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William Shakespeare

His Poetry and Language

Shakespeare’s Language

• “The Bard’s” language may seem very strange.

• Here are some tips to help you uncover, The Bard, William Shakespeare!

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• “Shakespeare’s genius had to do not really with facts, but with ambition, intrigue, love, suffering - things that aren’t taught in school” (Bryson 109).

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From Hamlet…

• “…the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure” (III.ii.21-25).

Shakespeare’s Effect on the English Language

• 12,000 words entered the language between 1500 and 1650 (about ½ of them still in use today)

• Shakespeare coined 2,035 words (Hamlet alone has 600 new words). A small sampling:– Bloody, hurry, generous, impartial, obscene, majestic,

road, critical, frugal, dwindle, extract, horrid, vast, excellent, eventful, assassination, lonely, suspicious, indistinguishable, well-read, zany, countless 5

Language

• Shakespeare’s phrases are now our clichés:– One fell swoop, into thin air, fast and loose, in

a pickle, budge an inch, cold comfort, flesh and blood, foul play, tower of strength, cruel to be kind, bated breath, pomp and circumstance, catch a cold, heart of gold, live long day, method in his madness, strange bedfellows, too much of a good thing, foregone conclusion

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More Phrases

• I couldn’t sleep a wink.• He was dead as a doornail.• She’s a tower of strength.• They hoodwinked us.• We’d better lie low for awhile.• I am constant as the Northern Star.• It’s all Greek to me.

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Shakespeare’s Writing Style

• Averaging out all of Shakespeare’s plays, they were made up of about 70% blank verse, 5% rhymed verse, and 25% prose.

• Blank Verse = unrhymed iambic pentameter• Rhymed Verse = couplets of iambic pentameter• Prose = NO POETIC STRUCTURE

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Shakespeare’s Writing StylePoetry vs. Prose

• Prose - Ordinary speech or writing, without metrical structure • Bottom’s speech

• Prose used for several reasons:• To demonstrate a familiar relationship (often for relaxed or informal

conversation)

• To signify a character’s status (commoner or uneducated characters)

• When the rational is contrasted with the emotional

• The character of Bottom tends to use prose to show his social status—that he is a commoner. Helena, on the other hand, speaks in verse form to show her noble social status.

A Familiar Rhyme and Rhythm

• Shakespeare’s verse has a familiar type of rhyme and rhythm:

“Double, Double, toil and trouble,

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.—Macbeth 4:1:10-11

Mary had a little lamb

London bridge is falling down10

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Iambic Pentameter

The poetic form used by Shakespeare is Iambic Pentameter

Iambic Pentameter is a rhythmical pattern of syllables– Iambic: rhythm goes from an unstressed syllable to a stressed one.

Rhythmic examples: “divine” “caress” “bizarre” Like a heartbeat: daDUM (There are two syllables in one iamb.)Each iamb is called a foot.

• There are other rhythms. I.e., trochaic = DUMda

– Pentameter = the rhythm is repeated 5 times (5 iambs for a total of 10 syllables in each line):

daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM“Shall I comPARE the TO a SUMmer’s DAY?” Sonnet 18

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More Iambic PentameterPentameter = the rhythm is repeated 5 times

daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM

The Prince of Cumberland! That is a stepOn which I must fall down, or else o’er-leap,For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires!Let not light see my black and deep desires.

The beat pattern—called the meter—is also the reason that a character’s lines may start way over from the left margin. Two characters may share one 5-beat line.

--Demetrius: Quick, come.--Hermia: Lysander, whereto tends all this?

• Shakespeare will sometimes end iambic pentameter on an unstressed syllable, so that the last foot sounds like this: daDUMda.– To be, or not to be, that is the question.– Is this a dagger which I see before me

Macbeth:

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Rhyming Verse

• Rhyming couplets often at the end of monologues/scenes.– A cue to the actors backstage

• Some scenes in Shakespeare’s plays (typically comedies) will be entirely in couplets.– Banter, to lighten the tone, to show a

character’s wit, to quicken the pace of a scene

Punctuation

• As you read Shakespeare’s poetry, it will probably help if you read from period to period (or semicolon) instead of always stopping at the end of the line.

• Read just like you would a poem.There had she not been long but she became Keep going!

A joyful mother of two goodly sons;

And, which was strange, this one so like the other Keep going!

As could not be distinguish’d but by names.

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Words

• Since Shakespeare’s day, many words have changed. How?

• There are two types of changes:

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Words we don’t use anymore Words that look the same but have different meanings

“Who would fardels bear?” “I could fancy (like) more than any other.”

“The scrimers of their nation…” “Examine well your blood (lineage).”

“He galls his kibe.” “He’s a tall (brave) as any man in Illyria.”

“…with bisson rheum…” “I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions (passions) that liked (attracted) me.”

More about Words

• Shakespeare had a 30,000-word vocabulary. We have an average of 15,000 today.

• He created a lot of words that we use today. Here are just a few words that first appeared in his plays:

Accommodation, assassination, dexterously, dislocate, obscene, reliance, premeditate, swagger, lonely, gloomy, fretful, suspicious, hurry, etc.

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The Order of Words

• Shakespeare loved to play with words and order.• He did this to make words fit in iambic

pentameter, sometimes for rhyme scheme, and sometimes to play with words.

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Rearrange Words Omit Words and Letters

“ That handkerchiefDid an Egyptian to my mother give.”

“I’ll to England”

Instead of, “An Egyptian did give that handkerchief to my mother.”

Instead of, “I’ll go to England.”

“Unless I have mista’en his colors much…”

Instead of, “Unless I have mistaken his colors much…”