Monday 22 April 2013

The Italian Experience - The Shakespearean Link

In studying about Italy, Tiger and I began discussing about all the stories we know that were set in Italy.  Somehow our discussion led to Shakespearean stories.  We then listed the stories from Tales of Shakespeare and identified the locations where the stories were set.


Interestingly, 9 out of the 20 stories in the book were set in Italy:
  1. The Tempest - Milan, Italy
  2. A Midsummer Night's Dream - Athens, Greece
  3. The Winter's Tale - Sicily, Italy
  4. Much Ado About Nothing - Florence, Italy
  5. As You Like It - France
  6. The Two Gentlemen of Verona - Verona, Italy
  7. The Merchant of Venice - Venice, Italy
  8. Cymberline - England
  9. King Lear - England
  10. Macbeth - Scotland
  11. All's Well that Ends Well - Paris, France
  12. The Taming of the Shrew - Padua, Italy
  13. The Comedy of Errors - Sicily, Italy
  14. Measure for Measure - Vienna, Austria
  15. Twelfth Night, or What You Will - Albania
  16. Timon of Athens - Athens, Greece
  17. Romeo and Juliet - Verona, Italy
  18. Hamlet - Denmark
  19. Othello - Venice, Italy
  20. Pericles, Prince of Tyre - Tyre, Lebanon
So we set to locate the proximity of the different cities on a map:

 

After Tiger has read the book, we discussed briefly about the concepts of comedies and tragedies, and grouped the stories into either category.  Tiger's favourite story by far is The Taming of the Shrew.  He is tickled by Petruchio's character and wit.


After reading the story, we watched a very good BBC animated production to see it come alive:


However, nothing beats watching the actual performance at The Globe.  Tiger remembered laughing so much throughout last summer's performance that it was well worth the time and cost to be there.


You can have a feel of what the performance was like from the clip below:



This post is linked up to:
1) Look What We Did!
2) Hip Homeschool Hop - 4/23/13
3) Homeschool Mother's Journal: April 26, 2013
4) Collage Friday - Reading, Selling , and Recommending Books
5) Homeschool Review
6) Weekly Wrap-Up: The One Where We're Counting Down the Weeks

8 comments:

  1. How did I miss this yesterday? I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Shakespeare! This is such a great idea. I'm so jealous you got to go to the Globe! We're going to cover Shakespeare when we cover the period he was alive in, but my plans are to study him for the whole year. I can not wait, especially after your little taster!!

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  2. Claire, like you, my plan has been to study Shakespeare for a whole year when we come to the Elizabethan period, but the opportunity to start came up and I didn't want to let it pass. However, I still want us to cover Shakespeare in detail, so this time round it'll be little tasters like this for the moment. There WILL BE a detailed Shakespearean study at some point, much like what we're doing with Marco Polo.

    I'm very glad to know that you have the same plan in mind. Our (study) paths shall cross again for Shakespeare. :-) It has been very useful and interesting for me to follow your Marco Polo study while we are doing ours.

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  3. We got to see 2 plays at the Globe for my honeymoon. The even more awesome part was, one was my favorite Shakespeare play: Midsummer Night's Dream.

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  4. How lucky to watch 2 plays on your honeymoon, to catch one of your favourites! I bet you must have beautiful memories of your honeymoon, Ticia! Thank you for sharing with us such a lovely and special time of your life. :-)

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  5. Love this post! Thanks for sharing with all!

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  6. That is interesting. I never thought to look at his plays in terms of where they were set.

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  7. Thank you for stopping by, melismama and Phyllis. The idea of looking at Shakespeare's plays in their setting took us by surprise as well, but we just thought, "Why not?" :-)

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  8. That is great. I love the flexibility to add things as things come up. My son had an opportunity last year to watch Richard III and that sparked his interest. Maybe someday we can do to the Globe.

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