. 
This terror of the hall-troops had come far. 
A foundling to start with, he would flourish later on 
 
 
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As his powers waxed and his worth was proved. 
In the end each clan on the outlying coasts 
Beyond the whale-road had to yield to him 
And begin to pay tribute. That was one good king. 
 
Afterwards a boy-child was born to Shield, 
A cub in the yard, a comfort sent 
By God to that nation. He knew what they had tholed, 
The long times and troubles they’d come through 
Without a leader; so the Lord of Life, 
The glorious Almighty, made this man renowned. 
Shield had fathered a famous son: 
Beow’s name was known through the north. 
And a young prince must be prudent like that, 
Giving freely while his father lives 
So that afterwards in age when fighting starts 
Steadfast companions will stand beside him 
And hold the line. Behavior that’s admired 
Is the path to power among people everywhere. (1999, p. 3-5) 
Get to know more 
If you would like to read and listen to Beowulf in Old English, use the 
following link: . 
The language spoken between the 12th and the 15th centuries is defined 
as Middle English. By the end of the Old English period, the Norman conquest 
of England (1066 C.E.) lead to a major change in the language, due to the 
influence of the French language. Plenty of French words were incorporated by 
English and spelling and pronunciation would change dramatically. It would 
undoubtedly affect everyday use of the language, and moreover the literature of 
the period. French and Italian works influenced Middle English literature, what 
lead to a diversification of genres and the rise of important authors and works. 
 
The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman, by William 
Langland – written around 1370, employs the long alliterative unrhymed lines 
of Old English and a simple and colloquial language, in powerful allegories. It 
presents a series of dream visions of a narrator named Will and his alter ego, 
Piers, about truth, justice and a straight Christian life, which is, however, 
compromised by the corruption of the Church. 
 
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, anonymous – a lay, or short 
romance intended to be sung, was written in the late 14th century as a tale of 
chivalry and adventure, a medieval genre influenced by French sourcesand 
Arthurian legends. 
 
 
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Although these and other works were part of the legacy of the Middle 
English period, its most relevant author would be the 14th century English poet 
Geoffrey Chaucer. 
1.1 Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales 
Little is known of Geoffrey Chaucer’s biography: born in the 1340s to a 
wealthy merchant family, he was fluent in French and Italian and served as a 
soldier and a diplomat during the Hundred Years War. He travelled across Europe 
and might have contacted Boccaccio and Petrarch: the former’s influence is 
clearly noticeable in Chaucer’s most famous work, The Canterbury Tales, written 
in Middle English. Different from Old English, it resembles the language we speak 
today. A good hint to approach the original text in Middle English is to read it 
aloud: pronunciation can help you in understanding the lines. 
The Canterbury Tales is a compilation of 24 stories told by pilgrims while 
travelling to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Beckett, at the Canterbury Cathedral. 
The pilgrims represent different aspects of society in the 14th century England, 
from knights and member of the clergy, to peasants, merchants, artisans and 
workers, men and women. The tales present the social tensions of the historical 
context produced by The Black Death, which had swept England out, and by the 
struggle between different social classes: nobles, peasants, merchants, and the 
emerging working class. A narrator, also a pilgrim, organizes the events and 
presents his own impressions of the other storytellers. 
The themes presented throughout the book are the courtly love, the 
importance of social life, the corruption in the Catholic Church and in upper 
classes. These themes and motifs are carefully crafted, interwoven skillfully by 
Chaucer, who introduced the use of the iambic pentameter line and the rhyming 
couplet (among other patterns of Italian poetry) in the English Literature and is 
considered its first master. 
 
