Language of Shakespeare
It could even be argued that
Shakespeare invented a large part of the English language, and
helped to amplify and develop its major qualities: its flexibility and potential
for concrete imagery. There are innumerable expressions which have passed
directly from Shakespeare's plays into everyday language. Here are just a few
examples drawn from Hamlet.
There’s something rotten in the state of Denmark
Not a
mouse stirring
Frailty, thy name is
woman
More matter, with less art
Hold the mirror up to nature.
Shakespeare breaks
with all of the rigid principles of the past; for him the world is not fixed, it
changes constantly and language can only be the faithful reflection of all these
transformations. His language is therefore characterised above all by its
flexibility; it adapts itself to every circumstance and reflects every thought
and emotion of the characters, from the most lofty to the most everyday. Nor
does Shakespeare hesitate to pass from verse to prose, from an ultra literary
language to one of the greatest vulgarity, often within the language of a single
character and even within the same speech. This is particularly true of
Hamlet, see for example the soliloquies and the sexual wordplay, puns
and innuendoes.
Shakespeare’s
inventiveness: of all the authors in the English language he is without doubt
the one with the most extensive and richest vocabulary. He draws from all areas
of language and from all registers. Nevertheless his
language always has the tone and pace of the spoken word. Shakespeare never
forgot that he was first of all a man of the theatre and that what he wrote on
paper was to be spoken. From this arise unforgettable sound combinations; there
are in the soliloquies of Hamlet passages which delight the ear. There
are also miracles of simplicity and power: Descartes’ ‘I think, therefore I am’
convinces us; ‘To be or not to be, that is the question’ moves us.
The world of
Shakespeare is the world transformed into images and metaphors; an object
becomes a word which turns it into an idea or an emotion. There are also double
meanings, puns and wordplay, at times ironic, often obscene, always witty, even
in the greatest tragedies.
Shakespeare has survived all the ages: rooted in the Renaissance he survived the Enlightenment, Romanticism, realism, the Industrial Revolution; he has adapted to the computer age and is spreading throughout the Web. He endures, he is indestructible. He speaks to everyone; for some he is a Marxist, for others a misogynist; some say he is close to what we would nowadays call the far right, etc. Perhaps he has none of these characteristics, perhaps he is all these things at once, as we all are. He has wonderfully anticipated all the schools of psychology of the 19th and 20th centuries. He knows human nature, consequently he knows us, and consequently we recognise ourselves in his characters.