Shakespeare’s use of language in Plays

Sami Ul Haq Athya Rehman M Phil English Literature 13 December 2014 Shakespeare’s use of language in Plays Since medieval age to the present, many people read, love, perform, and enjoy Shakespeare’s poetry , and plays, but in the same way, many people, even competent and best performers, while travelling on Shakespearian road of literature, jams; complaining: they don’t get Shakespeare. Not surprising, he can be very tough to handle for different reasons. In this assignment I will try to highlight different aspects of the language used by Shakespeare in his plays, let first have background information about him. Shakespeare ( April 1564- April 1616) , one of the great poet, playwright, and actor, wrote 38 plays , 154 sonnets, and two long narrative poems, his plays have been translated to other languages and performed at the “Globe Theatre”, and “The New Place Theatre”. He married to Anne Hathaway, and was part owner of a playing company. His plays were mainly tragedy, comedy and history, in the last phase of his life he wrote tragicomedies’ (romances). His wrote plays in conventional pattern, rather than natural need of characters. In poetry he used metaphor, conceits, similes, blank verse of iambic pentameters by mixing traditions and free style as in “Romeo and Juliet”, “Richard iii”, and “Midsummer Night’s Dream”. We can observe his adaptation of traditions in the soliloquy of Richard iii. A literary critic A C Bradley says about his style: “More concentrated, rapid, varied in construction, less regular, not seldom Twisted or elliptical” (Bradley , 91) In first phase of his career, he wrote comedies, in second comedies and histories, and in third phase he abandoned romantic comedies, started writing tragedies, in fourth phase he adopted a new style of comedies. During last phase of his literary career, he adopted styles such as “Run on Lines” (Irregular pauses and stops). Ifor Evans writes about later romances: “The language has on the whole, a quietness, a thinness, an absence of over tunes or subtle associations” 201.In contrast Vivan Salmon says: “Dramatic energy and economy of expression: which characterizes Shakespeare’s mature style”. He took advantage of the absence of grammar by placing (“Subject, Verb, and Object” (SVO)) wherever he pleased. For example in king Laer he places verb before the subject, in Edger’s “Met I my father”(5.3.188). Sometimes the object before the verb as in Gloucesters “I such a fellow saw”(4.1.33). We can also refers to Grazia’s example from Othello, in his recollection “That handkerchief/ Did an Egyptian to my mother give”. He dramatized stories from Petrarch and Holinshed, his plot is more a center of interest, multi shaded for viewers, audiences. In romances he returned to artificial style: illusion of theatre. In some works he used punctuation in the end of lines, for scene endings he used rhyming couplet to create suspense. His work is similar to Christopher Marlow, Queen’s men performances, Frances Beaumont’s, and John Fletcher. His characters were flat and archetype’s as Macbeth comits six murders by the end of fourth act, but is still sympathized as a flawed human being. He is credited by Oxford English Dictionary for the introduction of nearly 3000 words into language. Louis Marder about his use of words says: “Shakespeare was so facile in employing words that he was able to use over 7000 of them- more than occur in the whole “king James” version of Bible- only once and never again”. He invented word and phrases and also used obsolete words. In early modern English, he used iambic pentameters which leads modern reader to complexity as English is changing according to social, cultural, and artistic needs. He manipulated language by using it figuratively. Imagery is highly suggestive i.e: Macbeth: Their husbandry in heaven, Their candles are all out. Take thee that too (Gives him his belt and dagger) A heavy summons lies like lead upon me, And yet I would not sleep,(2.1.4-7) Another use is his inflated endings such as hath, doeth, and goeth etc, these forms were in transition from medieval to modern pronouns such as thee, thou , and thine. Scholars estimates his vocabulary about 25000-29000 words; twice of a college student. Contractions could also be found in his work such as, tis instead of it is, ope instead of open, gi instead of give, and o’er instead of over. Randel Robinson took a simple sentence of “I ate the sandwich” he unlocks it with the following few options: I ate the sandwich I the sandwich ate Ate the sandwich i The sandwich I ate The sandwich ate i. His work encompasses all aspects of poetry such as alliteration, anaphora, assonance etc. In poetry, his writing is metrical with regular rhythmic pattern as in Richard iii: A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse He used concentrated language such as : Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Till now we have discussed his use of language, now let to know how to unlock and understand his language. There are some steps through which we can understand the language, he used in poetry and plays, the first step is to follow the thought and understand the argument such as “To be or not to be”, and to know what a character is thinking or doing, for example in Juliet and Creaser: But, soft! What light through younder 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 Second step is to follow the action, as what is going on? He used soliloquies through which an individual expresses himself, as in “Romeo and Juliet” Romeo crouched down and looking up at the window, what is he doing? He is creeping, he is stocking a girl, that is the action, following it will lead us to the understanding of language. Third step is to identify images, simile, metaphors etc. and to know, what the characters are experiencing and how they are using these words. In the following lines bold words shows his imagery, simile and metaphors and comparison of images. But, soft! What light through younder 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 Next step is to decipher the meter, he used iambic pentameters(means five meters of un stress and stressed syllables), to define this we would again select the same lines again let us check it out: X / X / X / X / X / But, soft!/ What light/ through yon/der win/dow breaks? X / X / X / X / X / It is /the East/, and Juli/et is/ the sun Next step to understand is the gravity of his work, he used all poetic devices and the sum total of all of them is the gravity of his work. There are rhetorical devices and arguments, he used anti thesis : two different ideas to clear ambiguities for example “to be or not to be” or: It is the East, and Juliet is the sun Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, These lines are also full of gravity: Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name, When I , thy three hour wife, have mangled it? But wherefore villain, didst thou kill my cousin? That villain cousin would have kill’d my husband. In the above “smooth and mangled”, “villain,cousin ,/ villain , cousin, husband”, are thesis and anti-thesis, these all adds gravy to works. Another aspect of gravy is repeated sounds, note the repeated “h” and “k” sounds in the following lines respectively: Petrochio: Good morrow, kate; for that’s your name, I hear Katherine: Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing They call me Katherine that do talk of me Petrochio: you, lie in faith, for you are called plain kate You bonny kate , and sometimes kate the curst But kate, the prettiest kate in cristemdom, Kate of kate Hall, my super dainty kate, Take this of me, kate of my consolation: If we talk of assonance, note the following lines: Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs- Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife Katherine: Moved! In good time: let him that moved you hither Remove you hence: I know you at the first You are a moveable To sum up, Shakespeare being master of language adopted words from Greek, invented new words, used phrases, his language is devoid of grammar, he enriched it with poetic devices. To unlock and understand, we should try to follow the thought of characters, follow the action, identify the images, decipher the meter, and to understand the gravy as he locked and enriched his poetry with these poetic devices. References 1. Charney, Maurice. How to read Shakespeare. McGraw-Hill, 1971. 2. Joseph, Sister Miriam. Shakespeare's Use of the Arts of Language. Paul Dry Books, 2008. 3. Evans, Benjamin Ifor. The language of Shakespeare's plays. Routledge, 2013.