Expert: Clare Washbrook - 3/22/2009

Question
Why did shakespeare use his type of language in his plays?

Answer
Alex,

This is an odd question.

The easiest answer is that he used the language of the time.  People really spoke like that.

That is true.  There are however two additional elements to the way in which he wrote.

1) Poetics - some parts of his plays are in verse and in those parts the language conforms to rhyme patterns of the times.  They were not difficult - the plays were intended to be understood by the commonest of men.

2) Language play.  Shakespeare played with language.  It is part of the way in which many people use language.  Joss Whedon, who wrote Buffy The Vampire Slayer uses language in exactly the same way Shakespeare did.  Take the meaning and twist the words in an amusing and satisfying way.  He played.  He did it because it was fun and because it was useful.  That is personal opinion but he influenced us all....the same twisting of words resulted in the horrendous fad language of business, in new slang, in our obsession with portmanteaus (sticking two words together to make a new one).  Every single English speaking person uses words that Shakespeare made up every single day - EVERY DAY!!  So, fun was part of why he wrote the way he did.

Following my sign off is a portion of an article I wrote about Shakespeare.  This bit focuses on language and I think it might help you understand his "playing" with language!  (It's copyrighted and if this for homework - your teacher has access to it!)

I hope this helped,
CL Washbrook

Except from "Why We 'STILL' Teach Shakespeare":

"There is another reason.  One which is occassionally spewed out as a snippet-saying but is generally not really considered or comprehended (even by English teachers) -Shakespeare invented a lot of the English language.

How we use language has a hell of a lot to do with how Shakespeare used it - especially his and our fascination with constructing portmanteaus - compound words made up of two other words, which have more power together than separately. For example, he came up with bedroom.

Additional to playing with language above and beyond any normal national natural evolution (ie. we play  with our words more than any other nation) is the actual creation of new words. Shakespeare created tonnes of new words that we now use commonly, in some cases creating them outright, in others crafting new portmanteaus or turning words that had been used as nouns into adjectives. Here are a few of those words:

academe           accused            addiction          advertising        alligator

amazement        Arouse             assassination     backing            bandit              

bedroom           Beached           besmirch           birthplace         blanket            

bloodstained     Barefaced         blushing            bet                   bump               

buzzer                Caked              cater                 champion          circumstantial   

cold-blooded           Compromise     courtship          countless          critic                

dauntless                 Dawn               deafening          discontent         dishearten        

drugged                  Dwindle            epileptic            equivocal          elbow              

excitement             Exposure          eyeball              fashionable       fixture              

flawed                   Frugal               generous           gloomy              gossip    

green-eyed           Gust                 hint     hob-nob           hot-blooded       

hurried             impede          impartial           invulnerable      jaded               

label                lackluster      laughable          lonely               lower               

luggage         lustrous         madcap            majestic            marketable      

metamorphize   mimic        monumental      moonbeam       mountaineer     

negotiate           noiseless       obscene            obsequiously     ode                 

Olympian          outbreak         panders            pedant              premeditated   

puking              radiance         rant                  remorseless      savagery          

scuffle               secure          skim milk          submerge          summit

swagger            torture             tranquil          undress                 unreal              

varied               vaulting              wormhole        worthless          zany

So, "the game is afoot" with the "household words".  Do I hear you crying that "It's Greek to me"?  Well, the point, my point, is that it isn't - it is every sentence you speak, every thought you think.  Stop acting "more sinned against than sinning" because in saying this I "act more in sorrow than in anger".  I hope my "wish is father to the thought", because I really want you to understand just how much you owe to Shakespeare: every conversation you ever had, every argument, every explanation given, every film watched, every book read.  This is why we STILL teach Shakespeare. I won't "budge and inch" on this.  I may be "playing fast and loose" with his words but I am not yet "in a pickle" or "tongue-tied".  I hope that I have caused you to "knit your brows" a little because I insist on "fair play".  It is time we "danced attendance" on the Bard.  I won't "stand on ceremony" any longer, so I am giving this "short shrift".  We live in a "fool's paradise" where our education has "seen better days" and our understanding of our own language and history is like "lost property" which has "vanished into thin air".  Those suffering from "green-eyed jealously" in the comprehension stakes make out that we have had "too much of a good thing" and have "hoodwinked" you into thinking that Shakespeare is obsolete.

So those of us who actually understand must now "make virtue of necessity" (for it is necessary) and although we will not worry to the point where we "sleep not one wink", we can be a literary "tower of strength". "As good luck would have it", this "obscene" "savagery" of thought is not a "foregone conclusion".  The "pedant" has much to teach and on this point, we must be pedantic.  It is "high time" that we clear out the "bag and baggage"  of the subverted mind, even if it involves "your own flesh and blood".  As I have said, I "suspect foul play" on the part of the minority who failed to comprehend but somehow found a voice.  Well, "be that as it may", "the long and short of it" is that "the game is up", for surely "you have a tongue in your head".  It is "early days" and if we share the reality of this situation with others then "the truth will out".

This has my "teeth set on edge" and it continues "without rhyme or reason".  They can "lie low" until the "crack of doom" but we can rout them out and set them right "at one fell swoop".

With Shakespeare I have made friends, lost friends, educated my children, had drunken pub quarrels, ranted to "thin air", exclaimed during childbirth, expressed grief, expressed love, shove-shouldered my way into print, dreamt, thought, tripped and "laughed myself into stitches".   If you don't get it - "the more fool you".

"If the truth were known" then the "stony-hearted villain" who "rants" "obsequiously" against Shakespeare with his "remorseless" "gossip" would be seen as the "blinking idiot" that he truly is.  "For goodness sake", what will it take to rid ourselves of these literary "eyesores" inspired by "the devil incarnate"?

For now, even if you "send me packing" and bid me "good riddance", I am too "bloody-minded"  to be made "a laughing stock" until I am "dead as a doornail".  But if you do - "By Jove" will I "laugh myself into stitches" because in doing so you will still, as every other day of you life, be quoting Shakespeare..........and it is long past time to doff your cap and raise a glass and toast the great Bard who filled your gob with every fabulous word used to "besmirch" his name and attempt to claim him pointless with "fashionable" "barefaced" cheek.



The man was a true Englishman and a great character - a drunkard, a brawler, a man who stole his own theatre in the middle of the night and moved it across a river, a rebel who fought against the anti-"advertising" laws for theatre by using a flag code to tell people when his plays were on and what they were.  He was messy, he screwed up, he lost plays, he wrote for the common man and did it with a linguistic flair that rightfully set his place.

I'd apologise for any paraphrasing but I somehow don't think he'd mind, so long as I "have witchcraft in (my) lips".'"