ALEC GILL

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MODERN ENGLISH

1500-2000 = 500 years

SHAKESPEARE

William SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616)

by ALEC GILL

His influence upon English has no parallel in linguistic history - the most happy-go-lucky writer ever! The pen / quill of Shakespeare propelled English into the realm of art.

He absorbed the mood of the Renaissance which gradually crept from Italy to northern Europe and Great Britain during the 16th.century. In some respects he brought the New Learning to both the prosperous middle class and ordinary people. A reading public was beginning to emerge. He was at the right place at the right time.

EVERYDAY PHRASES: GROUP EXERCISE
What everyday phrases can we recall from Shakespeare's pen?

NEOLOGISMS - New Words:
An immense number of new words are first recorded in Shakespeare's plays and sonnets. Apparently, he used a total of 17,677 different words in his writing and 10% had never been used before. Every tenth word was brand new! He coined some 2000 neologisms.

SINGLE WORDS:
aerial, aggravate, brittle, bump, castigate, countless, cranny, critical, dwindle, eventful, excellent, fitful, fragrant, frugal, gnarled, gust, hint, homicide, hurry, lonely, majestic, monumental, obscene, pedant, radiance, submerge, summit,

COMPOUND WORDS:
bare-faced, blood-stained, cloud-capped (towers), fancy-free, fore-father, ill-starred, heaven-kissing (hill), lacklustre (eye), leap-frog, snow-white,

As with Chaucer, not one single Shakespearean script survives. But thank goodness two faithful actor friends - John Hemming and Henry Condell - assembled an anthology of Shakespeare's work in the famous First Folio in 1623 - not too long after his death.

ENGLISH GRAMMAR had not been fully sorted in Shakespeare's day. Scholars thought it a waste of effort to even bother applying any rules to English. Therefore, even the Bard commits grammatical blunders: false concords, double negatives and double superlatives: "the most unkindest cut of all".

But me no buts

Some of his neologisms, however, failed to catch on: conflux, tortive, vastidity. (Could ask students: Who coined these words?)

The shifting nature of English at the time of Shakespeare is illustrated by the fact that his name has been spelled in 80 different ways.

Casual, carefree style and usage was a hallmark of this period. a state of continual linguistic flux.

ENGLISH is the richest, most expressive and flexible language of European languages - as best expressed in poetry.

CONCLUSION:
Although we look back with admiration at Shakespeare's invaluable contribution to the English language, some of his contemporaries must have thought that all his new words were a sign of madness and chaos.

END:
"There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to Fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their live
Is bound in shallows and miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures......"

JULIUS CAESAR Brutus, 4,3,216

"To be or not to be.
That is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or take up arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die, to sleep -
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream.
Ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death
what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the
whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong,
the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy make
When he himself might his quietus make
with a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bare,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death -
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns - puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear the ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn away
And lose the name of action."

HAMLET 3,1,56

OTHER ENGLISH WORD MAKERS

Other English authors followed in Shakespeare's word-making footsteps.