Excerpt from “1.2 The Knight’s Tale” (original verses followed by a 
modern adaptatiton) 
 
859 Whilom, as olde stories tellen us, 
 Once, as old histories tell us, 
860 Ther was a duc that highte Theseus; 
 There was a duke who was called Theseus; 
 
 
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861 Of Atthenes he was lord and governour, 
 He was lord and governor of Athens, 
862 And in his tyme swich a conquerour 
 And in his time such a conqueror 
863 That gretter was ther noon under the sonne. 
 That there was no one greater under the sun. 
864 Ful many a riche contree hadde he wonne; 
 Very many a powerful country had he won; 
865 What with his wysdom and his chivalrie, 
 What with his wisdom and his chivalry, 
866 He conquered al the regne of Femenye, 
 He conquered all the land of the Amazons, 
 
(Source: ) 
TOPIC 2 – THE ELIZABETHAN AGE 
The Elizabethan Age is one of the most relevant landmarks of British 
history. After a period of war and religious struggle, that would result in the 
ascension of the Tudor dynasty and the separation of the Church of England, art 
and literature would flourish under the rule of Queen Elizabeth I (from 1588 to 
1603). In the 15th century, the growth of the middle class, the rise of education 
and universities, and the introduction of the printing press in England by William 
Caxton had contributed to increase literacy and readership, and also for the 
dissemination of humanist values of Renaissance, which had already influenced 
greatly continental Europe. The importance of the medieval theological mindset 
would lessen and classical works of philosophy would be revisited, producing a 
new state of mind and a new literature, in prose, poetry and drama. 
It is in this context that Sir Thomas More would produce Utopia (1516). 
According to Chaui, 
in Greek, topos means place and the prefix “u” is used as a negative; 
then, utopia means “no place” or “nowhere”. Actually, writing to 
Erasmus, Thomas More, who had invented the word, emphasizes that 
it is employed in a negative sense, or “no place”. (2008, p. n/a) 
Therefore, it is a place that cannot be found; moreover, it is not a place 
which the author lived in or knew, but an impossibility. Utopia is a narrative in 
prose written in Latin, describing a nation organized and ruled under principles of 
reason, what denounces the failure of rulers in using philosophical principles as 
guidance. Furthermore, it narrates a journey and would influence travel accounts 
and fiction in later periods, such as Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels and 
Brave New World (Carter; McRae, 1997, p. 82). 
 
 
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Prose was also the province of Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), 
philosopher and essayist of economical style who wrote on law, politics, ethics, 
science, history, religion, among other subjects. “No single English intellectual 
symbolizes the idea of Renaissance more than Bacon” (Carter; McRae, 1997, p. 
78), who developed the essay in English based on French models such as 
Montaigne’s: a flexible genre that expresses the author’s personal thoughts and 
viewpoints, sometimes with humor, some in a provocative fashion, but always 
with wit. Other prose writers were Richard Hooker, Sir Thomas Elyot, Thomas 
Dekker and John Donne, the latter better known as a poet. 
Poetry of the period, at first, did not break with medieval models of chivalry, 
virtue and courtly love, but the idea of the writer as a scholar was enhanced in 
innovators such as Sir Philip Sidney, whose Astrophel and Stella (1591) 
represents idealized love using the Sonnet, an Italian form whose English 
adaptation presented three quatrains and a rhyming couplet, but that could vary 
from 12 to 16 lines. Edmund Spenser, in his Faerie Queene (1590-1596), 
elaborates on the adventures of knights of the Arthurian cycle, using the epic form 
to mix myths and history and praise knightly virtues and ideal love. 
Another important trend in Elizabethan Age is that of Metaphysical Poetry, 
which employed innovative verse forms and conceptual complexity in dense 
poems, exploring conflicts and conceptual tensions, such as that of sensuous 
pleasure and religious concerns, or between science and religion. The most 
important metaphysical poets were John Donne (1572-1631) and George Herbert 
(1593-1633). Donne’s lines from The Flea are emblematic of his poetry: 
Mark but this flea, and mark in this, 
How little that which thou deniest me is; 
It sucked me first, and now sucks thee, 
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be; 
Thou know’st that this cannot be said 
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead, 
 Yet this enjoys before it woo, 
 And pampered swells with one blood made of two, 
 And this, alas, is more than we would do. (Donne, 1912, p. 40) 
In the poem, the insect is a symbol of the couple’s connection for it has 
sucked the lovers’ blood, one at a time: the male persona is trying to persuade 
the woman to engage in pre-marital sex with him by saying that their blood has 
already been mixed and “this, alas, is more than we would do”, in a very clever 
and logical, though metaphorical, fashion. 
 
