Reading Shakespeare’s Language  Some Issues:  Unusual Syntax (sentence structure)  Poetic compressions/omissions  Word play  Vocabulary  (some of Shakespeare’s  words have changed their  common meanings)

Hamlet  Shakespeare builds the world of Hamlet by using the location, history, and names from the story, “local references”  But the place doesn’t seem to be as central in Hamlet. Rather, the atmosphere and internal landscape of the characters is more significant.

Shakespeare’s Syntax  Why does Shakespeare use unusual word order in his sentences?  To create the rhythm he wants  To maintain iambic pentameter (blank verse)  To give a character a special speech pattern  To emphasize a particular word

Shakespeare’s Syntax  What does he actually do?  Subject –verb inversion: He goes  Goes he, This way will I.  Object before the subject and verb: I hit him.  Him I hit. “How I have thought of this and of these times, I shall recount hereafter.”  Separating words that usually go together: leave out no ceremony  Leave no ceremony out.  Omission of words: I’ll go about  I’ll about.

Omissions  Shakespeare wrote the way people spoke. We also omit words when we talk with each other:  Rewrite this conversation the way it would sound if it was spoken:  Have you been to Mrs. Jackson’s English class yet?  No. I have not been to class yet. I have heard she is giving us a test.  Why would she want to do that?

Omissions: contractions  He uses contractions heavily, just like we do when we talk. What are some of our modern contractions?  Shakespeare’s contractions:  'tis ~ it is ope ~ open o'er ~ over gi' ~ give ne'er ~ never i' ~ in e'er ~ ever oft ~ often a' ~ he e'en ~ even

Shakespeare’s Wordplay  Puns:  A play on words that sound the same but have different meanings. Used for: humor, bringing remote ideas into relationship, revealing tone...  From Julius Caesar: cobbler=shoemaker and bungler, “withal” sounds like “with awl”  Hamlet: “A little more than kin and less than kind.”  Shakespeare uses a lot of sexual puns

 Vocabulary  Shakespeare writes in “modern” English  BUT, many of his words have changed meaning or are not in use.  His vocabulary was around 30,000 words (60,000 words?)  He also made up new words: accommodation, amazement, countless, dexterously, dislocate, frugal, indistinguishable, premeditated, smilet  All this is what our footnotes are for—read them

Shakespeare’s Wordplay  Metaphors  When an object or idea is expressed as if it were something else  The genius and the mortal instruments are then in council, and the state of man, like to a little kingdom, suffers then the nature of an insurrection (you can be at war within yourself, as if you were a kingdom and your morals were rebelling)