Dr Alysia Kolentsis University of Waterloo St Jeromes Shakespearean mythbusting Shakespeare invented more words than any other writer in the English language Shakespearean mythbusting ID: 808835
Download The PPT/PDF document "Shakespeare’s “Native English”" is the property of its rightful owner. Permission is granted to download and print the materials on this web site for personal, non-commercial use only, and to display it on your personal computer provided you do not modify the materials and that you retain all copyright notices contained in the materials. By downloading content from our website, you accept the terms of this agreement.
Slide1
Shakespeare’s “Native English”
Dr. Alysia
Kolentsis
University of Waterloo (St. Jerome’s)
Slide2Slide3Slide4Shakespearean myth-busting
Shakespeare invented more words than any other writer in the English language
Slide5Shakespearean myth-busting
Shakespeare invented more words than any other writer in the English language
Not really
Slide6Shakespearean myth-busting
-- where I first
bow’d
my knee
Unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke,
’
Sblood
…
(1 Henry IV
)
’
Sblood
– “His [Christ’s] blood” (a mild curse)
Slide7Shakespeare’s English
OLD ENGLISH (c. 500 -1100)
MIDDLE ENGLISH (c. 1100-1500)
EARLY MODERN ENGLISH (c. 1500-1800)
Slide8Caedmon’s Hymn (c. 730)
Slide9The Book of Margery
Kempe
(c. 1440)
how
sche
xuld
lofe
hym
,
worshepyn
hym
, &
dredyn
hym
how she should love him, worship him, and dread him
ne non
oþer
boke
þat
euyr
sche
herd
redyn
þat
spak
so
hyly
of
lofe
of God but
þat
sche
felt as
hyly
in
werkyng
in
hir
sowle
yf
sche
cowd
or
ellys
mygth
a
schewyd
as
sche
felt
No
other book that she had ever heard read spoke so highly of love of God as that she felt (as highly in) working in her soul if she could or else might have showed as she felt…
Slide10Shakespeare’s
Sonnet 56
Slide11Shakespeare’s English
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Slide12Shakespeare’s English
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Thou art a villain.
Slide13Shakespeare’s English
I must to England.
(
Hamlet
)
Verbs such as “will” “shall” “must” “may” were changing from main verbs to auxiliary (or ‘helping’ verbs). In contemporary English, they accompany a main verb – “I must
go
to England.”
In Shakespeare’s English, both options are available.
Slide14Shakespearean myth-busting
If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well
It were done quickly: if the
assassination
Could trammel up the consequence
…
(Macbeth)
First recorded instance of “assassination.” However, “assassinate” was in common use.
Slide15Shakespearean myth-busting
Functional shift or conversion:
the conversion one
part of speech to
another.
Verb: to assassinate
Noun: assassination
The word is “invented” by converting a verb to a noun.
Slide16Shakespearean myth-busting
Another example of functional shift, this time from noun to verb:
When
Cymbeline
’s Queen advises her dull-witted son to be mindful of appropriate timing –
“be friended / With aptness of the season
”
–
her transformation of
noun (
friend
)
to
verb (
friended
) exemplifies
the trend toward functional shift in early modern English (while it also reminds us that the use of “friend” as a verb is not exclusive to our current social networking age).
Slide17Shakespearean myth-busting
Functional shift is one
of Shakespeare’s famed language
tricks, and it is
a distinctive feature of the transitional
English language of the time.
It was not specific to Shakespeare;
m
any writers and speakers took advantage of this easy method of word creation.
Slide18Shakespeare’s English
Because the
linguistic climate of Shakespeare’s time
was, in David Crystal’s words, “one
of the most lexically inventive periods in the history of the
language, “word invention
was simply a matter of course for early modern English poets and playwrights.
As
Ward E. Y. Elliott and Robert
Valenza
observe, “Shakespeare lived and wrote during the language’s most glorious and formative years, years when its vocabulary was growing explosively at rates unmatched before or
since.”
