19/02/2023
SHAKESPEARE'S CONTRIBUTION TO ENGLISH LANGUAGE
PART III
Colloquialism
Wide use of colloquialism was a typical characteristic of all Elizabethan writers. Shakespeare was no exception to this. Now they are part of conventional poetry.
A few authors have been fascinated by Shakespear's expressions and they chose them as the title of their works.
Some of them are:
* Cakes and ale (12th Night)- Somerset Maugham
* Such men are dangerous (Julius Caesar)- Ashley Dukes
* Under the Greenwood Tree (As You Like It)- Thomas Hardy
* Sound and Fury (Macbeth)- William Faulkner
* Dear Brutus ( Julius Caesar)- James Barrye
* Wheel of Fire (King Lear)- Wilson Knight
* Perchance to Dream (Hamlet)- Novello
* Brave New World (The Tempest)- Aldous Huxley
* All Our Yesterdays (Macbeth)- Tomlinson
* Time is out of joint (Hamlet)- Roy Walker
* One Word More (Hamlet)- Robert Browning
* The Time is Free (Macbeth)- Roy Walker
One can't find a Shakespeare's play where he hadn't referred to a bird or a flower. For him, each bird/flower represents a quality or shortcomings. A few of them are:
* Pelican stands for self sacrifice.
* Wren for audacity
* Cuckoo for ingratitude
* Woodcock for stupidity
* Female dove for patience
* Rosemary for remembrance
* Fennel for flattery
* Columbine for ingratitude
* Rue for sorrow and repentance
* Daisy for hypocrisy
* Violet for faithfulness, loyalty
The topic will remain incomplete, if I don't mention certain oft-quoted Shakespearean expressions. Though they are all quotable quotes, for want of space, I shall jot down only a few.
* Brevity is the soul of wit (Hamlet)
* Though this be madness, yet
There is method in it (Hamlet)
* This was the most unkindest cut of
all (Julius Caesar)
* Life is a tale told by an idiot full of
sound and fury signifying nothing
(Macbeth)
* Cowards die many times before their
death/The valiant never tastes of
death but once (Julius Caesar)
* Something is rotten in the state of
Denmark ((Hamlet)
* Fraility thy name is woman (Hamlet)
* He thinks too much, such men are
dangerous (Julius Caesar)
* Neither a borrower nor a lender be
(Hamlet)
* How sharper than a serpent's teeth
To have a thankless child ( King Lear)
* Uneasy lies the head that wears the
crown (Henry IV Part II)
* The evil that men do lives after them
The good is oft interred with their
bones (Julius Caesar)
* I am a man more sinned against than
sinning (King Lear)
* All the world is a stage
All the men and women merely
players (As You Like It)
* Et tu Brute (Julius Caesar)
* When sorrows come they not come
single spies/But in battalions
(Hamlet)
* What is in a name? (Romeo and
Juliet)
* Give everyman thy ear, but few thy
thought (Hamlet)
Renaissance suggested not only imbibing new learning but also individual freedom. As a writer, Shakespeare enjoyed it in abundance, showing flexibility in grammatical usages, coining his own words, giving new shades of meaning to words, forming compound words, idioms, phrases and so on and so forth. It is human tendency to criticise even the best. Shakespeare too received such strictures for being disdainful of grammar. There is no gainsaying that no arrow of criticism can pe*****te and mutilate his glory. He will remain in the galaxy of literature as a scintillating star forever.
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Concluded
