Shakespeare's Style
Page 21
Daughter. And then we’ll sleep together?
Doctor. Take her offer.
Wooer. Yes, marry will we.
Daughter. But you shall not hurt me.
Wooer. I will not, sweet.
Daughter. If you do, love, I’ll cry. (5.2.109–11)
It is an appropriately lyrical end for the eminently sweet and innocent Jailer’s Daughter.
Conclusion
The main observation one can make about Shakespeare’s style is that it is different in different plays. Nonetheless, there are patterns in Shakespeare’s art. For one, while nearly all of his plays derive from earlier sources, Shakespeare always succeeds not just in appropriating their stories but in making them his own. The Comedy of Errors, for example, is based on Plautus, the prolific Roman writer of comedies of the third and second century BCE, but Shakespeare goes Plautus one better by doubling the number of servants and masters. Love’s Labor’s Lost, in its elaborate and fanciful style, owes a great debt to John Lyly, an English writer who was a contemporary of Shakespeare’s. Romantic comedies like The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Twelfth Night, and As You Like It rely on the romantic conventions set forth in the primarily Italian and Spanish stories Shakespeare read. His English history plays owe much of their factual material to Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles (1577), and Sir Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives (1579) provides Shakespeare with important insights about character that he uses in his Roman plays, especially Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. The important point is that Shakespeare is never content simply to repeat his source.
There are certain kinds of characters that seem to appeal to Shakespeare. I am thinking particularly of the long line of Shakespeare’s villains. Aaron in Titus Andronicus serves as a kind of template for the many villains that follow. He is a laughing, sardonic villain, like the Vice figure in medieval plays, and the villains that come after him—like Richard, Duke of Gloucester in 3 Henry VI and Richard III, Iago in Othello, and Edmund in King Lear—are all like him in many ways. They are all witty, histrionic figures who make important use of slang and colloquial speech.
Another group of characters special to Shakespeare are satirical observers, often playing the role of calumniators. Lucio in Measure for Measure is a good example. Without any personal motivation, he freely slanders the absent duke, but, in the course of his vituperation, he is also a truth speaker who has keen insights into the duke’s limitations. Similarly, Apemantus in Timon of Athens comments on the extravagances of Timon, and the scurrilous Thersites in Troilus and Cressida presents the anti-heroic side of the Trojan War. Perhaps the melancholy Jaques in As You Like It also belongs in this group. He entertains the exiled court of Duke Senior with his sour view of the world, especially in his speech on the seven ages of man.
One is impressed with the self-consciousness of Shakespeare’s characters, especially those who communicate directly with the audience through soliloquies and asides. This is especially true of a character like Hamlet, who, in his several soliloquies, shows us what he is thinking in contrast to what is going on in the stage action. He is also critical of his own ranting style, for example, when he jumps into Ophelia’s grave with Laertes. Shakespeare’s characters—especially his villains—are great soliloquizers because they are anxious that the audience know exactly what they are thinking. The many soliloquies in Macbeth keep us aware of Macbeth’s acute sense of guilt, which tends to become an apathetic despair in the latter part of the play. King Lear, too, in his soliloquies and his oncoming madness, changes in his perception of the world (with its poor naked wretches) and of the true nature of his daughters. Although she is not a thoughtful, meditative character like Hamlet, the Jailer’s Daughter in The Two Noble Kinsmen repeatedly expresses herself in soliloquy. We find soliloquies in unexpected places in Shakespeare, and at times they have a strictly expository function.
In a more limited, rhetorical sense of style, Shakespeare has a wide range of ways he can speak to us. For example, he uses varied (sometimes unanticipated) imagery and symbolism to present his meanings. We are not prepared for the repetition of skin images in Hamlet, especially images of a hidden and inner pathology to convey the sense of poisonous secrecy in the play. In Troilus and Cressida, food and eating images suggest the folly and disgust of the Trojan War, especially in its erotic dimension. There is no possibility of true love here—only lust. This resembles Iago’s view of Desdemona (and all women) in Othello. Villains like Iago and Aaron are skillful masters of slang and colloquial language in their plays. Sexuality, which is either overtly or covertly (in double entendres and innuendo) present in all of Shakespeare, is the theme of much wordplay in the comedies, especially by clowns, fools, and lower-class characters. These characters are often illiterate and speak English not as it is written but phonetically, as does the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet and Dame Quickly in the Henry IV plays and The Merry Wives of Windsor. As an aspect of Shakespeare’s art, we should also note how the blank verse in the late romances (Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest) breaks the expected iambic pentameter pattern and tries to follow speech rhythms.
