The Theatre Times: Shakespeare’s language is widely considered to represent the pinnacle of English. But that status is underpinned by multiple myths – ideas about language that have departed from reality (or what is even plausible). Those myths send us down rabbit holes and make us lose sight of what is truly impressive about Shakespeare – what he did with his words.
3 comments:
I’ve never thought that Shakespeare was responsible for the majority of the English language as it exists today, although he did of course write in early modern English and coin several new words. However he did have some significant contributions, and of course whether you consider him an essential linguist to the development of English or not, his use of language is powerful and universal. That’s why Shakespeare plays are constantly being redesigned with new and interesting concepts; it’s because the themes in them continue to be relevant today, and the language is beautifully commanded. You could read Hamlet 16 times and discover new layers to the text in scansion, in metaphors, in sound, and a plethora of other ways, which is what makes the language so fascinating – regardless of how many words Shakespeare may or may not have invented. As the article says, the way he uses the language is so much more impressive.
When I say I have been waiting for this article since being skeptical of my English teacher who attributed a lot of stuff to Shakespeare with evidence that seemed shaky at best, I mean it. Anyways, it’s interesting to see how much of our language we attribute so much to a famous playwright and author - and how much that level of fame Shakespeare had makes us over-attribute contributions to him. Let’s be clear - it’s still incredible how many words he is said to have coined, and the way that we still read and interpret his texts today and pick apart the layers is a testament to his legacy as an author. It’s also fascinating to consider how many of the words he likely acquired in conversation will be attributed to him because they were not written down first - a lack of permanence that we (at least I) can’t imagine in the age of the digital archive.
It is definitely interesting to see how much credit Shakespeare gets for where the English language is today and the words and phrases we use today. It makes sense that he might not have coined even half the amount of words that some sources say he did. The author of the article points out that many of the words that Shakespeare “coined” very well could have been commonly used in everyday conversation but had never been written down by someone until Shakespeare. Another thing is that I have never heard anyone say that “Shakespeare is the English language”. It is kind of odd to me that anyone would think that because we do have so many words in the language and he only could have used a rather small portion of them in his writing. It is kind of wild to me that so many people believe these things that they would become popular because while his plays are good, no one person could really affect the English language that much in one go.
Post a Comment