The Shakespeare’s language
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«THE
SHAKESPEARE’S LANGUAGE»
INTRODUCTION
often complain that Shakespearean
language is too difficult to understand. They wonder why he could not have
written in “normal” English. Actually he could. Shakespeare was writing in
everyday language of his age that is in the English spoken in the XVI-XVII
centuries. Although Shakespeare was responsible for the appearance of numerous
neologisms, he did not make up a language of his own. More that that, if
William Shakespeare were alive today, he would have a great difficulty in
understanding the way the modern English is written and spoken.contributed to
the transformation of the English language. He was creating his plays and sonnets
at a time when Latin was still the language of documents. The English of
Elizabethan era or the early modern English as linguists call it was only about
100 years old. There existed no published dictionaries yet. There were no
established grammar rules, and it was not studied in schools systematically. In
fact in schools children studied mostly Latin and Greek, but not English. The
syntax rules of the English language were unsteady and the vocabulary was
limited. The future of the early modern English was precarious.modern English
language owes much to William Shakespeare. He invented almost 2000 of common
words. He freely changed nouns into verbs, verbs into adjectives, connected
words together, inventing combinations that had never been used before. He
added affixes, and devised brand new original words. influenced greatly the
entire language system. Prior to his time, the grammatical and lexical rules of
English were unstable. They had no standardized variant. [2] Shakespeare's
plays contributed to the process of standardization of the English language.
Numerous words and expressions coined by Shakespeare became an integral part of
the English language through such linguistic projects as Samuel Johnson's A
Dictionary of the English Language where one can find more quotes of
Shakespeare than of any other writer. [3]
1. PRE-SHAKESPEARIAN
ENGLISH
William Shakespeare wrote under the
influence of such prominent English writers as Chaucer, Spenser and Sidney.
Besides it is necessary to note the setting of Shakespeare's language. In the V
century the Germanic tribes had moved to Britain. These tribes were the Angles,
Saxons and Jutes. They teamed up with the local Celtic tribes in order to
defeat their northern neighbors. After the victory, however, the Germanic
tribes slowly pushed the Celts into the territory of modern Wales and Cornwall.
The tribes spoke Anglo-Saxon language, often called the Old English language.
This language survived the Norman invasion of 1066, which brought French to
England. It was spoken mostly by common people and Anglo-Saxon noblemen who
refused to speak French. events took place in the beginning of the Middle
English period. In fact England became bilingual. Norman officials and
supervisors spoke French as well as bilingual children born from French and
English parents. English was, not in common use. The state and clergy preferred
to speak Latin. The Norman rule ended with the King John's death. The decision
of the Edward conquest of Wales contributed to increased usage of the English
language. French culture was no longer supreme in England. The English language
resumed its place as the dominant language of the land. As a result the
dialectal differences were gradually smoothed out and the Standard English
appeared. French remained the official language in England until the XIV
century and gave its positions only in 1509 when English became the official
language. The rhetoric of the English language was deeply indebted to Chaucer.
However, it is difficult to talk about innovations of the language, because
there were few written records of that period. In the XV-XVI centuries there
was an approximate shift from the Middle English to the Early Modern English,
also called the language of the Renaissance. Before Shakespeare the future of
the English language was uncertain, but by the time his last work was written,
the literature of modern English was enriched, full of achievements and mature.
[1]
2. CHANGES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
The structure of the early Modern
English was unfixed. Its vocabulary changed constantly compared to static Greek
or Latin languages. The English language absorbed words from foreign languages
during wars, colonization and through diplomatic contacts. By the time
Shakespeare started writing, English was widely used due to the expansion of
physical sciences, philosophy and theology. Unfortunately the vocabulary of
many writers of that time was too poor to express such ideas. That’s why Edmund
Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, Sir Philip Sidney, and William Shakespeare
borrowed words from other languages to express new ideas and distinctions. In
many cases they even invented new words, neologisms, themselves. They confirmed
the positions of the English as the national language.estimate that, during the
XVI-XVII centuries Latin, Greek and modern Romance languages added more than
30,000 new words to the English language. Shakespeare’s vocabulary as far as we
can judge from his texts included approximately 17,000 words, several times
larger than the vocabulary of most his educated contemporaries. He is supposed
to be the author of about 3000 new words, because he was the first author to
write them down.
