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)
‘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’