 
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Even though prose and poetry were important in Elizabethan Age, drama 
is the most notorious literary form of the period. Theatre had been widely used 
during the Middle Ages as a form of spreading religious ideas and teaching an 
illiterate public about religious precepts and rules. These could be morality plays, 
in which virtues and vices, such as good and evil, truth and lies, generosity and 
avarice were personified in characters in plays with a clear didactic purpose. Also, 
miracle plays would represent the life and the martyrdom of saints; mystery plays 
would present biblical subjects. 
Along with these genres, classical comedies and tragedieswould also 
have a significant role in the development of Renaissance drama from the earliest 
examples of the period in the 1550s and 1560s: 
both [tragedies and comedies] were derived from Latin sources: 
comedies from the works of Terence and Plautus, tragedies largely 
from Seneca, with echoes from Greek antecedents in both cases. […] 
Thus, although drama went through rapid changes in the period, its 
historical credentials were rich and varied as indeed were its range and 
impact. […] This was the golden age of English drama. (Carter; McRae, 
1997, p. 69) 
The chief playwrights of the earlier period were Thomas Kyd and 
Christopher Marlowe. The former is the author of The Spanish Tragedy (1589), a 
revenge play that would echo in Shakespeare’s Hamlet; the latter was a prolific 
writer, who authored Tamburlaine (1587), Dr Faustus (1588), The Jew of Malta 
(1589), and Edward II (1592). Marlowe’s artistry is oftentimes compared to his 
fellow playwright’s, William Shakespeare, and his plays “are full of spectacular 
action, bloodshed, and passion, to match the language he uses” (Carter; McRae, 
1997, p. 75). 
We have already discussed two periods of the English language: Old and 
Middle English. The Elizabethan Age is the landmark of Modern English: a 
language much closer to the one we use in contemporary times. Despite 
differences in spelling and pronunciation, even early Modern English is very 
similar to ours, and literature shows it. Written in vernacular language, i.e. the 
language of real people leading real lives, Elizabethan literature would present 
an accessible language, and deal with issues of all social classes and origins. It 
would only be possible due to the introduction of the printing press and the 
increase of literacy in Britain, that would create a huge readership and an early 
publishing industry. At the same time, many prolific writers would expand English 
 
 
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lexicon dramatically, by creating new words, borrowing terms from other 
languages and giving new uses to old words. 
Back to Elizabethan Theatre, there is a major subject we need to face and 
explore in this course: probably the most well-known English writer, whose 
influence would fall upon almost all the subsequent authors, like a monument that 
casts so huge a shadow that it is impossible to escape. And this monument is 
William Shakespeare. 
TOPIC 3 – WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: THE HUMAN TAKES THE STAGE 
William Shakespeare, poet, playwright, and actor, was born in 1564 in 
Strafford-upon-Avon to John Shakespeare, a merchant and important civic figure 
in the town, and his wife, Mary. Even though neither of them had formal or 
elaborate instruction, they “wanted their son to have a proper classical education 
[…]. Starting at age seven, he was sent to the Strafford free grammar school, 
whose central education was total immersion in Latin” (Greenblatt, n/a, p. 14). 
There, he would have the first contact with the classical works of Plautus and 
Terence, Roman playwrights. 
Despite his parents’ concerns about providing him a good education, 
Shakespeare would not attend university, unlike other fellow writers, like 
Marlowe. He lived with his parents in Stratford until 1582, when he married Anne 
Hathaway, mother of his three children. According to Schoenbaum, “from 1585 
[…] until 1592, when we hear about Shakespeare in a quite different context 
[already established as an actor and playwright], the documentary record 
presents a virtual blank” (1978, p. 95). Scholars refer to the period as The Lost 
Years. 
At some point in the late 1580s he moved to London and started his career 
as a successful writer, acknowledged during his lifetime. Actually, 
in a remarkably short time, [Shakespeare] becomes the greatest 
playwright not of his age alone but of all time. His works appeal to the 
learned and the unlettered, to urban sophisticates and provincial first-
time theatergoers. He makes his audiences laugh and cry; he turns 
politics into poetry; he recklessly mingles vulgar clowning and 
philosophical subtlety. He grasps with equal penetration the intimate 
lives of kings and of beggars; he seems at one moment to have studied 
law, at another theology, at another ancient history, while at the same 
time he effortlessly mimes the accents of country bumpkins and takes 
delight in old wives’ tales. How is an achievement of this magnitude to 
be explained? (Greenblatt, n/a, p. 95) 
 
