How ‘Shakespearean’ Works



How ‘Shakespearean’ Works

1. To ‘do or not to ‘do’

The use of ‘do’ in questions and negatives (Do you…? You don’t…!) is changing in Elizabethan times. Shakespeare can use it as we do, he can omit it and change the word order, or he can add it where we wouldn’t.

• Do you marry him! (meaning, marry him!)

• I love not you

• Where flow’rs do grow

• Say you so?

2. Elision, Contraction and Syllables

Shakespeare will squeeze and stretch his words to make them fit the rhythm of his poetry. This is fine in Elizabethan English.

• He uses apostrophes (as we do in the contractions can’t, won’t he’s, they’re etc) in many other words, to shorten them: Lov’d, heav’n, e’en (even or evening) I’th’wood (in the wood), to’t (to it), etc.

• With –ed and –est endings, he can add a syllable or not. In some copies of Shakespeare the extra syllable is marked, as in ‘belovèd’; in others the contractions are marked, as in ‘lov’d’.

3. Slave to the rhythm

All this happens because Shakespeare often – but not always – writes in Iambic Pentameter – five ‘da DUMs’ per line, as in ‘A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse’. (In fact, noble characters and serious speech uses verse – comedy and low characters use prose, ie unrhythmic, ‘normal’ speech.)

To maintain this rhythm, he’ll add syllables and take them away, either by adding/omitting whole words or just parts of words. Don’t follow the rhythm slavishly, though; Shakespeare will alter it slightly, shift a stress, add asyllable, to keep it interesting, not like a nursery rhyme, and to get effects by creating pauses or stressing particular words a certain way. Say it for meaning, and the rhythm will be there.

4. Theeing and Thouing

Thee, thou, thy and thine are all personal forms of you – like ‘tu’ in French if you learnt it.

• You is the plural and respeactful form

• Thou is ‘talking down’

• So thou is used a) to those socially below you, b) in intimate talk between lovers, or c) as an insult – as in a), implying that an apparent equal is beneath you.

Thou takes the suffixes –t, -st or –est on the verb instead of –s: thou hast, thou wert, thou goest, etc.

5. Need a word? Make it up

Shakespeare actually coined (invented) many modern words we use today… and many that are lost. He does it in three basic ways:

• Prefixation/suffixation – Shakespeare will add to the beginning of a word or end of a word to make a new word:

Dislocate, premeditate, unplausive (prefixes)

Assassination, countless, eventful, abruption, soilure (suffixes)

• Class change – Shakespeare uses nouns as verbs, nouns as adjectives and so on:

It out-Herods Herod, Grace me no grace, I am proverbed with a grandsire phrase

• Compounds – Shakespeare will stick two words together to make a new one:

Ill-tuned, vile-concluded, half-blown, baby-eyes, flap-ear’d

You can usually work out what a word means by breaking it down!

6. Now a Jedi thou art

The standard modern word order is Subject, Verb, Object: Jane (S) kissed (V) John (O). Shakespeare will change his word order (as many older poets do), to VSO, OVS, OSV. Yoda in Star Wars sounds alien because he speaks OSV!

• Now gives he me her hand… V – gives, S – he, O – me, her hand

• Her hand he takes… O –her hand, S – he, V –takes

• Now do spring forth flowers… V – (do) spring forth, S – flowers

Don’t worry too much about the details (unless you’re doing A Level English Language) – just remember that Shakespearean language is different from modern English and the words may be in the ‘wrong’ places – convert them in your head to standard English, find which words you’d emphasise, then emphasise those words when you speak them in the Shakespearean order.

7. On and on and on and on and on…

Finally, saying something once is often not enough for Shakespeare when he can say it three or four times. This is a good thing for us! There aren’t any ‘special effects’ in Elizabethan theatre: he has to do it with his words. So you’ll often get a long description of a person, feeling or action – and you have to remember that it’s all one thing, and remember where you are in the sentence.

• Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires, know of your youth, examine well your blood… (three verbs)

• Thou hast… stol’n the impression of her fantasies with bracelets of thy hair, rings, gauds, conceits, knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats – messengers of strong prevailments (okay, enough, we get it! Nine objects)

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