Finally, it is an important accomplishment of Shakespeare’s art that he expresses himself with such complexity. There is no simple explanation of the meaning of any Shakespearean play. He cultivates multiple, often contradictory, meanings as a way of getting at the truth of the dramatic action. In The Taming of the Shrew, for example, we are never completely sure who tames whom. Petruchio is an aggressive and cocky fortune-hunter, but, by the end of the play, Kate has learned to play the marriage game, and, as Gremio says, “Petruchio is Kated” (3.2.245). In Julius Caesar, Shakespeare divides up our sympathies for the conspirators and the party of Caesar, so that it is difficult to tell at the end where the author’s preferences lie. Richard II begins with an unflattering sense of the king insulting the dying Gaunt and seizing the estate that rightfully belongs to Bolingbroke, Gaunt’s son, then ending the play as a Christ-like, meditative martyr being killed by King Henry IV in Pomfret castle. The same is true of Cardinal Wolsey in Henry VIII, who is either the king’s faithful servant or a greedy, grasping tyrant in his own right. The play presents both points of view and leaves it for us to decide.
Macbeth provides another example. The Earl of Cawdor doesn’t seem to hesitate in his desire to be king, but he is repelled by the idea that he has to murder King Duncan. In this he resembles Brutus in Julius Caesar, who wants to cultivate the illusion that the conspirators are “sacrificers, but not butchers” (2.1.166). As he says so apologetically to Cassius: “O, that we then could come by Caesar’s spirit, / And not dismember Caesar!” (2.1.169–70). Lady Macbeth understands her husband’s conflicted spirit with extraordinary clarity: “What thou wouldst highly, / That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false, / And yet wouldst wrongly win” (1.5.19–22). Macbeth doesn’t need his wife to persuade him to murder Duncan; he only needs her to override his own profound contradictions.
If we are to approach a full understanding of Shakespeare’s style, we need to master the art of close reading. It is my hope that Shakespeare’s Style, with its attention to particular moments in each of Shakespeare’s plays, provides a template for doing so, a template that embraces the ambiguities, complexities, and contradictions that characterize the canon. My own journey through each of Shakespeare’s plays only confirms the fact that unresolved dramatic conflict is essential to his art.
Index
A
acting and the theater, 1 , 2.1-2.2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6.1-6.2 , 7 , 8.1-8.2 , 9.1-9.2 , 10.1-10.2 , 11 , 12.1-12.2 , 13.1-13.2
allegory, 1 , 2 , 3
All’s Well That Ends Well, 1 , 2.1-2.2
animal imagery, 1.1-1.2 , 2.1-2.2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6.1-6.2
antifeminine vituperation, 1.1-1.2
Antony and Cleopatra, 1.1-1.2 , 2 , 3 , 4.1-4.2 , 5 , 6
apostrophe, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4.1-4.2 , 5 , 6 , 7
Aristotle, Poetics, 1
“
“art.” See magic
A
As You Like It, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8
astrology, 1 , 2.1-2.2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4.1-4.2
atheist, 1 , 2 , 3
audience response, 1.1-1.2 , 2
B
Beaumont, Francis and John Fletcher, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, 1
Bradley, A. C., 1
braggart, 1.1-1.2
Bullough, Geoffrey, 1
Burbage, Richard, 1
C
calumniators, 1 , 2.1-2.2 , 3
character analysis, 1
Charney, Maurice, 1 , 2 , 3
Clemen, Wolfgang, 1
close reading, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5
T
The Comedy of Errors, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7
“
“commodity,” 1 , 2.1-2.2
C
Coriolanus, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2
Cymbeline, 1 , 2.1-2.2 , 3 , 4 , 5
D
disease imagery, 1 , 2.1-2.2 , 3 , 4
“
“dote” and “dotage,” 1 , 2 , 3 , 4
E
excess, 1.1-1.2
“
“fantastic,” 1 , 2 , 3 , 4
F
Fletcher, John, 1
food and eating imagery, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6.1-6.2 , 7 , 8 , 9
fool and clown, 1 , 2.1-2.2 , 3 , 4.1-4.2 , 5 , 6 , 7.1-7.2
Freud, Sigmund, 1
G
grandiloquent style, 1.1-1.2 , 2 , 3.1-3.2
Granville-Barker, Harley, 1
Greenaway, Peter, 1
H
Hamlet, 1 , 2.1-2.2 , 3 , 4 , 5.1-5.2 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10.1-10.2 , 11 , 12 , 13.1-13.2 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21
hapaxlegomena, 1
Harington, Sir John, 1
hendiadys, 1
Henry IV plays, 1 , 2.1-2.2 , 3 , 4.1-4.2 , 5.1-5.2 , 6 , 7.1-7.2 , 8 , 9.1-9.2 , 10
Henry V, 1.1-1.2 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4 , 5.1-5.2 , 6 , 7 , 8
Henry VI plays, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4 , 5
Henry VIII, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4
heroic and anti-heroic, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7
Holinshed, Raphael, 1 , 2 , 3
Homer, The Iliad, 1
“
“honest,” 1
H
humor, 1 , 2 , 3
hyperbole, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2
“
“idleness,” 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2
I
illiteracy, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4
insomnia, 1.1-1.2
invention, 1
J
Jonson, Ben, 1 , 2
Joseph, Sister Miriam, 1
Julius Caesar, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9