 
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3.1 Cronology 
Shakespeare wrote plays, narrative poems and sonnets. Moreover, he 
was an actor and is supposed to have directed his own plays on stage. Perhaps 
for this reason, they do not present many written stage directions – because of 
this, contemporary directors have to rely heavily on the text itself in order to define 
how to manage the action. 
Shakespeare’s plays were written for the stage. Moreover, publication was 
not a priority at the time. Although some of them had been published before, the 
first complete compilation, The First Folio, was published posthumously, in 1623. 
Ever since, his works have been consistently and successfully published, staged 
and adapted for different contexts and means, from the Elizabethan stage to the 
silver screen. 
Even though there is much controversy about when each work was 
produced, below you can find a list of Shakespeare’s plays and poems and their 
probable year of production (Bloom, 1998, p. XIV and XV): 
Henry VI, Part One 1589-90 
Henry VI, Part Two 1590-91 
Henry VI, Part Three 1590-91 
Richard III 1592-93 
The Two Gentlemen of Verona 1592-93 
Venus and Adonis 1592-93 
The Comedy of Errors 1592-93 
Titus Andronicus 1593-94 
The Taming of the Shrew 1593-94 
The Rape of Lucrece 1593-94 
The Sonnets 1593-1609 
Love’s Labour’s Lost 1594-95 
King John 1594-96 
Richard II 1595 
Romeo and Juliet 1595-96 
A Midsummer Night's Dream 1595-96 
The Merchant of Venice 1596-97 
Henry IV, Part One 1596-97 
The Merry Wives of Windsor 1597 
Henry IV, Part Two 1598 
Much Ado About Nothing 1598-99 
Henry V 1599 
Julius Caesar 1599 
As You Like It 1599 
Hamlet 1600-1601 
The Phoenix and the Turtle 1601 
Twelfth Night 1601-1602 
Troilus and Cressida 1601-1602 
All's Well That Ends Well 1602-1603 
Measure for Measure 1604 
Othello 1604 
King Lear 1605 
 
 
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Macbeth 1606 
Antony and Cleopatra 1606 
Coriolanus 1607-1608 
Timon of Athens 1607-1608 
Pericles 1607-1608 
Cymbeline 1609 -1610 
The Winter's Tale 1610 - 1611 
The Tempest 1611 
A Funeral Elegy 1612 
Henry VIII 1612-1613 
The Two Noble Kinsmen 1613 
Although Shakespeare has become especially well-known by his plays, 
his poems are among the most beautiful and well-crafted in the English language. 
He wrote 154 sonnets in Elizabethan form — that would be latter become known 
as the Shakespearean sonnet: twelve lines in three quartets and a couplet at the 
end, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg, and presented in a single stanza. However, he 
would employ the syllogistic reasoning from the Petrarchan sonnet: a first and 
then a second proposition are presented; they entail a logical consequence and 
then a conclusion, presented in the final couplet. 
The themes and motifs revolve around love, power, time and poetry itself: 
“the power of the beloved to command is a microcosm of all power. The suffering 
of a lover is a symbol of all suffering” (CARTER and McRAE, 1997, p. 101). 
Moreover, he intertwines the idea that love outlasts time and that of poetry as a 
force that immortalizes love. His sonnets are surprisingly modern to our ears, and 
speak to the individual in a compelling fashion. One of them is presented below, 
Sonnet 15: 
 When I consider everything that grows 
 Holds in perfection but a little moment, 
 That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows 
 Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; 
5 WhenI perceive that men as plants increase, 
 Cheered and check'd even by the selfsame sky, 
 Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, 
 And wear their brave state out of memory; 
 Then the conceit of this inconstant stay 
10 Sets you most rich in youth before my sight, 
 Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay 
 To change your day of youth to sullied night; 
And all in war with Time for love of you, 
As he takes from you, I engraft you new. 
Get to know more 
All Shakespeare’s sonnets can be found online in English, including some 
of their readings. A good source, if you want to read more, is 
. 
 
