SHAKESPEARE’S LANGUAGE

Shakespeare’s English

Shakespeare did not write in Old English or Middle English.

Shakespeare wrote in Early Modern English.

Early Modern English is only one generation of language from the English you speak today!

Shakespeare’s Contributions

Shakespeare only had an 8th grade education.

There were no dictionaries. Shakespeare is credited by the Oxford

English Dictionary with the introduction of nearly 3,000 words into the language.

His vocabulary numbers upward of 17,000 words (quadruple that of an average, well-educated conversationalist in the language)

A Few Words By Shakespeare

Accused Addiction Admirable Assassination Bloodstained Cold-blooded Coldhearted Deafening

Disgraceful To drug Excitement Fashionable Fortune-teller Gloomy Mimic Obscene

Phrases Coined by Shakespeare

As good luck would have it

Be-all and the end-all

Break the ice Eaten me out of

house and home Elbow room Fool's paradise For goodness' sake

Full circle Good riddance It was Greek to me Heart of gold In a pickle Kill with kindness Lie low Love is blind Not slept one wink

Shakespeare’s English

In the England of Shakespeare's time, English was a lot more flexible as a language.

The most common simple sentence in modern English follows a familiar pattern: Subject (S), Verb (V), Object (O). (Will caught the ball).

However, Shakespeare was much more at liberty to switch these three basic components

Shakespeare used a great deal of SOV inversion (Will the ball caught).

Shakespeare’s English

Switching the S-V-O order to S-O-V made it easier for Shakespeare to rhyme and to manipulate his words to flow easily in poems and plays.

Shakespeare could effectively place the metrical stress wherever he needed it most by switching word order

Shakespeare also used an O-S-V construction (The ball Will caught) for the same reasons.

Inverted Word Order

Lady Montague: O where is Romeo, saw you him

today? Right glad I am he was not at this

fray. Translation: O where is Romeo; did you see him

today? I am very glad he was not in this

fight.

Inverted Word Order

“Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung.”

Translation: You have sung at her window in the

moonlight. From A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Shakespeare’s Language in Plays

The language used by Shakespeare in his plays is in one of three forms Prose Rhymed Verse Blank Verse

Prose

Prose is writing which resembles everyday speech

Prose is often used by Shakespeare for lower-class characters in his plays

Prose lacks meter and rhyme and is informal

Shakespeare blends prose with poetry in his plays

Rhymed Verse

The majority of Shakespeare’s plays contain rhymed verse which looks like poetry

Characters– especially of the higher classes--speak in poetic form

Their words have form, meter, and rhyme Rhymed verse in Shakespeare's plays is

usually in rhymed couplets, i.e. two successive lines of verse of which the final words rhyme with another.

Iambic Pentameter

Iambic pentameter is meter that Shakespeare nearly always when writing in verse. Most of his plays were written in iambic pentameter.

Iambic Pentameter has: Ten syllables in each line Five pairs of alternating unstressed and

stressed syllables The rhythm in each line sounds like:

ba-BUM / ba-BUM / ba-BUM / ba-BUM / ba-BUM

Iambic Pentameter Example

Examples of Iambic Pentameter: If mu- / -sic be / the food / of love, /

play on Is this / a dag- / -ger I / see be- / fore

me? Each pair of syllables is called an iamb.

You’ll notice that each iamb is made up of one unstressed and one stressed beat (ba-BUM).

Rhymed Verse in Iambic Pentameter

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind

And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste; Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste: And therefore is Love said to be a child, Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.

- from A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Blank Verse

Blank verse refers to unrhymed iambic pentameter.

resembles prose in that the final words of the lines do not rhyme in any regular pattern

There is meter: a recognizable rhythm in a line of verse consisting of a pattern of regularly recurring stressed and unstressed syllables. 

Most lines are in iambic pentameter.

Blank Verse

BLANK VERSE is employed in a wide range of situations because it comes close to the natural speaking rhythms of English but raises it above the ordinary without sounding artificial

Rather than prose, blank verse may suggest a refinement of character.

Many of Shakespeare's most famous speeches are written in blank verse.

Blank Verse Example

ROMEO: But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.  Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief,  That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.  Be not her maid, since she is envious; Her vestal livery is but sick and greenAnd none but fools do wear it; cast it off.

from Romeo and Juliet

Prose, Rhymed Verse or Blank Verse?

Juliet: Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.

It was the nightingale, and not the lark, That pierced the fearful hollow of thine

ear; Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate

tree Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

Blank Verse

Prose, Rhymed Verse or Blank Verse?

Abraham: Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

Sampson: No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir.

Gregory: Do you quarrel, sir? Abraham: Quarrel, sir? No, sir.

Prose

Prose, Rhymed Verse or Blank Verse?

Full fathom five thy father lies Of his bones are coral made Those are pearls that were his eyes Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea change Into something rich and strange.

Rhymed Verse

Prose, Rhymed Verse or Blank Verse?

NURSE: He was a merry man—took up the child.

“Yea,” quoth he, “Dost thou fall upon thy face?

Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit,

Wilt thou not, Jule?” and, by my holy dame,

The pretty wretch left crying and said “ay.”

Blank Verse

Prose, Rhymed Verse or Blank Verse?

ROMEO: Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn

bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of

night Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear, Beauty too rich for use, for earth too

dear.

Rhymed Verse

Prose, Rhymed Verse or Blank Verse?

ROMEO Have not saints lips, and holy palmers

too? JULIET Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in

prayer. ROMEO O, then, dear saint, let lips do what

hands do. They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to

despair.

Rhymed Verse

Prose, Rhymed Verse or Blank Verse?

ROMEO Here's goodly gear. BENVOLIO A sail, a sail! MERCUTIO Two, two—a shirt and a smock.

Prose