. SHAKESPEARE’S INNOVATIONS AND THE
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
William Shakespeare's works
influenced not only theatre and literature, but the English language itself. He
is widely regarded as the greatest writer of the English language [5], and his
poetry and prose that have influenced a large number of great novelists and
poets, including Charles Dickens and an Melville, continue to influence modern
authors today. Shakespeare is the most quoted English-speaking writer [4], and
a lot of his quotations are now repeated in many languages, not only in
English. was writing at the period of great cultural and intellectual
development. It is the time of discoveries and innovations in arts and
sciences. Scholars were taking a renewed interest in classical languages, and
explorers and traders were making intrepid expeditions to the New World.
introduced new words and phrases which helped to enrich the language make it
colorful and expressive. This is his greatest contribution to the native
language. According to some estimations Shakespeare coined about several
thousands of words. Warren King says that, Shakespeare uses 17,677 words in his
texts and 1,700 were first used (that is written) by him. He is also known for
borrowing from the classical literature and foreign languages. [1] We still use
Shakespeare's phrases in conversations; they are a part of our language usage.
For example: it's Greek to me, strange bedfellows, seen better days, a sorry
sight, full circle, at one fell swoop, hold the mirror up to nature, I must be
cruel only to be kind, love is blind, with bated breath, in my mind's eye, and
so on. Shakespeare's effect on vocabulary is astounding especially taking into
account that language has changed significantly since his lifetime.who struggle
with understanding Shakespeare’s language often say that one of the biggest
problems is the vocabulary. Indeed, there are a lot of words unfamiliar to
modern readers. To successfully understand Shakespeare’s vocabulary one have to
know some facts about his attitude to words. of all, according to the Oxford
English Dictionary Shakespeare introduced about 3,000 new words. Besides
William Shakespeare readily used obsolete words such as “wight” (man) or
“ycleped” (called). He included insults in his plays to amuse the audience.
That were the insults that everyone could enjoy - vulgar, cruel, comical, or
just descriptive. A vivid example of his of his use of insults is the
description of Kent, a rogue steward from “King Lear”: a knave, a rascal, an
eater of broken meats, three-suited, hundred-pound, fifthly-worsted-stocking
knave; a lilly-livered… whoreson … finical rogue, one-trunk-inheriting slave”he
was facile in employing words and managed to use over 7,000 of them only once.
It is more than the whole vocabulary of an average speaker of English. special
vocabulary case is Shakespeare’s common use of contractions. We also use
contractions in everyday speech especially when chatting with friends. The most
common Shakespeare’s contractions are: ' = give
'tis = it is 'er = never = open 'er
= over = often ' = in ' = he 'er = ever 'en = evenmade some stylistic
improvements to a loose, spontaneous English language of his age. At that time
words were written the same way they were spoken. There exist no formalized
grammar rules binding the use of language. Sounds good for those who hates grammar
rules, but the lack of rules of grammar caused vagueness in literature.
characteristic of this language was free expression of feelings. Shakespeare
used the exuberance of the language in his prose and poetry to reach the
average people. As a result we have a unique combination of majestic
stateliness and racy tang peculiar to Shakespeare’s language.[1]created
neologism, that’s true, but it doesn’t mean that he was the only one. Jonathan
Hope who studied Shakespeare’s works for many years, states that, his texts
were cited more often and read more thoroughly, and, he is often said to be the
first one to use some words or phrases which in fact belong to other
authors.[6]characteristic trait of Shakespeare’s language are numerous
compounds that he so readily used in his plays. They conform to poetic usage of
the time and indicate specifically Shakespearian kind of English at the same
time. The most commonly used types of compounds are:
) Noun + Present Participle + Noun
kissing hill,swelling flower, cleaving thunderbolts,aspiring thoughts,haunting
martlet,waning widow,tripping fairy,
) Noun/Adj. + Present Participle +
Noun seeming substance,seeming lust,