 
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3.2 The theater – Historical plays 
History and the definition of England as a nation can be considered one of 
the major themes in Shakespearean drama in the historical plays. When 
Shakespeare started his career as a playwright, around 1590, Elizabeth I had 
been ruling for more than 30 years, reaching the highest point after the defeat of 
the Spanish Armada, in 1588. Writing in a moment of prosperity emphasized the 
importance of tracing back the conditions for the successful state of English and 
its status as a world power: 
Shakespeare examines the personalities who were the monarch of 
England between 1377 and 1485. Generally called the history plays, 
these works are, on one level, a glorification of the nation and its past, 
but on another level, they examine the qualities which make a man a 
hero, a leader, and a king. This is a process not of hero-worship, but of 
humanizing the hero (Carter; McRae, 1997, p. 92). 
This humanizing process is, actually, an important feature in 
Shakespeare’s works. Different from the classical models of drama, in which 
characters were presented in an almost divine fashion, but inescapably subject 
to destiny, Shakespearean characters are inherently human, responsible for 
decision making processes and the consequences that would follow. This leads 
us to one of the most important plays in this cycle: Richard III. 
Written between 1592 and 1593, Richard III presents the ascension of 
Richard, Duke of Gloucester, to the throne after terrible acts against his own 
brothers and nephews, and his short reign. Richard deliberately plots against his 
family in order to achieve his goal of becoming king: he “is portrayed as a 
complete villain: the epitome of ‘Machiavellian’ evil, the enemy the Tudor dynasty 
had to destroy. But, as a theatrical character, this villain becomes a fascinating 
hero” (Carter; McRae, 1997, p. 93). 
The play begins with one of the most important Shakespearean features, 
a soliloquy, in which Richard introduces himself: 
Now is the winter of our discontent 
Made glorious summer by this sun of York; 
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house 
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. 
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths; 
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments; 
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings, 
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures. 
Grim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front; 
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds 
 
 
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To fright the souls of fearful adversaries, 
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber 
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute. 
But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, 
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; 
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty 
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; 
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion, 
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, 
Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time 
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, 
And that so lamely and unfashionable 
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them; 
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, 
Have no delight to pass away the time, 
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun 
And descant on mine own deformity: 
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover, 
To entertain these fair well-spoken days, 
I am determined to prove a villain 
And hate the idle pleasures of these days. 
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous, 
By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams, 
To set my brother Clarence and the king 
In deadly hate the one against the other: 
And if King Edward be as true and just 
As I am subtle, false and treacherous, 
This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up, 
About a prophecy, which says that 'G' 
Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be. 
Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here 
Clarence comes. 
(Shakespeare, Act I, Scene I) 
In this speech, Richard presents his most secret intentions, making very 
clear from the beginning that he will do whatever it takes to become king. 
Soliloquies were employed and developed by “the bard” (how Shakespeare used 
to be called) as a means of showing the audience the inner feelings and 
motivations of a character, as if we had access to his or her thoughts. In Richard 
III, soliloquies make us aware of Richard’s terrible plans, as he shares them with 
us: it is like if the audience became his accomplice, knowing in advance what is 
about to happen, and, somehow empathizing with a terrible villain, due to his 
intelligence and wit. However, as the action unfolds, Richard becomes more and 
more lustful for power, what isolates him from the other characters, for he cannot 
trust anyone, and also from the audience. He has to face the ghosts of the ones 
he murdered in the path to the throne. In the end, he had to fail, just as in actual 
history, and his fall would open a path for the posterior rise of the Tudor dynasty, 
resulting in Elizabeth’s reign. 
In Richard III and other historical plays, we are presented with characters 
with more positive qualities, such as the heroic Henry V and the Earl of Richmond, 
 