Slide19Shakespearean myth-busting
Shakespeare invented more words than any other writer in the English language
Not really
Slide20Shakespearean myth-busting
A study published in
Shakespeare Quarterly
in 2011 found that Shakespeare coins new words at a rate comparable to his contemporaries. Similarly, his vocabulary size is in keeping with theirs.
Slide21Shakespearean myth-busting
1
. Webster
2
. Dekker
3
. Peele
4
. Marlowe
5
. Jonson
6
. Greene
7
.
Shakespeare
8
.
Lyly
9
.
Chapman
10
.
Heywood
11
.
Middleton
12
.
Fletcher
13
. Wilson
(
Source:
Syme
, H.;
Craig
, H.)
Slide22Shakespearean myth-busting
Given Shakespeare’s lack of education (he did not go to university), he could not have written in the range of voices and different registers of language found in his plays.
Slide23Shakespearean myth-busting
Given Shakespeare’s lack of education (he did not go to university), he could not have written in the range of voices and different registers of language found in his plays.
Not really
Slide24Shakespeare’s Education
HUMANISM
Revival of classical Roman and Greek models of thought, education, etc.
Strong belief in the power of education: it was liberating, capable of freeing the mind
Promoted by thinkers such as Erasmus and Thomas More
Slide25From Roger Ascham, “The Schoolmaster
” (1570)
“I would not have the master either frown or chide with him, if the child has done his diligence … For I know by good experience that a child shall take more profit of two faults gently warned of than of four things rightly hit
.”
Slide26From
Richard
Mulcaster
,
“The
Elementarie
” (1582)
Mulcaster
derides
the ‘bondage’ that saw English speakers become servants to Latin, while neglecting the ‘
treasur
in our own
tung
’: ‘
I
love
Rome, but London better, I
favor Italy,
but England more, I honor the Latin, but I worship the English
.’
Slide27Shakespeare’s English
A
heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,
And all
unlook'd
for from your highness' mouth:
A dearer merit, not so deep a maim
As to be cast forth in the common air,
Have I deserved at your highness' hands.
The language I have
learn'd
these forty years,
My native English, now I must forego:
And now my tongue's use is to me no more
Than an
unstringed
viol or a harp,
Or like a cunning instrument cased up,
Or, being open, put into his hands
That knows no touch to tune the harmony:
Within my mouth you have
engaol'd
my tongue,
Slide28Shakespeare’s English
When
placed alongside his fellow playwrights in a comparative study, Shakespeare “follows rules about vocabulary density and about the introduction of new words in new plays, rather than breaking them. If anything, his linguistic profile is exceptional in being unusually close to the norm of his time.
His language is an extraordinary achievement with the regular resources of the English of his day rather than a linguistic aberration
” (Craig 68).
Slide29Shakespeare’s English
It is unusual
usage
, rather than new creation, that is Shakespeare’s linguistic signature
He uses commonplace words in original ways
He encourages his audiences to see familiar words in new senses
Slide30Shakespeare and Ordinary Language
Lear: Howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones…
Why should dog, a horse, a rat, have life,
And thou no breath at all?
Thou’lt
come no more,
Never, never, never, never, never!
(
King Lear
)
Bolingbroke: Are you contented to resign the crown?
Richard: Aye – no, no – aye; for I must nothing be.
(
Richard II
)
Slide31Shakespeare and Ordinary Language
They do not love that do not show their love.
(
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
)
“love” is used as first a verb, then a noun
Slide32Shakespeare: English and Latin
“a verse in Horace, I know it well. / I read it in the grammar long ago” (
Titus Andronicus
)
“Yet a kind of insinuation, as it were
in via
, in way, of explication,
facere
, as it were, replication, or rather
ostentare
, to show, as it were…”
(
Love’s
Labour’s
Lost
)
Slide33Shakespeare: English and Latin
Edgar’s final speech, which closes
King Lear
,
is
powerful
as well as strikingly Saxon:
“The weight of this sad time we must obey; / Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. / The oldest hath borne most; we that are young / Shall never see so much, nor live so
long.”
Here
, in one of the most memorable scenes in all of Shakespeare, the audience witnesses an inspiring illustration of the literary potential of the
English language.
Slide34