William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (9 page)

Read William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition Online

Authors: William Shakespeare

Tags: #Drama, #Literary Criticism, #Shakespeare

BOOK: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
6.53Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Stage Directions
 
Stage directions are based on those of the early editions, where they vary in amplitude and in style. They have been amended where necessary in order to signal requisite action. Changes are not automatically signalled. Special brackets (⌈ ⌉) indicate that the action signalled, its placing, or the identity of the speaker, is, in the editor’s opinion, open to question.
Act and Scene Divisions
 
None of Shakespeare’s plays printed in his lifetime is divided into acts and scenes, and the scattered divisions in the Folio have no certain claim to authenticity. Up to about 1609, plays appear to have been given with no act breaks. For convenience of reference we follow the standard practice of dividing the plays into five acts and the acts into scenes, on the principle that a new scene begins after the stage is cleared. We have rethought the traditional divisions, resulting in a few divergences from the norm.
In plays such as
The Tempest
, where the practice, dating from around 1609, of observing act breaks was followed, the break is signalled by a Tudor rose (
).
For reasons explained elsewhere,
Pericles, Edward III
,
Sir Thomas More
, and
The History of King Lear
(based on the 1608 quarto) are divided only into scenes.
Titles
 
Titles have been rethought, so that for example the play printed in the Folio as
The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth
, and traditionally known as
Henry VIII
, is here given the title of
All Is True
, under which it was first acted. The Alphabetical List of Contents (pp. xi-xii) lists plays under traditional as well as rethought form.
THE LANGUAGE OF SHAKESPEARE
 
by
DAVID CRYSTAL
ANY encounter with Shakespeare, on page or on stage, presents us with two related linguistic challenges:
• a
semantic
challenge: we have to work out what his language means, if we are to follow the plots, understand the descriptions of people and places, and take in what he (in the poems) or his characters (in the plays) are saying and thinking,
• a
pragmatic
challenge: we have to appreciate the effects that his choice of language conveys, if we are to explain the style in which he or his characters talk, see why other characters react in the way they do, and understand what is happening to our intellect and emotions as we read, watch, or listen to their exchanges.
 
Most of the time we respond to these challenges with unselfconscious ease, because the language of Shakespeare is the same, or only minimally different, from the language we use today. We need no explanatory linguistic notes, or specialist dictionaries or grammars, to understand the semantics of such lines as:
SIR JOHN Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?
(
I Henry IV
, 1.2.1)
 
 
ORSINO
If music be the food of love, play on.
 
(
Twelfth Night
, 1.1.1)
 
 
HAMLET
To be, or not to be; that is the question.
(
Hamlet
, 3.1.58)
 
The thought may be demanding upon occasion; but the language is no barrier.
Nor do we need a corresponding scholarly apparatus to appreciate the pragmatic force underlying such lines as:
PRINCE HARRY [
of Sir John
] That villainous, abominable misleader of youth
(
I Henry IV
, 2.5.467)
 
 
MARINA
My name, sir, is Marina.
 
(
Pericles
, 21.131)
 
 
SHYLOCK [
of a jewel
] ... I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor.
(
Merchant of Venice,
3.1.113)
 
If we refer to the context in which these lines occur, we find that they are, in turn, a jocular insult, a moment of revelation, and a nostalgic reflection; but we do not need to look up editorial notes to decide whether to laugh, cry, or sympathize as we take in what is said.
At the other extreme, there is Shakespearian language which is so far removed from our modern linguistic intuitions that without specialist help we are at a loss to know what to make of it, semantically or pragmatically. We have problems understanding what it means, or how we should react to it, or why it makes characters behave in the way they do:
SIR JOHN [
to Prince Harry
] What a plague have I to do with a buff jerkin?
(
I Henry IV
, 1.2.45-6)
 
 
KENT [
to Oswald
. . . [you] lily-livered, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable, finical rogue.
 
(
The Tragedy of King Lear
, 2.2.15-17).
 
 
SIR TOBY [to Sir Andrew, of
challenging
Cesario] ... If thou ‘thou’st’ him some thrice, it shall not be amiss.
(
Twelfth Night
, 3.2.42-3)
 
