features of shakespeare’s languageshakespeareunit.weebly.com/uploads/1/0/4/6/10467095/... ·...
TRANSCRIPT
Slide
Features of Shakespeare’s language
Shakespeare'slanguage
Slide
Features of Shakespeare’s language
William Shakespeare used language to:
create a sense of place seize the audience’s interest and attention explore the widest range of human experience
He was a genius for
dramatic language“
”
Slide
Features of Shakespeare’s language
1. Blank verseunrhymed lines with an arrangement of unstressed and stressed syllables known as
“ In sooth / I know / not why / I am / so sad / ”(from The Merchant of Venice)
iambic pentameter
Slide
Features of Shakespeare’s language
2. Variations on metreto make his verse less monotonous, Shakespeare:
“that this too too sullied flesh would melt”(from Hamlet)
(
altered the pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables
“There’s nothing ill can dwell in such a temple”(from The Tempest)
(
altered the expected number of syllables
Emilia: Why, would not you?
divided a single line between two or more speakers
Desdemona: No, by this heavenly light!(from Othello)
(
A shot from Hamlet by Franco Zeffirelli (1990).
Slide
Features of Shakespeare’s language
3. Use of verse and prose
VERSE
generally used by aristocratic characters in serious or dramatic scenes
PROSE
generally used by lower-class characters in comic scenes in informal conversations
Slide
Features of Shakespeare’s language
4. Imagery
clusters of repeated images build up asense of the themes of the play, like a.
imagery from natureb.
imagery from Elizabethan daily life, like:c.
light and darkness in Romeo and Juliet
A shot from Romeo+Juliet by Baz Luhrmann (1996).
sports and hunting; shipping and the law; jewels; medicine
Slide
Features of Shakespeare’s language
4. Imageryuse of metaphors and similesd.
use of personificatione.“Come, civil Night;Thou sober-suited matron all in black.”(from Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene II)
R
“There’s daggers in men’s smiles”(from Macbeth)
(
“The quality of mercy is not strained.It droppeth as the gentle rain from heavenUpon the place beneath ”(from The Merchant of Venice, IV.i.179–181)
)
A shot from The Merchant of Venice by Michael Radford (2004).
Slide
Features of Shakespeare’s language
5. Antithesis
The contrast of direct opposites.
“Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,
O any thing, of nothing first created:
O heavy lightness, serious vanity”
(from Romeo and Juliet)
Frank DickseeRomeo and Juliet (1884).
Slide
Features of Shakespeare’s language
6. RepetitionRepeated words or phrases add to:
“Oh horrible, oh horrible, most horrible!” (The Ghost in Hamlet)
the emotional intensity of a scene
“O night, O night, alack, alack, alack,
I fear my Thisbe’s promise is forgot!
And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall.”
(Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
its comic effect
Slide
Features of Shakespeare’s language
7. Hyperbole
Extravagant and obvious exaggeration
“Blow me about in winds! Roast me in sulphur!
Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!”
(from Othello)
Othello is haunted by the knowledge that
he has wrongly killed Desdemona )(
Slide
Features of Shakespeare’s language
8. Irony
Verbal irony
Saying one thing but meaning another
Dramaticirony
It is structural: one line or scene contrasts sharply with another
The audience knows something that a character
on stage does not
In Julius Caesar, Mark Antony calls Brutus “an honourable man” but means the opposite
In Macbeth Duncan’s line “He was a gentleman on whom I built an absolute trust”is followed by the stage direction “Enter Macbeth”
Slide
Features of Shakespeare’s language
9. Pronouns: you and thee
YOU
Implies either closeness or contempt Friendship towards an equal Superiority over someone considered
a social inferior Used to address someone of higher
social rank Can be aggressive or insulting
THEE
More formal and distant form Suggests respect for a superior Courtesy to a social equal
Send clear social signals