If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head

I hace seen roses damasked, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound:

I grant I never saw a goddess go,

My mistress, when shge walks, threads on the ground:

And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,

As any she believed with false compare.

Vocabulary Notes

alderman – олдермен, член міського управляння, член ради графства

glover – рукавичник

landowning farmer – фермер-землевласник

to baptize – хрестити, давати ім’я

curriculum – навчальний план школи

twins – близнята

peak of sophistication – вершина витонченості

E x e r c i s e s

I. Answer the questions:

1. When and where was born William Shakespeare?

2. Who were William’s parents?

3. Where did Shakespeare study?

4. What do you know about Shakespeare’s matrimonial life?

5. When did Shakespeare start his theatrical career?

6. What are the famous masterpieces of the “Bard of Avon”?

7. How many sonnets did William Shakespeare write?

II. Say what statements are false and what are true; correct the false ones:

1. William Shakespeare is often called England’s national poet and the “Lord of Avon”.

2. William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful tailor.

3. His actual birth date remains unknown, but is traditionally observed on 23 April, St George’s Day.

4. Shakespeare was probably educated at the King’s New School in London.

5. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway with whom he had three children.

6. Another 18^th-century story has Shakespeare starting his theatrical career minding the horses of theatre patrons in London.

7. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the 16^th century.

THE GLOBE THEATRE

The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare.

The Globe was owned by actors who were also shareholders in Lord Chamberlain’s Men. The Globe was built in 1599 using timber from an earlier theatre, the Theatre, which had been built by Richard Burbage’s father, James Burbage. The new theatre was larger than the building it replaced, with the older timbers being reused as part of the new structure. It was probably completed by the summer of 1599.The first performance for which a firm record remains was Jonson’s Every Man out of His Humour—with its first scene welcoming the “gracious and kind spectators”—at the end of the year.

On 29 June 1613 the Globe Theatre went up in flames during a performance of Henry VIII. According to one of the few surviving documents of the event, no one was hurt except a man whose burning breeches were put out with a bottle of ale. It was rebuilt in the following year.

Like all the other theatres in London, the Globe was closed down by the Puritans in 1642. It was pulled down in 1644, or slightly later—the commonly cited document dating the act to 15 April 1644 has been identified as a probable forgery—to make room for tenements.

A modern reconstruction of the theatre, named “Shakespeare’s Globe”, opened in 1997, with a production of Henry V. It is an academic approximation of the original design, based on available evidence of the 1599 and 1614 buildings, and is located approximately 750 feet (230 m) from the site of the original theatre.

The Globe’s actual dimensions are unknown, but its shape and size can be approximated from scholarly inquiry over the last two centuries. The evidence suggests that it was a three-storey, open-air amphitheatre approximately 100 feet (30 m) in diameter that could house up to 3,000 spectators.

At the base of the stage, there was an area called the pit where, for a penny, people would stand on the rush-strewn earthen floor to watch the performance. During the excavation of the Globe in 1989 a layer of nutshells was found, pressed into the dirt flooring so as to form a new surface layer. Vertically around the yard were three levels of stadium-style seats, which were more expensive than standing room. A rectangular stage platform, also known as an ‘apron stage’, thrust out into the middle of the open-air yard. The stage measured approximately 43 feet (13.1 m) in width, 27 feet (8.2 m) in depth and was raised about 5 feet (1.5 m) off the ground. On this stage, there was a trap door for use by performers to enter from the “cellarage” area beneath the stage.

The back wall of the stage had two or three doors on the main level, with a curtained inner stage in the centre, and a balcony above it. The doors entered into the “tiring house” (backstage area) where the actors dressed and awaited their entrances. The floors above may have been used to store costumes and props and as management offices. The balcony housed the musicians and could also be used for scenes requiring an upper space, such as the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet. Rush matting covered the stage, although this may only have been used if the setting of the play demanded it.

Vocabulary Notes

shareholder – акціонер

timber – лісоматеріали

performance – вистава, п’єса

to go up in flames – загорітися

forgery – фальсифікація, підробка

tenement – багатоквартирний будинок, гуртожиток

dimensions – виміри

pit – партер (задні ряди за кріслами)

excavation – розкопки

nutshell – горіхова шкаралупа

rectangular stage platform – трикутна сценічно платформа

'apron stage' – авансцена (сцена-фартух)

width – ширина

depth – довжина

trap door – опускні двері

«cellarage» – підвал, льох

«tiring house» – артистична вбиральня

props – скорочено від properties, реквізит, бутафорія

rush matting – очерет

E x e r c i s e s

I. Answer the questions:

1. Who was the owner of the Globe theatre?

2. When the theatre was built?

3. When did the theatre go up in flames?

4. When did the “Shakespeare’s Globe” open?

5. What was the structure of the theatre?

6. What were the dimensions of the theatre?

II. Find the correct word for the phrase:

1. someone who performs in a play or a film —

2. a building or place with a stage where plays and shows are performed —

3. someone who owns shares in a company or business —

4. a theatrical work that is intentionally humorous —

5. clothing worn by an actor on stage during a performance —

6. the theatre of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and often extended to the close of the theatres in 1640 —

7. a person who writes plays —

8. practice sessions in which the actors and technicians prepare for public performance through repetition —

9. a long speech by a single character —

10. cosmetics and sometimes hairstyles that an actor wears on stage to emphasize facial features, historical periods, characterizations, and so forth —

DORIS LESSING

Doris May Lessing is a British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer.