 
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responsible for Richard’s defeat and death in battle; later he would become king 
Henry VII, Elizabeth I’s grandfather. The play is, however, more than a praise to 
the Tudor dynasty and some of its tragic features echo in later plays: Richard’s 
personality may be considered a first draft for one of Shakespeare’s major 
characters, in one of the great tragedies, Macbeth. Moreover, the complexity of 
the play echoes in other works, not only the tragedies, but also the comedies, as 
we will approach further. 
TOPIC 4 – SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDIES AND COMEDIES 
Among the 38 plays written by Shakespeare, probably the most regarded 
and best-known are the Tragedies. Despite the fact that historical plays include 
tragical elements, their main feature is connected to the tracing of British identity; 
at the same time, some of the tragedies have been based on historical 
characters, such as Julius Caesar and Anthony and Cleopatra. However, the core 
of his tragedies revolves around Hamlet (1600-1601), Othello (1604), Macbeth 
(1606), and King Lear (1605). 
Hamlet is a revenge tragedy, in which the eponymous character, a Danish 
prince, returns to his homeland due to his father’s, king Hamlet, death. Back in 
Denmark, he is confronted by the king’s ghost, who urges him to avenge his death 
by killing his murderer, his own brother Claudius, who married Gertrude, the 
widow and Hamlet’s mother, and became the new king. However, Hamlet 
struggles with the task: his conflicts are similar to those of the modern individual, 
too eager for self-determination and freedom to simply execute someone else’s 
revenge, even if his father’s: “Hamlet has been described as melancholic and 
neurotic, as having an Oedipus complex, as being a failure and indecisive, as 
well as being a hero, and a perfect Renaissance prince” (Carter; McRae, 1997, 
p. 97). He has his own issues to deal with, and delays carrying out revenge for it 
is not his, but the ghost’s. In this sense, Hamlet is a hero close to our 
contemporary standards, who struggles with the expectations set upon him and 
with his own becoming. At the same time, existence is too heavy a burden to 
stand, as the most famous of Shakespeare’ssoliloquies state in Act III, scene I: 
To be, or not to be, that is the question, 
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer 
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, 
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; 
 
 
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No more; and by a sleep to say we end 
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks 
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation 
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; 
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; 
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come 
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, 
Must give us pause: there's the respect 
That makes calamity of so long life; 
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, 
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, 
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, 
The insolence of office and the spurns 
That patient merit of the unworthy takes, 
When he himself might his quietus make 
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, 
To grunt and sweat under a weary life, 
But that the dread of something after death, 
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn 
No traveller returns, puzzles the will 
And makes us rather bear those ills we have 
Than fly to others that we know not of? 
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; 
And thus the native hue of resolution 
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, 
And enterprises of great pith and moment 
With this regard their currents turn awry, 
And lose the name of action.--Soft you now! 
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons 
Be all my sins remember'd. 
Hamlet is pondering life: existence in general and his own, through the 
internalization of the self. He shares the conflict with the audience (or the reader), 
and struggles with the weight of life and that of his task. Later in the play, a 
powerful reminder of the fact that people are all doomed is presented: it does not 
matter whether servant or king, decadence awaits all: 
Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain 
convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your 
worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all 
creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for 
maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but 
variable service, two dishes, but to one table: 
that's the end. 
(Shakespeare, Act IV, scene III) 
Regarding the other great tragedies, Othello is a powerful play on envy 
and jealousy, in which the strong hero, Othello himself, is risen to high standards 
of virtue to be stripped away from his dignity through the evil plot woven by Iago 
(according to Bloom, the great character in the play), murdering his beloved 
Desdemona and resorting to suicide as a means of executing justice for his own 
terrible acts; Macbeth emphasizes the importance of self-determination, as the 
audience is presented with a valiant general who falls from grace when the 
 
