Vocabulary

calculus – исчисление

Binomial Theorem – бином Ньютона'

the differential and integral calculus – дифференциальное и интегральное исчисление

universe square law – закон равенства действия и противодействия

to justify – подтверждать

"Elements of Natural Philosophy" – "Математические начала натуральной философии"

the law of gravitation – закон тяготения

Text 2 William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

William Shakespeare is the greatest of all playwrights and poets of all times. He was born on the 23rd of April 1564 in Stratford-on-Avon. In Stratford there is The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, and a very old hotel with no numbers on the doors of the rooms. Instead every room has the name of a Shakespeare play on it: the Macbeth room, the Othello room, and so on.

He attended the local grammar school and got a classical education. For endless hours Latin grammar was taught; no geography, no science, no history... Almost the only reading in English was from the Bible. Very often companies of strolling players visited Stratford and Will made contact with actors, so he gained some knowledge of actors and the stage.

At the age of eighteen he got married and had three children.

In 1587 Shakespeare moved to London. Soon he became an actor playing supporting roles like the ghost in "Hamlet". In 1599 Shakespeare became a part owner of the Globe Theatre in London. The Globe, which was not far from London Bridge, was now the chief of London's theatres.

The stage had no curtain. The audience stood on the ground or sat in the galleries all round except at the back. There was no scenery.

When it was necessary to tell where the scene was to take place, it was told by the Prologue in the introduction to the play. An important member of the company was the clown. No women were allowed to be on the stage, and all women's part were played by young boys.

Shakespeare's work as a playwright is subdivided into three periods. Written in the first period, Shakespeare's plays are mostly history plays like "Henry VI", and comedies with strong-elements of farce ("The Comedy of Errors"). His masterpiece of this period is "Romeo and Juliet".

In the second period Shakespeare wrote a number of comedies where he moved away from farce towards romance ("Much ado about nothing", "A Midsummer Night's Dream", “The twelfth night", "As you like it").

In the third period, after 1600, appeared his major tragedies - "Hamlet", "Othello", "Macbeth", and "King Lear".

Many of his plays do not deal with English life, but with places far from his native land. He has left us in the plays a gallery of characters such as no other writer has given us.

He is great in every kind of play. His comedies make people laugh, his tragedies produce tears. He describes men's passions and emotions in the finest poetic language.

Shakespeare was a great poet and would be well known for his poetry alone. His major achievement as a poet is his sonnets. A sonnet is a poem consisting of 14 lines, with a moral at the end. The sonnets deal with the great themes of love, friendship, death and immortality. They are Ml of harmony and music; they praise love, friendship and beauty, though there is no sentimentality in them.

He had done two men's work, as actor and as author, and within twenty years, had written more than thirty plays. He died on the 23rd of April, 1616.