K
King John, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2
King Lear, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5.1-5.2 , 6 , 7 , 8
L
Lee, Sir Sidney, 1
love melancholy, 1.1-1.2 , 2
Love’s Labor’s Lost, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7
Lyly, John, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4
M
Macbeth, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6.1-6.2 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11
Machiavelli, Niccolo, 1 , 2
madness, 1.1-1.2 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5.1-5.2 , 6 , 7.1-7.2 , 8 , 9.1-9.2
magic, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2
malapropisms, 1
malcontent, 1 , 2
manliness, 1.1-1.2 , 2 , 3
Marlowe, Christopher, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8
Marston, John, 1
Marx, Karl, 1 , 2
Measure for Measure, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5.1-5.2 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9
T
The Merchant of Venice, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4 , 5
The Merry Wives of Windsor, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4 , 5
M
metrics, 1 , 2.1-2.2
Middleton, Thomas, 1
A
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6.1-6.2 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11
M
Montemayor, Jorge de, 1
Much Ado About Nothing, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5.1-5.2 , 6.1-6.2 , 7
N
nonsense, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4
North, Sir Thomas, 1 , 2
O
Olivier, Laurence, 1
Othello, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14.1-14.2 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20
oxymoron, 1 , 2.1-2.2
P
parody, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4.1-4.2 , 5.1-5.2 , 6 , 7.1-7.2 , 8 , 9 , 10
pastoral conventions, 1 , 2
Pericles, 1 , 2.1-2.2 , 3 , 4 , 5
personification, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4.1-4.2 , 5 , 6 , 7
Plautus, 1 , 2 , 3
Pliny, 1
Plutarch, 1 , 2 , 3
“
“politic” and “policy,” 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6
P
presentational imagery, 1.1-1.2
Preston, Thomas, King Cambyses, 1
punning, 1 , 2.1-2.2 , 3 , 4.1-4.2 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10
Puttenham, George, 1
Pythagoras, 1.1-1.2
Q
Quintilian, 1 , 2
T
The Rape of Lucrece, 1 , 2
R
Richard II, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4.1-4.2 , 5.1-5.2 , 6
Richard III, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7
Roman style, 1.1-1.2 , 2
romantic love conventions, 1 , 2.1-2.2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4 , 5.1-5.2 , 6.1-6.2 , 7
Roman values, 1.1-1.2 , 2
Romeo and Juliet, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6.1-6.2 , 7 , 8 , 9.1-9.2 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13
S
sardonic, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4 , 5
satire, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5.1-5.2 , 6 , 7 , 8.1-8.2 , 9.1-9.2 , 10 , 11 , 12
self-consciousness, 1.1-1.2 , 2
sexual references, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7.1-7.2 , 8 , 9.1-9.2 , 10 , 11.1-11.2 , 12.1-12.2 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18.1-18.2 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27.1-27.2 , 28.1-28.2 , 29.1-29.2 , 30
Shakespeare biography, 1.1-1.2 , 2
slang and colloquial, 1.1-1.2 , 2.1-2.2 , 3 , 4 , 5.1-5.2 , 6.1-6.2 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12
Somerville, H., 1
Sonnets, 1
Sophocles, Oedipus, 1
speech rhythms, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4
spirits, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4.1-4.2 , 5.1-5.2
spoonerisms, 1
“
“sport,” 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5.1-5.2 , 6
S
Spurgeon, Caroline, 1
Stoic values, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4
T
The Taming of the Shrew, 1 , 2.1-2.2 , 3 , 4
The Tempest, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7.1-7.2 , 8.1-8.2 , 9
Timon of Athens, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5.1-5.2 , 6.1-6.2 , 7
Titus Andronicus, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7
Troilus and Cressida, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8
Twelfth Night, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7
The Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1 , 2 , 3.1-3.2 , 4
The Two Noble Kinsmen, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4.1-4.2 , 5
V
Venus and Adonis, 1
Vice, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4
T
The Winter’s Tale, 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10.1-10.2 , 11
Z
zeugma, 1
About the Author
Maurice Charney, distinguished professor of English, emeritus, at Rutgers University, has published twenty-five books on Shakespeare and a wide range of other topics, including comedy, film, and modern drama. Having dealt in his three most recent books with aging, the problems of love and lust, and villainy and evil here he turns his attention to Shakespeare’s style. Dr. Charney was president of the Shakespeare Association of America from 1987 to 1988 and was awarded the medal of the City of Tours in France in 1989.
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