English Literature: II B.A Linguistics Unit IV

Unit-IV

Submitted by Dr. K.Subapriya, Asst. Professor, Dept. Of English

Influence of Shakespeare on English

1. Write a detailed description of Shakespeare’s influence on the development of English language. (2, 5 and 10 marks)

It is difficult to point out any particular author who has made a complete contribution in shaping a language. Yet some of the remarkable author’s coinage of new words and individual phrases has become a part of the language. The influence of a few writers at times has become so valuable that the words become part of the spoken language.

Shakespeare made a deliberate attempt to use the colloquial language in writing for his dramatic purposes. Ex: back (a horse), bump and the phrase ‘what the dickens’. Shakespeare cannot be specially merited for these kinds of assumptions in coining a language.

Shakespeare’s individual expressions:

A few examples for the coinage of words and phrases by Shakespeare are as follow:

1. As to out – Herod Herod (with its many imitations)

2. Patience on a monument

3. Salad days

4. Beggars description

5. Forgone conclusion

6. Conscience does make cowards of us all

7. Brevity is the soul of wit.

The act of speaking is partly physical and partly psychological therefore a study of shakesperean text will help us to understand the social and historical background of the Elizabethan era.

Like other writers – Chaucer, Milton and Wordsworth, Shakespeare was immensely interested in language. He himself experimented with all kinds of innovations, dialectal adaptations and archaisms. One can absorb the Italian,

Latin and Warwickshire dialects in his plays like As You Like It, Love’s Labour Lost and Hamlet. He has suggested ‘local colour’ in his early life through plays such as ‘The Taming of the Shrew’. The character Christopher Sly uses Warwickshire word ‘pheeze’ – ‘to drive away’ and hence ‘to settle the business of’. The rustical rhymes of touchstone in As you Like It and the fool in King Lear were effectively used to produce an appropriate atmosphere.

Some of the dialect used by Shakespeare for the poetic effect are Blood-bolter’d Banquo of Macbeth in the sense of ‘with blood in his matted hair’. In the above statement bolter’d looks like a definitively West Midland word. In the Merry Wives of Windsor, Dr. Caius speaks the English of the French man as well as Sir Hugh Evans’ speaks masterly Welshman’s English. More significant achievement is the rustical dialect of Edgar who is disguised as a peasant in King Lear.

Probably in cases like pericles, Shakespeare would have used stylistics air of antiquity and few Archaic words to mark the Gower chorus two centuries before. But again this attempt of Shakespeare gives a uniqueness to his play. At times he also made fun of the archaizing tendency.

Ex: In Merry Wives of Windsor, number of passages consists of the usage of eyne instead of eyes.It was used both for the sake of rhyme and comic effect.

Eg: ‘If the scorn of your bright eyne

Have power to raise such love in mine’.

However Shakespeare is primarily a playwright who does not have much concern for the archaism. He has coined a few words on his own though some are seem to be derivative from other language while other are made with new compounds from the spoken idiom.

Example for his own coinage:

‘Incarnadine’ in Macbeth

“Will all great neptune’s ocean wash this blood

Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather

The multitudiness seas incarnadine

Making the green one red”.

Compound words:

French original prefix en or em- enact, embattle (draw up in order of battle)

Embay’d-locked in a bay

Empoison, enchafed, excited, enmesh, enrooted etc.

He used some adjectives to make new verbs

Ex: happy as ‘to make happy’ (sonnet VI, 6)

‘to make safe’, ‘Chided and father’d’, ‘followed like a spaniel’d’

Multitude of Phrases:

Multitude of phrases is the chief contribution of Shakespeare to the English language.

Ex: what the dickens, Patience on a Monument, To the Manner born.

What the Dickens is an expression used for what the devil. To avoid euphemism this phrase was used. Little earlier, the play Gammer Gurton’s Needle suggested this usage.

Patience on a Monument was first used in Twelfth Night.

‘She sat like a patience on a monument,

Smiling at grief’.

To the Manner born is used in Hamlet. Some of the phrases were used even by innocence without knowing the fact that it has been derived from Shakespeare usage. Ex: ‘Forgone Conclusion’ taken from Othello.

Due to the influence of Renaissance spirit, men had a greater tendency to use the language with great flexibility as they wished. Due to this tendency there was a great loss of inflexion in language and Shakespeare made use of the flexibility of Modern English grammar and gave his distinct word-order.

The Bible Translations

Give a detailed description on the translation of Bible and its influence on English (2,5 and 10 marks)

The translation of Bible’s thoughts and image should not be confused with the translation of words and phrase. The author gives an example of St. Paul’s notable image ‘sounding brass or a tinkling cymbol’ in the opening of I Corianthians chapter 13 from Latin to show the limitation of words. The image of St.Paul is his own invention and they could not improve on what the Latin had already been yielded. On the other hand, Tyndale’s ‘Babble not much’ for the Greek expression.

The Authorised version was made under the direction of King James I in 1611. It had greatly influenced in phrase making. Almost all the earlier versions of the modern English period have left the mark. One another noteworthy work was the Anglican Prayer book first issued in 1549 finally revised in 1662. It also greatly influenced the English language.

