2. Shakespeare’s Language
• ―The Bard’s‖ language may seem very
strange.
• Here are some tips to help you uncover,
The Bard, William Shakespeare!
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3. • “Shakespeare’s genius had to do not
really with facts, but with
ambition, intrigue, love, suffering - things
that aren’t taught in school” (Bryson
109).
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4. From Hamlet…
• “…the purpose of playing, whose end,
both at the first and now, was and is, to
hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to
nature; to show virtue her own feature,
scorn her own image, and the very age
and body of the time his form and
pressure” (III.ii.21-25).
5. Shakespeare’s Effect on
the English Language
• 12,000 words entered the language
between 1500 and 1650 (about ½ of
them still in use today)
• Shakespeare coined 2,035 words
(Hamlet alone has 600 new words).
A small sampling:
– Bloody, hurry, generous, impartial, obscene, majestic,
road, critical, frugal, dwindle, extract, horrid, vast, exc
ellent, eventful, assassination, lonely, suspicious, indi 5
6. Language
• Shakespeare’s phrases are now our
clichés:
– One fell swoop, into thin air, fast and loose, in
a pickle, budge an inch, cold comfort, flesh
and blood, foul play, tower of strength, cruel
to be kind, bated breath, pomp and
circumstance, catch a cold, heart of gold, live
long day, method in his madness, strange
bedfellows, too much of a good
thing, foregone conclusion
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7. More Phrases
• I couldn’t sleep a wink.
• He was dead as a doornail.
• She’s a tower of strength.
• They hoodwinked us.
• We’d better lie low for awhile.
• I am constant as the Northern Star.
• It’s all Greek to me.
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8. Shakespeare’s Writing Style
• Averaging out all of Shakespeare’s
plays, they were made up of about 70%
blank verse, 5% rhymed verse, and 25%
prose.
• Blank Verse = unrhymed iambic pentameter
• Rhymed Verse = couplets of iambic pentameter
• Prose = NO POETIC STRUCTURE
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9. Shakespeare’s Writing Style
Poetry vs. Prose
• Prose - Ordinary speech or writing, without metrical structure
• Bottom’s speech
• Prose used for several reasons:
• To demonstrate a familiar relationship (often for relaxed or informal
conversation)
• To signify a character’s status (commoner or uneducated characters)
• When the rational is contrasted with the emotional
• The character of Bottom tends to use prose to show his
social status—that he is a commoner. Helena, on the other
hand, speaks in verse form to show her noble social status.
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10. A Familiar Rhyme and
Rhythm
• Shakespeare’s verse has a familiar type of
rhyme and rhythm:
―Double, Double, toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.—Macbeth
4:1:10-11
Mary had a little lamb
London bridge is falling down
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11. Iambic Pentameter
The poetic form used by Shakespeare is Iambic Pentameter
Iambic Pentameter is a rhythmical pattern of syllables
– Iambic: rhythm goes from an unstressed syllable to a stressed
one. Rhythmic examples: “divine” “caress” “bizarre”
Like a heartbeat: daDUM (There are two syllables in one iamb.)
Each iamb is called a foot.
• There are other rhythms. I.e., trochaic = DUMda
– Pentameter = the rhythm is repeated 5 times (5 iambs for a total
of 10 syllables in each line):
daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM
―Shall I comPARE the TO a SUMmer’s DAY?‖ Sonnet 18 11
12. More Iambic Pentameter
Pentameter = the rhythm is repeated 5 times
daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM
Macbeth: The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step
On which I must fall down, or else o’er-leap,
For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires!
Let not light see my black and deep desires.
The beat pattern—called the meter—is also the reason that a
character’s lines may start way over from the left margin. Two
characters may share one 5-beat line.
--Demetrius: Quick, come.
--Hermia: Lysander, whereto tends all this?
• Shakespeare will sometimes end iambic pentameter on an
unstressed syllable, so that the last foot sounds like this: daDUMda.
– To be, or not to be, that is the question. 12
– Is this a dagger which I see before me
13. Rhyming Verse
• Rhyming couplets often at the end of
monologues/scenes.
– A cue to the actors backstage
• Some scenes in Shakespeare’s plays
(typically comedies) will be entirely in
couplets.
– Banter, to lighten the tone, to show a
character’s wit, to quicken the pace of a
scene 13
14. Punctuation
• As you read Shakespeare’s poetry, it will
probably help if you read from period to period
(or semicolon) instead of always stopping at the
end of the line.
• Read just like you would a poem.
There had she not been long but she became Keep going!
A joyful mother of two goodly sons;
And, which was strange, this one so like the other Keep going!
As could not be distinguish’d but by names.
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15. Words
• Since Shakespeare’s day, many words
have changed. How?
• There are two types of changes:
Words we don’t use anymore Words that look the same but have
different meanings
―Who would fardels bear?‖ ―I could fancy (like) more than any
other.‖
―The scrimers of their nation…‖ ―Examine well your blood (lineage).‖
―He galls his kibe.‖ ―He’s a tall (brave) as any man in Illyria.‖
―…with bisson rheum…‖ ―I would kiss as many of you as had
beards that pleased me, complexions
(passions) that liked (attracted) me.‖ 15
16. More about Words
• Shakespeare had a 30,000-word
vocabulary. We have an average of
15,000 today.
• He created a lot of words that we use
today. Here are just a few words that first
appeared in his plays:
Accommodation, assassination, dexterously,
dislocate, obscene, reliance, premeditate,
swagger, lonely, gloomy, fretful, suspicious,
hurry, etc. 16
17. The Order of Words
• Shakespeare loved to play with words and
order.
• He did this to make words fit in iambic
pentameter, sometimes for rhyme scheme, and
Rearrange Words to play with words.
sometimes Omit Words and Letters
“ That handkerchief “I’ll to England”
Did an Egyptian to my mother give.”
Instead of, ―An Egyptian did give that Instead of, ―I’ll go to England.‖
handkerchief to my mother.‖
―Unless I have mista’en his colors
much…”
Instead of, ―Unless I have mistaken his
colors much…‖ 17
