• The spectators who paid a penny to stand on the ground of the yard or the open space into which the apron stage projected were called groundlings in Shakespeare's times. Shakespeare humorously called them 'understanding gentlemen'.

   

   

• A sonnet is a literary form imported from Italy by Thomas Wyatt and later adapted by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. Shakespeare has written 154 sonnets out of which sonnets 1 to 126 are addressed to a youth of aristocratic birth with great personal charm and dynamism. The initials W H which are used to represent him are interpreted in different ways. Many Shakespeare scholars are of the view that W H stands for the Earl of Southampton, who was Shakespeare's patron and to whom his non-dramatic poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece were dedicated. Some believe that the initials represent William Herbert, who was a contemporary poet. Sonnet 127 is a dedication and post script to a poem. Sonnet 128 to 142 refer to a rival poet, supposedly Christopher Marlowe. According to Shakespeare scholars, there are indications in sonnet 153 to arrive at such an conclusion. A few scholars argue that the rival poet could be either George Chapman or Edmund Spenser.

   

   

• Richard Barbage was the leading actor in Shakespeare's company. He is the builder of the Globe Theatre. He played the title parts in the original performance of Richard III, Hamlet, King Lear and Othello.

   

   

• Sara Siddone played the roles of the heroine in Shakespeare's Othello during the Eighteenth century.

   

   

• Lawrence Oliver and Vivien Leigh played the roles of Antony and Cleopatra in Nineteen-fifties.

   

   

• The tiring house in the Elizabethan stage, was the space beneath the upper stage or gallery, concealed from the audience with a curtain which could be drawn back to reveal an inner stage.

   

   

• The average Elizabethan believed that human fate was controlled by stars. This can be found in Act I Scene II of King Lear. Besides, there are references in Hamlet, The Winter's Tale and Henry VI about Astronomy. These famous lines occurring in Act I Scene II of Julius Caesar are proof to the fact that the Elizabethans believed in Astrology and Astronomy.

   

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• An edition, especially of the complete works of a classical author containing the notes of editors or commentators (O.E.D) is known as Variorum edition.

   

   

• Quarto is a volume in which the sheets are folded twice in such a way that each leaf is the quarter of a sheet.

Further Reading

Project Gutenberg Shakespeare