UNDERSTANDING SHAKESPEAREAN LANGUAGE Aim How can we learn

UNDERSTANDING SHAKESPEAREAN LANGUAGE Aim: How can we learn to make sense of Shakespeare’s language?

ELIZABETHAN ENGLISH ELISION is the skipping of syllables to shorten words, with the omission indicated by the apostrophe Current examples: Didn’t, he’s “I ne’er saw true beauty till this night. ”

ELIZABETHAN ENGLISH ELISION Shakespeare’s elisions: ‘tis = it is Thou’rt = thou art Ne’er = Never Thou’dst = thou wouldest Ta’en = Taken

ELIZABETHAN ENGLISH PRONOUNS Four hundred years ago, English had two forms of you, the second -person singular personal pronoun Today, we no longer use thou, thee, thy, thine, and thyself

ELIZABETHAN ENGLISH PRONOUNS Thou is the form of you used as the subject of a sentence: Thou hast Thee is the form of you used as an object: I love thee, I give thee love

ELIZABETHAN ENGLISH PRONOUNS Thy is a possessive form of you: Thy love Thine is also a possessive form of you before an initial vowel (like you use the word mine): All my love is thine

ELIZABETHAN ENGLISH PRONOUNS Thou signals the intimacy between a wife and husband or the superiority of the speaker over a social inferior If used to address someone of a higher rank, “Thou art the best o’th’ cutthroats!” thou is insulting

ELIZABETHAN ENGLISH SYNTAX People didn’t talk the way they do in Shakespeare’s plays. Shakespeare wrote the way that he did for poetic and dramatic purposes: • to create a specific poetic rhythm • to emphasize a certain word • to give a character a specific speech pattern

ELIZABETHAN ENGLISH VERSE vs. PROSE Verse is writing arranged with a metrical rhythm (also known as poetry). Most of Shakespeare’s plays are written in verse. Prose is speech not in lines of verse, such as every day language

ELIZABETHAN ENGLISH IAMBIC PENTAMETER Shakespeare’s sonnets are written in a meter called iambic pentameter, a rhyme scheme in which each sonnet line consists of ten syllables. The syllables are divided into five pairs called iambs or iambic feet. An iamb is a metrical unit made up of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable. A line of iambic pentameter looks like this: ba. BOOM / ba. BOOM Shall I / com PARE / thee TO / a SUM / mer’s DAY? (Sonnet 18)

ELIZABETHAN ENGLISH BLANK VERSE Shakespeare’s plays are also written primarily in iambic pentameter, but the lines are often unrhymed and not grouped into stanzas. Unrhymed iambic pentameter is called blank verse.

ELIZABETHAN ENGLISH PROSE A change from verse to prose is always significant. Prose may be used to communicate urgency, informality, or disorganization. Prose does not always indicate social class

ELIZABETHAN ENGLISH COUPLETS A rhyming couplet: Two successive lines that are in the same meter and represent a complete thought. Couplets often end a scene, summing up how things stand or anticipating what will happen.

ELIZABETHAN ENGLISH COUPLETS Examples (from Romeo and Juliet): Did my heart love till now, forswear it sight, For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night For never was a story more of woe, Than this of Juliet, and her Romeo.

ELIZABETHAN ENGLISH PUNCTUATION A poetic line is not often a sentence! Do not confuse the two! A line of poetry that has a complete thought at the end of the line is called end-stopped, and has a punctuation mark (period, comma, etc. )

ELIZABETHAN ENGLISH SOLILOQUY When a speaker says his/her thoughts aloud on the stage alone, it is a soliloquy. For the speaker, it is an attempt to find some resolution. To be, or not to be-

ELIZABETHAN ENGLISH SOLILOQUY Functions of a soliloquy: • We learn more about the character, his/her motives and secrets. • The character often comments on the significance of the action we have just witnessed, giving us clues about themes. • The speaker makes us like or dislike him/her more. • Tension is raised or expectation aroused by our overhearing the feelings and plans of the speaker.

ELIZABETHAN ENGLISH MOTIF: Recurrent images and words or pairs of opposites that produce patterns unifying a work and expressing its themes.