The ordinary word scapegoat came into use by the coinage of Tyndale in translating a Hebrew term which he had not fully understood. The phrases Prodigal Son and mess of pottage which are generally recognised as biblical came into language not through rendering of any scriptures but through chapter headings in pre- Authorised version of Bible.

The well-known phrase sweat of thy brow cannot be found in any extent version of Book of Genesis. It seem to agree only on ‘sweat of thy face’. It must have come from the Lollard version of the Bible which existed and then disappeared in fifteenth century. Though Tyndale hated poetry yet he had a flair for idiomatic and phrase expression. A vast deal of phraseology has been retained by King James’ translators. Therefore the great influence of the Bible on English language was its phrase. The Bible phrases have found its way into daily usage. Some of the examples are Coverdale’s tender – hearted and loving kindness, the iron hath entered my soul from the Douai-Rheims Bible of Jesuits etc.

The language of holy script should be little archaic and therefore King James I translators of the Bible had a very sound mind in choosing the dignified English. Tyndale’s translation was well-known for its simplicity. The plough boy is supposed to know more theology by learning his version. According to tradition sacred words should be more in a holy text to relate to the divine power. Tyndale’s wealth of right phrases and the clinging of tradition and Latin terms marked the early Roman Catholic version. Even a few obsolete words like damsel and raiment were revived. Tyndale’s gift of language was highly used in the Old Testament of 1611 Bible. The present familiar Authorized Version quotes are the burden and heat of the day, eat, drink and be merry, the powers that be and fatted calf.

He tried to do the translations without changing the meanings. Some examples are senior elder for priest (Greek Presbyteros), congregation for church (Greek ecclesia) and favour for grace (Greek Charis). Tyndale gave the phrase glad tidings which remained valuable and familiar. The mere habit of listening to Bible in a semi-attentive state unconsciously made the people to use the words and phrases from Bible. The Pilate’s action of washing his hands in public is echoed in the lines ‘I wash my hands of the whole business.’ The phrase common or unclean comes from Acts XI, 8. The influences of names are due to the cultural and religion and this quality can be attributed to whole Europe rather than single language alone.

The Song of Solomon in the Authorized Version, two phrases occur which are familiar as a part of literary language but people are less aware that these things are derived from Bible. For ex, ‘the rain is over and gone’ phrase appears in Wordsworth’s Lines Written in March. The American play titled ‘Voice of the Turtle’ is an echo from The Song of Solomon.

Influence of Milton

5. What was the contribution of Milton to English language (2, 5 and 10 marks)

Apart from Milton’s valuable contribution of poetic diction for English language, as a student he has contributed to the development of English in three ways. He had ideas on spellings and experimented on it. He exercised a supreme practise over the language. He added a number of words and phrases to the literary vocabulary.

His nature is to compose poetry that can be read aloud. His blindness may be a reason for this sound emphasis on pronunciation. Especially one can observe this in Paradise Lost. He made attempts to indicate stressed and unstressed form of the personal pronouns-hee, shee and their for emphatic forms. He insists that the reader should know about the pronunciation of the past participles in d or separate syllables as –ed or not. He preferred natural pronunciation like walkt rather than walked.

He preferred nearest form of pronunciation to the spellings. For instance Sovran for sovereign and artic for arctic. He showed his sensitive to pronunciation by using the syllabic –n for –en. Therefore he wrote heaven as heav’n and forbidden as forbidd’n. Except Robert Bridges, it is difficult to find Milton’s impact on any other poet. However Milton’s attitude towards vernacular is clearly expressed through the following lines,

Hail native language, that by sinews weak

Didst move my first endeavouring tongue to speak.

Despite the Latin age of Milton, he voices his possibilities of native language. He profoundly establishes the English potentiality for being a poetic language. He questions over the contemporary poets and searches around himself for the poetic language. His note entitled The Verse prefixed to Paradise Lost touches the question of music in language. Milton’s work is often criticised to be more latinate but the later works turned out to be the examination based on the New English Dictionary. Just to fit the educated audience of his seventeenth century , he made wide use of the Latin words. In the usage of syntax Milton exhibited a clear resemblance of Latin.

The new common word ‘Pandemonium’ was first coined by Milton to describe the place built by devils in hell. It was coined from the Greek pan ‘all’ and daimon ‘devil’. Like Spenser’s ‘blatant’ this word become a common usage but in a very rough sense. The list of words taken from Paradise Lost for common usage are as follow,

1. Precious bane for gold

2. Secret conclave

3. The gorgeous east

4. Prove a bitter morsel

5. A heaven on earth

6. A pillar of state

7. Confusion worse confounded

He adapted the usage of archaism from Spenser’s ‘Faerie Queen’. In Lycidas he used the Lincolnshire word of Norse origin scrannel ‘harsh and thin’ in the context as below,

‘And when they list, their lean and flashy songs,

Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw.

In Comus he used the west-country term dingle. Shakespeare and Bible influence can be observed on Bible. He deliberately used the Latinized version and the plainest English together to produce certain effect. Like Bible and Shakespeare Milton’s contribution to English language is invaluable.

6. Give few examples of Shakespeare’s own coinage of words. (2 marks)