Introduction to Shakespeare’s LanguageTurning the Ear, Focusing the Eye

What do A and B have in common?

• The following exchange occurs in Henry IV, Part 1, between the obese and high-living Falstaff and the chief justice. • Lord Chief Justice : “Your means are very slender and your waste

great.” • Falstaff: “I would that my means were greater and my waist

slenderer.”

• Mercutio a character in Romeo and Juliet who is characterized by his wit and lack of seriousness, says the following as he lies dying: • Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man.”

Answer? • Puns• A pun is a figure of speech which consists of a deliberate

confusion of similar words or phrases for rhetorical effect, whether humorous or serious.

• A pun can rely on the assumed equivalency of multiple similar words, of different shades of meaning of one word, or of a literal meaning with a metaphor. Bad puns are often considered to be cheesy. Also known as paronomasia

• Other examples: • A vulture boards a plane, carrying two dead possums. The

attendant looks at him and says, "I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger."

• Kings worry about a receding heir line.

What do C and D illustrate?• C. Shylock, a character in The Merchant of Venice,” feels

mistreated and says:• “You foot me as you spurn a stranger cur.”

• D. When, in Antony and Cleopatra, Cleopatra thinks she is the victim of some fast talk, she says:• “He words me girls, he words me.”

Answer? • Turning nouns into verbs. • In a single work day, we might head a task force, eye an

opportunity, nose around for good ideas, mouth a greeting, elbow an opponent, strong-arm a colleague, shoulder the blame, stomach a loss, and finally hand in our resignation. What we're doing with all those body parts is called verbing--using nouns (or occasionally other parts of speech) as verbs.

• Verbing is a time-honored way of coining new words out of old ones, the etymological process of conversion (or functional shifting). Sometimes it's also a kind of word play, as in Shakespeare's King Richard the Second when the Duke of York says, "Grace me no grace, and uncle me no uncles."

What do E, F, and G illustrate? • E King Henry IV, who was not fat was called “portly.” • F. A servant who intends to hurry tells his mistress that he will

go with all “convenient” speed.” • G. When Antony makes an alliance with Octavius in Julius

Caesar, he calls him a “competitor.”

Answer? • The words have changed meaning over the years. • Examples of words that have changed meaning• Awful - This meant ‘full of awe’ i.e. something wonderful,

delightful, amazing. However, over time it has evolved to mean exactly the opposite.

• Manufacture - From the Latin meaning ‘to make by hand’ this originally signified things that were created by craftsmen. Now the opposite, made by machines, is its meaning.

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Read more: http://writinghood.com/style/grammar/eight-words-which-have-completely-changed-their-meaning-over-time/#ixzz1x81uvMN4

Of what are H, I, and J examples?

• H. King Henry IV says the soil of England will no longer “daub her lips with her children’s blood.”

• I. The course of young love is described as “swift as a shadow, short as any dream, brief as lightening.”

• J. “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks. It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”

Answer • They are all metaphors. Even the similes are metaphors. • Metaphors are used to help us understand the unknown, because

we use what we know in comparison with something we don't know to get a better understanding of the unknown.

• ******************• The simplest and also the most effective poetic device is the use of

comparison. For example, "The (first thing) is the (second thing). Remember, the "two things" are unlike. Metaphors use the verb "to be." It might almost be said that poetry is founded on two main means of comparing things: simile and metaphor. We heighten our ordinary speech by the continual use of such comparisons as "fresh as a daisy," "tough as leather," "comfortable as an old shoe," "it fits like the Paper on the wall," "gay as a lark," "happy as the day is long, pretty as a picture." These are all recognizable similes; they use the words "as" or "like."

What technique is Shakespeare using in K & L?

• K. “Death, death, O amiable lovely death.” • L. Parting is such sweet sorrow.”

Answer? • Oxymorons. Oxymorons occur when a writer puts two

contradictory words together.• Cold fire, act naturally, seriously joking, small crowd

• Paradox could work, but the better answer is oxymoron because a paradox reveals a kind of truth statement which at first seems contradictory. • Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage.• from Paradise Lost : the fires of hell emit "no light, but darkness

visible."