1. Shakespeare Language and Rhetoric

2. Language Style of Elizabethan Theater Provides distinctiveness of any play/literature Characters have their own styles when they speak Not like drama today, which is real and natural

3. Shakespeare Theater Non-realist Non-naturalistic Relied on connections shared by actors and audiences Few props Very elaborate costumes

4. Shakespeare Theater Relied on Language and Human Voice Heightened Verse (rather than spoken language) Long speeches, soliloquies, asides, patterned dialogue, prologues and epilogues, complex imagery, rhyme Nobles speak in verse; lower status characters in prose

5. Language Creates Sense of place “In fair Verona where we lay our scene…” Romeo and Juliet Conjures up darkness in vivid images “’Tis now the very witching time of night When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world.” Hamlet Creates a shipwreck at sea or raging storm “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow You cataracts and hurricanoes spout…” King Lear

6. Language Creates (cont.) Embodies the unearthly, mysterious world of the supernatural “Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble” Macbeth Emotional mood of character (i.e., fear, love, grief “My love is deep; the more I give to thee the more I have for both are infinite” Romeo & Juliet

7. Verse Poetic Style Used for Kings, affairs of war and state, tragic themes, moments of high intensity Only 4 are completely in verse – Richard II, King John, King Henry VI, Parts 1 and 3 Only 5 plays are more prose than verse – Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, King Henry Iv, Part 2

8. Verse (cont.) Iambic Pentameter Each line has 5 stresses, 5 unstressed de DUM de DUM de DUM de DUM de DUM Said to reflect the natural rhythm of human speech Shakespeare often varied the pattern, using more or less than 10 syllables Enjambment – running on; one line flows to the next (rather than end steps) Shared lines – divided between more than one character

9. Prose Used for mainly four situations proclamations, written challenges/ accusations and letters Spoken by low status characters (servants, clowns, drunks) or low status villains Expresses madness Comedic effect Of course, with Shakespeare, there were always exceptions

10. COMPONENTS OF SHAKESPEARE’S LANGUAGE

11. Imagery Emotionally charged words and phrases which conjure up vivid mental pictures in the imagination Uses metaphors and similies Located in every one of Shakespeare’s plays Verbal scene “painting” Appeals to the emotions Gives insight into characters feelings and thoughts

12. Imagery (Cont.) Repeated Imagery from Nature sun, moon and stars; seasons; sea; animals and birds Images from daily life of Elizabethan England Farming, sports, hunting, jewels, religion, banking, education, medicine, etc.

13. Imagery (cont.) Samples “They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, But bear-like I must fight the course.” Macbeth “Why what’s the matter,/ That you have such a February Face,/ So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness” Much Ado About Nothing “O, pardon me thou bleeding piece of earth/ That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!” Julius Caesar

14. Personification Adds dramatic effect because in endows objects or abstractions with life Commonly death with human qualities Samples “That rounds the mortal temples of a king Keeps Death his court” King Richard II “Grief fills the room up of my absent child lies in his bed, walks up and down with me.” King John

15. Antithesis Opposition of words or phrases against each other Like characters, Shakespeare uses words against each other Samples “The more I love, the more he hateth me” A Midsummer Night’s Dream “With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage” Hamlet “To be or not to be” Hamlet

16. Repetition Adds dramatic effect Repeats words, phrases, rhythms and sound Adds to emotional intensity of the scene Can deepen the irony or heighten the comedy Shakespeare used this form of rhetoric the most

17. Repetition (cont.) Anaphora – same words begin successive sentences “That never words were music to thine ear That never object pleasing to thy eye…” Comedy of Errors Parison – repeating an entire sentence or clause almost exactly “In such a night” is repeated 8 times in the first 20 lines of Act 5 Scene I of The Merchant of Venice

18. Repetition (cont.) Ploce – repeating words in a line or clause “For she that scorned at me, now scorned of me” Richard III “In that great victory, Caesar was Caesar!“ Epizeuxis – repeating words in immediate succession “O, horror, horror, horror” Macbeth Antanaclasis – punning on a repeated word to obtain different meanings “Put out the light, and then put out the light” Othello

19. Word Choice Play on language for effect Shakespeare used it to poke fun at language Alliteration – repetition of consonants “More matter for May morning!” Twelfth Night Assonance – repetition of vowels “What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?” King Lear Onomatopoeia – words to mimic what they describe “The murmuring surge,/That on th’unnumbered idle pebble chafes” King Lear

20. Rhyme In verse, involves matching sounds at the end of each line Blank Verse – unrhymed Rhyming was used to characters’ exits Rhyming couplets signals end of a scene, act or long speech Express foreboding, operate as a prophecy or farewell epitaph/blessing Shared speech to express shared emotion As Shakespeare got older, he used rhymed couplets less

21. Rhyme (cont.) Samples Juliet: O now be gone, more light and light it grows Romeo: More light and light, more dark and dark our woes! Also antithesis and ploce

22. Lists Another of Shakespeare’s favorite methods Accumulates words or phrases (like a list) Sample “In the cauldron of boil and bake: Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting, Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth, boil and bubble.” Macbeth

23. Other Rhetoric Used Self Persuasion – character seesaws Monosyllables – simple short words to carry high emotion or dramatic charge