Lessing was born in Iran, then known as Persia, on 22 October 1919, to Captain Alfred Tayler and Emily Maude Tayler, who were both English and of British nationality. Her father, who had lost a leg during his service in World War I, met his future wife, a nurse, at the Royal Free Hospital where he was recovering from his amputation. Alfred Tayler and his wife moved to Kermanshah, Iran, in order to take up a job as a clerk for the Imperial Bank of Persia and it was there that Doris was born in 1919. The family then moved to the then British colony of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1925 to farm maize, among other plants, when her father purchased around one thousand acres of bush. Lessing's mother attempted to lead an Edwardian lifestyle amidst the rough environment, which would have been easy had the family been wealthy; in reality, such a lifestyle was not feasible. The farm failed to deliver any monetary value in return.

Lessing was educated at the Dominican Convent High School, a Roman Catholic convent all-girls school in Salisbury (now Harare). She left school at the age of 14, and was self-educated from there on; she left home at 15 and worked as a nursemaid. She started reading material that her employer gave her, on politics and sociology and began writing around this time. In 1937, Lessing moved to Salisbury to work as a telephone operator, and she soon married her first husband, Frank Wisdom, with whom she had two children (John and Jean), before the marriage ended in 1943.

Following her first divorce, Lessing's interest was drawn to the popular community of the Left Book Club, a communist book club which she had joined the year before. It was here that she met her future second husband, Gottfried Lessing. They were married shortly after she joined the group, and had a child together (Peter), before the marriage failed and ended in divorce in 1949. After these two failed marriages, she has not been married since.

Because of her campaigning against nuclear arms and South African apartheid, Lessing was banned from that country and from Rhodesia for many years. She moved to London with her youngest son in 1949. Her first novel, The Grass Is Singing, was published in 1950. Her breakthrough work, The Golden Notebook, was written in 1962.

In 1984, Doris Lessing attempted to publish two novels under a pseudonym, Jane Somers, to show the difficulty new authors faced in trying to have their works in print. The novels were declined by Lessing’s UK publisher, but were later accepted by another English publisher, Michael Joseph, and in the US by Alfred A. Knopf. The Diary of a Good Neighbour was published in England and the US in 1983, and If the Old Could in both countries in 1984, both as written by Jane Somers. In 1984, both novels were re-published in both countries (Viking Books publishing in the US), this time under one cover, with the title The Diaries of Jane Somers: The Diary of a Good Neighbour and If the Old Could, listing Doris Lessing as author instead of listing Jane Somers.

She declined a dame hood, but accepted appointment as a Companion of Honour at the end of 1999 for "conspicuous national service". She has also been made a Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature.

In 2007, Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. She was 87, making her the oldest winner of the literature prize at the time of the award and the third oldest Nobel Laureate in any category. She also stands as only the eleventh woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature by the Swedish Academy in its 106-year history.

Lessing's fiction is commonly divided into three distinct phases: the Communist theme (1944–1956), when she was writing radically on social issues, the psychological theme (1956–1969), and after that the Sufi theme, which was explored in the Canopus in Argos sequence of science fiction (or as she preferred to put it "space fiction") novels and novellas.

Vocabulary Notes

to purchase – придбати, купити

feasible – здійснимий, можливий, вірогідний

nursemaid – няня

divorce – розлучення

apartheid – апартеїд, расова ізоляція

to be ban from – бути вигнаним

breakthrough – прорив

“The Grass Is Singing” – “Трава співає”

“If the Old Could” – “Якби старі могли”

a dame hood – старість (жіноча)

E x e r c i s e s

I. Answer the questions:

1. Where Doris Lessing was born?

2. Who were Lessing’s parents?

3. Where was she educated?

4. When did Doris start to work?

5. What do you know about Lessing’s personal life?

6. When was Doris Lessing first novel published?

7. When Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature?

8. What are the phases of Doris Lessing’s fiction?

II. Say what statements are false and what are true; correct the false ones:

1. Lessing’s parents were Alfred Tayler and Emily Maude Tayler.

2. The family moved to the then British colony of Southern Rhodesia in 1925 to farm wheat.

3. The farm failed to deliver any monetary value in return.

4. Lessing was educated at Oxford University.

5. She left school at the age of 16, and was self-educated from there on; she left home at 18 and worked as a telephone operator.

6. Her second husband was Gottfried Lessing.

7. In 2007, Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

8. Lessing's fiction is commonly divided into two distinct phases: the Communist theme the Sufi theme.

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