The general meaning and force of these three utterances is plain: the first is a jocular expostulation; the second is a savage character assault; the third is an incitement to be insulting. But if we do not have a clear understanding of what the words mean or the impact they carry, we would be at a serious disadvantage if someone were to interrogate us on the point. Why should a buff jerkin upset Sir John? (We need to know they were worn by law officers.) How relevant an insult is
finical
? (The word meant ‘nit-picking’ or ‘over-fussy’ - a description, we might imagine, which a steward would find particularly irritating.) Why is
thou
such an asset in making a challenge? (Because courtiers would normally address each other as
you
, and their servants as
thou
; calling a fellow-courtier
thou
three times would be especially galling.) Difficulties of this kind have come about because of language change.
Shakespeare was writing in the middle of a period of English linguistic history called Early Modern English, which runs from around 1500 to around 1750. It was an age when the language was beginning to settle down after a turbulent few centuries when its structure radically altered from its Anglo-Saxon character. Old English (used until the twelfth century) is so different from Modern English that it has to be approached as we would a foreign language. Middle English (used until the fifteenth century) is very much more familiar to modern eyes and ears, but we still feel that a considerable linguistic distance separates us from those who wrote in it - Chaucer and his contemporaries. During the fifteenth century, a huge amount of change affected English pronunciation, spelling, grammar, and vocabulary, so that Shakespeare would have found Chaucer almost as difficult to read as we do. But between Jacobethan times and today the changes have been very limited. Although we must not underestimate the problems posed by such words as
buff jerkin
,
finical,
and
thou
, we must not exaggerate them either. Most of Early Modern English is the same as Modern English. The evidence lies in the fact that there are many lines of Shakespeare where we feel little or no linguistic distance at all:
BRUTUS ... If there be any in this assembly, any dear
friend of Caesar’s, to him I say that Brutus’ love to
Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend
demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my
answer: not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved
Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living,
and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to
live all free men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for
him. As he was fortunate, I rejoice at it. As he was
valiant, I honour him. But as he was ambitious, I
slew him.
(
Julius Caesar
, 3.2.17-27)
 
 
That is why we call the period ‘Early Modern’ English rather than, say, ‘Late Middle’ English. The name suggests a closeness to the language of the present day.
Writing and speaking
 
The identity between Early Modern and Modern English can be illustrated from all areas of language structure - the writing system, the sound system, the grammar, the vocabulary, and the structure of the spoken or written discourse. However, it must be recognized that in the first two of these areas the identity is an artefact - the result of conventional editorial and performance practice. The Early Modern English system of spelling and punctuation is actually very different from that which we encounter in Modern English; but we would never guess from reading most editions. Just under half of the words in the First Folio have a spelling which is different from the one we know today. At the end of the sixteenth century the alphabet was still developing: the distinctions between
u
and
v
and between i and j were not fully established, so that we find
vnuisited
alongside
vnvenerable
and
jigge
alongside
iigge.
Conventions of word-spacing, hyphenation, sentence punctuation, and capitalization also displayed many differences from modern practice. And spelling was still extremely variable: about half the words which appear in the Folio appear in more than one version - some with half a dozen or more alternatives.
Ancient
, for example, appears as
ancient, antient, aunchiant, aunchient, aunciant, auncient,
and
auntient.
Spelling did not achieve its modern standardization until the end of the eighteenth century - but most editors silently modernize Folio and Quarto spelling and punctuation, with the aim of making the texts more accessible to the reader.
Nor would we ever guess, from the way in which the poems are read aloud and the plays performed, that the Early Modern English sound system (the vowels and consonants, the stress and intonation) was at a considerable remove from modern pronunciation. It is an area where precise conclusions are unattainable. Attempts to reconstruct the way people spoke, based on a study of rhythmical patterns, rhymes, spellings, and contemporary phonetic descriptions can take us so far, but leave us well short of the character of the original. From the nature of the rhythm of the poetic line (the
metre
), for example, we can deduce that a syllable needs separate articulation, as in the opening lines of
Henry V
:
O for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention.
 
It has to be: ‘in-ven-see-on’. Similarly, it is the metre which motivates contrasting pronunciations of the same word in such cases as ‘Hence banished is banished from the world’ (
Romeo and Juliet
, 3.3.19). And from the way in which words rhyme or pun, we can deduce an earlier pronunciation, as when wind is made to rhyme with
unkind
.
But rhymes and puns do not tell us the whole story. They tell us only that two words must have sounded the same; they do not tell us in what respects that ‘sameness’ exists. In many cases, we can clearly see a pun, but still be unclear how to pronounce it. When Cassius says (
Julius Caesar
, 1.2.157-8):
Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough
When there is in it but one only man
there is obviously some word-play intended - but is
Rome
being pronounced like modern
room
, or should
room
be like modern
Rome
, or was the Early Modern English pronunciation somewhere in between? Modern performances in ‘original voices’, based on research by historical linguists, are probably not too far away from the truth - at least, as far as the vowels, consonants, and word-stress contrasts are concerned; but there remain many uncertain areas. And the nature of the dynamic aspects of speech at the time (the intonation and tone of voice) is a matter of speculation. No modern accent corresponds, though the fact that the r was pronounced after vowels (as in fire) does tend to remind people of modern rural West of England accents, when they hear people attempt a Shakespearian pronunciation. Then, as now, there would have been many regional and class variations in accent, especially in the London area.

Other books

Dreams among Stars by Pirx Danford
The Sarantine Mosaic by Guy Gavriel Kay
Requiem for the Assassin by Russell Blake
Stalemate by Iris Johansen
Lady of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Diana L. Paxson
Yours to Take by Cathryn Fox
The Dark Arena by Mario Puzo