 
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ambition to become king overcomes his loyalty to the ruler he serves. King Lear 
represents multiple confrontations — reason x madness, justice x injustice, and 
loyalty x deceit, for example — in the mature years of the old King Lear, who 
distributes his kingdom to his daughters, neglecting the loving Cordelia and 
favoring the older ones, Goneril and Regan, who set him aside, abandoning their 
father. Lear had led a life of appearances, ruling with absolute power, and is 
ruthlessly doomed to solitude and madness. 
There is definitely much more to Shakespeare’s tragedies, which have no 
easy interpretation or solution. In the end, the audience/ reader has to make 
decisions about what to accept or not; what to believe or not; what to conclude 
from the complex plots woven by the bard based on the dark or enlightened 
depths of human soul. 
Nevertheless, the comedies are also important studies of existence and of 
human virtues and frailties. Although they seem to be lighter than the tragedies, 
many present dark tones, and face the complexities of human inner emotions and 
relationships. A perfect example of these sullen notes on human characters is in 
The Merchant of Venice: in the play, Antonio, a merchant loans money from 
Shylock, a jew, in order to help his friend Bassanio to court Portia, a beautiful and 
wealthy heiress. When Antonio does not manage to pay the debt, Shylock wants 
him to do what the contract between them prescribes: give him a pound of his 
flesh, what would naturally cause his death. Even though Shylock is the villain, 
Shakespeare provides him with great eloquence and a perception of his 
subordinate condition, for antisemitism was the rule in society: 
To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, 
it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and 
hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, 
mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my 
bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine 
enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath 
not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, 
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with 
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject 
to the same diseases, healed by the same means, 
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as 
a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? 
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison 
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not 
revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will 
resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, 
what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian 
wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by 
Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you 
 
 
18 
teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I 
will better the instruction. 
(Shakespeare, Act III, Scene I) 
Thus, Shylock does not simply accept this condition, and speaks of his 
burden, which is hopelessly connected to his identity, to who he is in his inner 
self. In the end, the prejudiced ethos of the times prevails. Even though allowed 
to present his case and arguments against the debtor before the jury, Shylock 
cannot receive his compensation; moreover, he is deprived of fortune and of his 
daughter, who becomes a runaway to marry a Christian. 
Other plays also present this type of complex reasoning, such as Measure 
for Measure, in which a young woman has to use her wit to defend her brother’s 
life and her own virtue; others are deeply connected to Roman tradition of comedy 
plays, such as The Comedy of Errors, based on Plautus’ Menaechmi, which 
presents the adventures and confusions between twins separated in 
childhood.Shakespeare, however, goes further in his story, exacerbating the 
mismatch with two sets of twins. 
TOPIC 5 – THE SHAKESPEAREAN LEGACY 
More the 400 years after Shakespeare’s death, he is still one of the most 
influential authors in the world. His works have influenced virtually every author 
who has written in English after him, as many writers of other languages and 
cultures as well. However, Shakespeare’s influence goes further: 
Shakespeare's characters are roles for actors, and also they are 
considerably more than that: their influence upon life has been very 
nearly as enormous as their effect upon post-Shakespearean literature. 
No world author rivals Shakespeare in the apparent creation of 
personality, and I employ “apparent” here with some reluctance. To 
catalogue Shakespeare's largest gifts is almost an absurdity: where 
begin, where end? He wrote the best poetry and the best prose in 
English, or perhaps in any Western language. (...) His total effect upon 
the world's culture is incalculable. After Jesus, Hamlet is the most cited 
figure in Western consciousness; no one prays to him, but no one 
evades him for long either. (BLOOM, 1998, p. xviii-xix) 
The area of Shakespeare studies has been an important development of 
literary studies and criticism in the English language, with several scholars 
conducting research on the poet’s work, his influence on other authors and the 
prolific life of his plays. Samuel Johnson,Goethe, Sigmund Freud, William 
Wordsworth, Harold Bloom and Stephen Greenblatt are among the most 
distinguished thinkers who focused on the bard’s legacy. 
 
