Shakespeare's language

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What kind of English did Shakespeare use?

1. Old English
2. Middle English
3. Modern English
4. Early Modern English

Shakespeare's Language

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!

new words

How many new words did Shakespeare introduce?

Shakespeare's contribution

• 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 (4 times that of an average, well-educated conversationalist in the language)
  

Some words by Shakespeare

Accused

Addiction

Admirable

Assassination

Bloodstained

Cold-blooded

Coldhearted

Deafening

Disgraceful

To drug

Excitement

Fashionable

Fortune-teller

Gloomy

Mimic

Obscene

Some phrases by Shakespeare

Full circle

Good riddance

It was Greek to me

Heart of gold

Lie low

Love is blind

Not slept one wink

What is the word order in contemporary English?

1. Subject -Object - Verb
2. Subject-Verb- Object
3. Object- Verb- Subject
4. Object- Subject- Verb

Shakespeare's language

• 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: SVO (Subject, Verb, Object), e.g. Will caught the ball.
• However, Shakespeare was much more at liberty to switch these three basic components
  

Shakespeare's language

• Shakespeare used a great deal of SOV inversion. eg. Will the ball caught.
• Shakespeare also used an O-S-V construction, eg. The ball Will caught .
• 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.

 

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.

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? 

Deny thy father and refuse thy name;

Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, 

And I'll no longer be a Capulet.

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

• everyday speech
  
•  lower-class characters
• no meter or rhyme 
• sentences vary greatly in length

Prose example

Rhymed Verse

• poems 
• higher classes
• meter and rhyme
  
•  usually in rhymed couplets

Rhymed Verse example

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

Iambic Pentameter

Iambic pentameter is meter that Shakespeare nearly always uses in his plays. Iambic Pentameter has:

• Ten syllables in each line
  
• Five pairs of alternating unstressed and stressed syllables
  
• ba-BUM / ba-BUM / ba-BUM / ba-BUM / ba-BUM
  

Examples of Iambic Pentameter

If mu- / -sic be / the food / of love, / play on

When I /do count /the clock /that tells /the time,

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).

Blank verse

• unrhymed iambic pentameter
• natural speaking rhythms of English  
• above the ordinary without sounding artificial
  
• indicates refinement of character
• most famous speeches 

Blank verse example

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 green

And none but fools do wear it; cast it off. 

 from Romeo and Juliet

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.

1. Prose
2. Rhymed verse
3. Blank verse
4. not by Shakespeare

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.

1. Prose
2. Rhymed verse
3. Blank verse
4. Not by Shakespeare

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.

1. Prose
2. Rhymed verse
3. Blank verse
4. Not by Shakespeare

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.”

1. Prose
2. Rhymed verse
3. Blank verse
4. Not by Shakespeare

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.

1. Prose
2. Rhymed verse
3. Blank verse
4. Not by Shakespeare

I start to think, and then I sink
Into the paper like I was ink
When I’m writing, I’m trapped in between the lines
I escape when I finish the rhyme.

1. Prose
2. Rhymed verse
3. Blank verse
4. Not by Shakespeare

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.

1. Prose
2. Rhymed verse
3. Blank verse
4. Not by Shakespeare

Any questions?

I know the difference between prose, blank verse and rhymed verse

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I know how the word order in contemporary English differs from the word order in Shakespeare's plays

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I know why Shakespeare is considered a genius when it comes to the words and expressions he used

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