Shakespeare Language – take 2

Preventing Word Order Confusion and Figurative Language

Let’s go over Friday’s quiz

• How do can we use context clues and the text’s references to understand meaning?

Preventing against word order confusion….

When the VERB comes

before the SUBJECT

• When we see,

Hit I him.

• Instead of,

I hit him.

• When Lysander says…

“There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee,”

• He means…

When the VERB comes

before the SUBJECT

• Or when Helena says…

“But herein mean I to enrich my pain.”

• She really means…

When the VERB comes

before the SUBJECT

When the OBJECT comes

before the SUBJECT

• When we see,

Him I hit.

• Instead of,

I hit him.

• When Egeus says to Lysander,

• “And what is mine my love shall render him.”

• He really means,Render: to give or to make

(referring to Hermia)When the OBJECT comes

before the SUBJECT

• When Helena is complaining about being “ugly,”

• “things base and vile, holding no quantity, love can transpose to form and dignity.”

• She really means,

Transpose: change

(gross, dirty)When the OBJECT comes

before the SUBJECT

• Vexation - frustration• Stand forth – come forward• Consent - agree• Bewitched - seduced• Bosom - soul• Feigning - faking• The impression of her fantasy – her imagination• “knacks – youth” – fancy things• Filched -• Ancient privilege of Athens – the laws and rules• Dispose – get rid of• immediately

Figurative Language in MSND

• Collied Coal Black

“Brief as the lightning in the collied night”

Warm-up, 3/28

Draw a picture of what

this could look like!

• Shakespeare and Figurative Language

• Instead of straightforward metaphors…–Extended similes–Buried similes–Elaborate

personifications• …Are common

What’s a simile again?

• Simile • One thing LIKE or AS another thing

When Theseus says that the moon “lingers my desires…

…to a stepdame or a dowager long withering out a young man’s revenue.”

LIKE

(stepmother)

(widow)

(makes an

heir wait for

his inheritance)

Stop and Jot!!Why do you think Shakespeare

makes his characters talk in figurative language instead of just

saying… “I can’t wait to get married, I’m so

flippin’ excited!” like we would?

• Epic Similes

• Comparisons that begin simply, but then extend into elaborate comparisons

LYSANDER (to Hermia)The course of true love never did run smooth… Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,Making it momentany as a sound,Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;Brief as the lightning in the collied night,That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!‘The jaws of darkness do devour it up:So quick bright things come to confusion.

(If lovers ever were matched well)

True love is momentary…

…LIKE…

…ex

tende

d to

…

Helena (to Hermia):Your eyes are lodestars and your tongue’s

sweet air

More tunable than lark to shepherd’s ear

When whet is green, when hawthorn buds appear -

(Guiding Star)

(wet)

Hermia’s eyes are __________ and your tongue’s sweet air…

…ex

tende

d

to…

…which is

like…

• Buried Similes

• “buried” within the language

• Sometimes seem like more metaphor-like

Lysander (to Hermia)How now, my love?Why is your cheek so pale?How chance the roses there do fade so fast?(Why is it that…)

What To What?

Is Lysander comparing…

What

(Hermia’s Pale Cheek)

To What?

(A garden of faded roses)

Is Lysander comparing…Is Lysander comparing…

Hermia (to Lysander)

Belike for want of rain, which I could well

Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes

(Probably) (Lack)

(Give) (Storm)

What

(Hermia’s Pale Cheek)

To What?

(A garden of faded roses)

Is Lysander comparing…

Hermia Exten

ds to

Because Give from?

But I could…

• Stop and Jot! What is Personification again?

• Elaborate Personification

• Giving inhumane things (like ideas and concepts) human qualities

• Example: “jaws of darkness”