 
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 In later literature, the reach of Shakespeare pervades poetry and prose, 
and even though the Neoclassical Augustans were, as in any period or literary 
movement, distancing themselves from immediate precursors, Hamlet echoes in 
Milton’s Satan and his own search for individuality and freedom. Romanticism 
would recover this quest for the place of the individual in the world, and would, 
further, praise the idea of genius, mediating the image of Shakespeare between 
Elizabethan Age and our contemporary eyes. 
According to Bloom, “Shakespeare's influence, overwhelming on 
literature, has been even larger on life, and thus has become incalculable, and 
seems recently only to be growing” (1998, p. 717). In the twentieth century, the 
popularization of the cinema would result in the dissemination of Shakespearean 
drama. According to Ferro (2011, p. 49) three major trends are particularly 
important for this: British actor and director Laurence Olivier and North-American 
actor and director Orson Welles, who adapted Shakespeare’s plays between 
1940s and 1960s, and British actor Kenneth Branagh’s adaptations in the late 
twentieth century. Their versions would make his works well-known among the 
general public, helping in creating an even wider reach for the plays and for 
Shakespeare’s persona. Furthermore, they would become part of the poet’s 
legacy, recognized by scholars as references for his study. Among them, Welles’ 
adaptation of Macbeth (1948) and Olivier’s and Branagh’s Hamlet versions (1948 
and 1996 respectively) are highly considered film productions. 
Many other directors have adapted Shakespeare’s plays for the screen 
and the stage, setting them in different cultural environments, different moments 
in time, different groups. Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood (1957) and Ran 
(1985) adapt respectively Macbeth and King Lear to an Eastern setting. Ian 
McKellen’s Richard III (1995) presents us with a fascist villain, in a version that 
echoes the 1930s Germany. Baz Luhmann’s Romeo + Juliet (1996) is a modern 
version of the play set in contemporary times. Italian Franco Zeffirelli also adapted 
Romeo and Juliet (1968), and also The Taming of the Shrew (1966), and Hamlet 
(1990). All these versions show how the author’s strength still stands, speaking 
to different audiences, despite of age and cultural background, through different 
means.) 
 
 
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SUMMING UP 
In this lesson, the first of our course, we have covered crucial aspects for 
the understanding of the evolution of English, from its origins, with a different 
alphabet and completely different sounds, to modern English in the 16th and 17th 
centuries, even though this variety is quite different from what we speak today. 
We discussed the founding works of literature in the English language, Beowulf, 
the first of them, and The Canterbury Tales, considered the first masterpiece of 
British literature. Then, we discovered the Elizabethan Age, a golden era in which 
England became a world power and its culture was fostered by a powerful ruler, 
with many authors, poets and playwrights. Finally, we approached the most 
important author of the English language, William Shakespeare, and explored the 
features of his poetry, his plays and the legacy that still makes of his name a 
powerful reference all over the world. But there is more to know, and the next 
lessons will go even further in the history and the features of literature in the 
English language. 
 
 
 
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REFERENCES 
BAUGH, A. C.; CABLE, T. A History of the English Language. London: 
Routledge, 2002. 
BEOWULF. A New Verse Translation. Translated by Seamus Heaney. New 
York/London: WW NORTON, 1999. 
BLOOM, H. Shakespeare, the invention of the human. New York: Riverhead, 
1998. 
BRITANNICA. Listen to a demonstration of the original pronunciation of 
Shakespeare's English and how it differs from modern English. Disponível 
em: . Acesso em: 12 mar. 2022. 
CARTER, R.; McRAE, J. The Routledge History of Literature in English: 
Britain and Ireland. London/ New York: Routledge, 1997. 
CHAUCER, G. The Canterbury Tales. Harvard’s Geoffrey Chaucer website. 
Disponível em: . Acesso em: 12 mar. 2022. 
DONNE, J. The Poems of John Donne. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912. 
Disponível em: . 
Acesso em: 20 abr. 2022. 
FERRO, J. Introdução às literaturas de língua inglesa. Curitiba: IBPEX, 2011. 
GREENBLATT, S. Shakespeare’s Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago 
Press, 2010. 
_____. Will in the world: how Shakespeare became Shakespeare. (ebook). 
London: Jonathan Cape, n/a. 
SCHOENBAUM. William Shakespeare, a compact documentary life. London: 
Oxford, 1978. 
 
 
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SHAKESPEARE, W. Macbeth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952. 
_____. The Merchant of Venice. Disponível em: 
. Acesso em: 23 maio 2022. 
_____. The Tragedy of Hamlet, prince of Denmark. Disponível em: 
. Acesso em: 19 maio 2022.