3) Adv./Adj. + Present Participle +
Noun
highest-peering hill, pacing
clouds,hanging rock,
) Noun + Past Participle + Noun
capped towers,sucked fogs,crossed lovers,tossed body,
) Adv./Adj. + Past Participle +
Nounswoln face, grown field,fallen birthdom,would be interesting to analyze
Shakespeare’s works of different genres looking for the elements that influences
further development of the English language. Let’s start with the blank verse
as an important example of his influence. He experimented with the blank verse,
trying to perfect it. Its rhythm gave Shakespeare enough freedom for
experimentation. An outstanding feature of Shakespeare's poetry is the
adaptation of speech rhythm to the blank-verse framework. He expressed emotions
in the form of a verse, making a phrase flexible and spontaneous.blank verse
rhythm is conversational, but in everyday conversations people tend to break
the rhythmic pattern and make certain words more prominent, bring them into
focus. Shakespeare too deviates from the perfect blank-verse line. In his plays
such deviation means a change in the feelings or thoughts of the character or
in a situation. With the change of the rhythm, the energy of the language
changes too. For example, feel the abrupt, ragged the rhythm of the lines of
“Macbeth”:
In poetry Shakespeare introduced two
main factors: verbal immediacy and stress of living emotion. [1] His words
reflect passage of time, they give us an idea of the time frame. His capacity
to convey emotions with simple words was remarkable:
"When my love swears that she
is made of truth,do believe her, though I know she lies-"
he expresses complex and
contradictory feeling in simple short words. sonnets as a literary form are
limited structurally. Strict rules of the sonnets together with the vividness
of the language make Shakespeare’s writing style so intense. Complex human
emotions were expressed by simple means of Shakespeare's language. His most
memorable lines were written in iambic pentameter. rhythm patterns and rhymes
are used by Shakespeare to distinguish characters, for example the witches in
Macbeth:
, double, toil and trouble burn and
cauldron bubble,
rhythm is not the only way of
distinction here. You see that this is not an iambic line. For the witches
Shakespeare has created another musical rhythm, four feet long and with the
stresses reversed from the iambic. is also used for songs and epilogues, that
are rather separate elements of the plays. So, Prospero (“The Tempest”) says
farewell to the audience in rhyme.source for the sound of Shakespeare’s speech,
apart from rhymes, is the use of British dialects. lived at the time of the
transition from the Middle English to the Modern English. Linguists call this
period the Great Vowel Shift. The length of the vowels was different from the
one we are used to. The English of that time is also supposed to be rhotic. It
means that the sound “r” was more prominent in phrases. These and some other
features are obvious in Shakespeare’s plays. For example:
) /r/ pronounced post-vocalically
) /ʊ/
was not lowered
) wh was pronounced [ʍ]
) mid-vowels were not diphthongised
) /a/ after /w/ was not retracted
) /a/ before /f, s, θ/
was short
) /ɛ:,
e:/ was not raised to /i:/
) diphthongs /ai, au/ were
centralized
) short /u:/ was not very commonsimple
rhymes and wordplay Shakespeare uses various rhetorical devices. Some of them
are rather common (metaphor, simile), others are exotic (polysyndeton). Below
we make a list of rhetorical devices in Shakespeare’s texts. They are:
1) alliteration
"…. sessions of sweet silent
thought...." (Sonnet XXX)
) anadiplosis
"My conscience hath a thousand
several tongues,every tongue brings in a several tale,every tale condemns me
for a villain." (Richard III, V, iii)
) anaphora
"Mad world! Mad kings! Mad
composition!" (King John, II, i)
4) anthimeria
"I'll unhair thy head."
(Antony and Cleoptra, II, v)
"Not that I loved Caesar less,
but that I loved Rome more."
(Julius Caesar, III, ii)
) chiasmus
"Fair is foul, and foul is
fair" (Macbeth, I, i)
) diacope
"Put out the light, and then
put out the light." (Othello, V, ii)
) ellipsis
"And he to England shall along
with you." (Hamlet, III, iii)
) epanalepsis
"Blood hath bought blood, and
blows have answer'd blows."
(King John, II, i)
) epimone
"Who is here so base that would
be a bondman? If any, speak; for him I have offended.is here so rude that would
not be a Roman? If any speak; for him have I offended."
(Julius Caesar, III,ii)
) epistrophe
"I'll have my bond!not against
my bond!"
