Reading Shakespeare's Dramatic Language

by Hunter, Lynette; Magnusson, Lynne; Adamson, Sylvia

• ISBN13: 9781903436295
• ISBN10: 190343629X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-12-14
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare

Summary

This accessible and interdisciplinary volume addresses a fundamental need in current education in language, literature and drama. Many of today's students lack the grammatical and linguistic skills to enable them to study Shakespearean and other Renaissance texts as closely as their courses require. This practical guide will help them to understand and use the structures and strategies of written and dramatic language. Eleven short essays on aspects of literary criticism and performance by an eminent team of contributors are followed by a more detailed exploration of the history of language use, grammar and spelling, plus a glossary of terms offering definitions, contexts and examples. Together these provide an informed and engaging historical understanding of dramatic language in the early modern period.

Table of Contents

List of contributors	vii
List of abbreviations for works by Shakespeare	ix
Preface	xi
PART I: THE LANGUAGE OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS	1	(188)
Introduction	3	(2)
Heightened language	5	(12)
Ann Thompson
Style, rhetoric and decorum	17	(14)
Lynne Magnusson
The grand style	31	(20)
Sylvia Adamson
Shakespeare's metre scanned	51	(20)
George T. Wright
Puns and parody	71	(18)
Walter Nash
Description	89	(13)
William C. Carroll
Narrative	102	(11)
David Scott Kastan
Persuasion	113	(17)
Lynette Hunter
Dialogue	130	(14)
Lynne Magnusson
Characters in order of appearance	144	(14)
Pamela Mason
Shakespeare's language in the theatre	158	(15)
Peter Lichtenfels
Language and the body	173	(16)
Keir Elam
PART II: READING SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLISH	189	(80)
Introduction	191	(1)
Varieties and variation	192	(18)
Katie Wales
`Standard' English	192	(2)
Regional dialect	194	(2)
Social variation: sociolects	196	(4)
English and nationhood	200	(2)
English and Latin	202	(1)
Occupational dialects	203	(1)
Register and situational variation	204	(2)
Thou and you: social, emotional and rhetorical variation	206	(1)
Individual variation or idiolects	207	(3)
Understanding Shakespeare's grammar: studies in small words	210	(46)
Sylvia Adamson
Introduction: choice and change	210	(2)
And or an (meaning `if')	212	(2)
His or it (meaning `its')	214	(4)
May	218	(5)
Shall	223	(3)
Thou	226	(6)
That, this, thus, there	232	(7)
Shakespeare's new wordsTerttu Nevalainen	237
Compounding	239	(2)
Conversion	241	(3)
Affixation	244	(12)
Shakespeare's sounds	256	(13)
Roger Lass
Prologue: `difference' and variability	256	(2)
Syllable-count and stress	258	(4)
Rhyme and betrayal	262	(3)
Some further details	265	(2)
Epilogue	267	(2)
PART III: RESOURCES FOR READERS	269	(47)
An A-Z of rhetorical terms	271	(31)
Katie Wales
A guide to further reading	302	(14)
Index	316