(Merchant of Venice, III, iii)
) hyperbaton
"Some rise by sin, and some by
virtue fall." (Measure for Measure, II, i)
) malapropism
"Are they not
malefactors?" (Measure for Measure, II, i)
) metaphor
" Made glorious summer by this
son of York." (Richard III, I, i)
) metonymy
"Friends, Romans, countrymen,
lend me your ears." (Julius Caesar, III, ii)
) onomatopoeia
"There be more wasps that buzz
about his nose." (Henry VIII, III, ii)
) parallelism
"And therefore, since I cannot
prove a loverentertain these fair well-spoken days,am determinèd
to prove a villainhate the idle pleasures of these days." (Richard III, I,
i)
) parenthesis
"...Then shall our names,in his
mouth as household words -the King, Bedford and Exeter,and Talbot, Salisbury
and Gloucester -in their flowing cups freshly remembered." (Henry V, IV,
iii)
) polysyndeton
"If there be cords, or knives,,
or fire, or suffocating streams,'ll not endure it." (Othello, III, iii)
) simile
"My love is as a fever, longing
stillthat which longer nurseth the disease" (Sonnet CXLVII)
) synecdoche
"Take thy face hence."
(Macbeth, V, ii)above examples clearly illustrate that Shakespeare used a very
broad arsenal of lexical and stylistic means to express the passions of the
characters and the dramatic tension of situations. However, while speaking
about his contribution to the English lexicon we forgot about his peculiar
attitude to the English grammar. Indeed some of his phrases seem incorrect to
modern readers. The completely break the rules of the English grammar. Some
scholars even say that Shakespeare didn’t obey the rules of grammar, because he
didn’t know them. That’s a joke, of course. The truth is that the language in
general and grammar rules in particular were much more flexible in that time
than they are now. Hence the phrases with multiple negation, for example. ,
grammar rules undergone some changes with the time and the things that were
normal during the Renaissance period are regarded incorrect today.about
Shakespeare’s text, it is necessary to note some features peculiar to his use
of grammar. The first one, of course is multiple negation. The poet used it for
extra emphasis. For example:
Nor never could the noble Mortimerso
many, and all willingly.
or
…love no man in good earnest, nor no
further in sport neyther.
· thou, thee instead
of you, your (Come, thou monarch of the vine)
· doth instead of do
(That doth invert the attest of eyes and ears)
· ; mine instead of
my. (mine eye) and so on.and negatives in Shakespeare’s texts are often formed
without auxiliary verbs do or did. However it may be the normal practice at
that time, not the poet’s invention. For example: Goes the king? You look not
well.frequent are the archaic verb forms with the -st ending, such as
mistakest, canst, look'st, dost, etc.these features make his texts sound
elevated and exotic for modern audience. Some people complain that they are
difficult to understand, others suppose that unusual words and phrases add
beauty to his verses, but they all agree that Shakespeare’s writings are
unforgettable masterpieces.
CONCLUSIONS
this work we tried to cover the more
prominent features of Shakespeare’s language. However, we shouldn’t
automatically apply these features to the English of the Elizabethan era in
general. Shakespeare manipulated the language skillfully, and he boldly brought
new elements to the vocabulary. His was innovative in his choice and use of
words, but the grammar of his language mostly reflects the general patterns of
contemporary usage.is impossible to overestimate Shakespeare’s impact on poetry
and literature. His writings live through the centuries. He improved blank
verse and became an acknowledged standard in poetry. Many great writers of the
ages that follow were influenced by Shakespeare. His influence on the Romantic
poets, for example, was so strong that George Steiner called their poems pale
variations on Shakespearean themes.Shakespeare helped to establish new grammar
rules and to widen vocabulary of the early modern English. He also enriched the
arsenal of stylistic means of the English language.
shakespeare grammar
stylistics english
REFERENCES
1. Borris Ford, ed.
(1955). The Age of Shakespeare. Great Britain: Penguin Books. pp.
16,51,54,55,64.
2. Introduction to Hamlet
by William Shakespeare, Barron's Educational Series, 2002, page 12.
. Lynch, Jack. Samuel
Johnson's Dictionary: Selections from the 1755 Work that Defined the English
Language. Delray Beach, FL: Levenger Press (2002), page 12.
4. Potter, L. William
Shakespeare. Literary Encyclopedia [электронный ресурс]
/ <http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php>?rec=true&UID =5160.
. Reich, John J.; Cunningham,
Lawrence S. (2005), Culture And Values: A Survey of the Humanities, Thomson
Wadsworth, p. 102.
. Shakespeare's Coined Words
Now Common Currency". National geographic news
. Words Shakespeare
Invented".