Key points
William Shakespeare was an English actor, poet and playwright. Some of his most famous plays include Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and The Tempest.
Shakespeare’s plays were written over 400 years ago, and some of the language can be unfamiliar to modern audiences.
Shakespeare helped transform the English language. Many words and phrases that are commonly used today were first written down by Shakespeare.
Video about Shakespearean language
Watch this video about Shakespeare’s influence on the English language
What do the following words mean?
Blank verse
Rhyming couplet
Iambic pentameter
Prose
Did you know?
Shakespeare contributed 1,700 words to the English language.
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How did Shakespeare influence language?
Shakespeare often invented new words or used existing words in a different way. Many of his plays are the first record of a word or phrase being used in the English language, for example:
Bedroom - A Midsummer Night’s Dream
To gossip - The Comedy of Errors
Cruel to be kind - Hamlet
Elbow room - King John
Insults
Shakespeare loved playing with language, and many of his plays contain creative insults, for example:
“Thou cream faced loon” - Macbeth
“Out of my sight! Thou dost infect mine eyes!” - Richard III
Did you know?
Shakespeare’s plays have been translated into over 80 languages. In 2012, as part of the celebrations for the Olympic Games in London, 37 international acting companies presented all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays in 37 different languages.
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Speaking in verse and prose
Shakespeare used rhythm and rhyme in his plays for many different purposes. A strong rhythm gives the language energy. Rhythm and rhyme is also used to distinguish between certain types of characters.
Blank verse
Most of Shakespeare’s plays are written in blank verse. Blank verse is a type of poetry with a regular rhythm but no rhyme.
Rhythm
The rhythm is usually iambic pentameter, which is a line with ten beats, five stressed and five unstressed (da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM). This rhythm has a sound like natural speech and tends to be used by educated or high status characters.
Rhyme
Sometimes characters speak in rhyming couplets, which are two lines that have rhyming words at the end. Couplets could signal the end of a scene, or they might be included to create a particular effect, like emphasis or a moment of tension.
Prose
Prose has no rhythm or rhyme. We can tell when Shakespeare is using prose in his plays because the text appears as a block on the page, instead of shorter lines that each start with a capital letter. Comic characters or characters of a low status tend to speak in prose.
Did Shakespeare always stick to these language rules?
Activity
The following lines are all from the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Are they examples of prose, blank verse or rhyming couplets?
- “Hippolyta, I woo’d thee with my sword,
And won thy love, doing thee injuries;
But I will wed thee in another key,
With pomp, with triumph and with revelling.”
- “A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll. Masters, spread yourselves.”
- “In that same place thou hast appointed me,
To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.”
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Imagery
Shakespeare’s plays are full of bold and striking imagery. Imagery is when a writer uses words to create vivid images for the reader or audience.
Some of the types of imagery Shakespeare used include:
The choice of imagery is often linked to the themes of the play. Shakespeare often used groups of images to highlight an important theme or idea.
For example, in Romeo and Juliet there are lots of images linked to the stars and planets to highlight the theme of fate.
Listening activity
In this audio clip from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the character Helena is upset about love. She uses imagery comparing love to a boy. This kind of metaphor is called personification because love is given human characteristics in the description.
What is the name of the rhyme scheme used in this extract?
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Getting to grips with the language
Useful words to know
Shakespeare’s language can be tricky to understand.
Many of Shakespeare’s words are unfamiliar to a modern audience, for example the word ‘sans’ means ‘without’. Some words that are familiar may have a different meaning, for example the word ‘want’ means ‘lack’ in Shakespeare’s language.
Here are some other useful words to know with their modern-day translation:
| Shakespearean language | Modern-day translation |
|---|---|
| art | are |
| aught | anything |
| dost | do |
| doth | does |
| hence | from here |
| oft | often |
| nay | no |
| wast | were |
| whence | from where |
| wherefore | why |
| yea | even |
Pronouns
A pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun in a sentence, for example ‘they’ or ‘it’. Pronouns are used in an interesting way in Shakespeare’s plays.
Thou and thee, which mean ‘you’, and thy and thine, which mean ‘your’, are used in an informal way to address someone in Shakespeare’s plays. Examples of when these pronouns might be used include:
Family members talking to each other
Close friends talking to each other
Talking to a character of lower status
You and your, on the other hand, are more formal ways of addressing someone. Examples of when these pronouns might be used include:
A cold and distant relationship
Talking to a noble or royal character
Contractions
Contractions were common in Shakespeare’s time, and they appear frequently in the plays. These words or phrases can look strange, but it’s useful to remember that the apostrophe just shows that there is a missing letter or letters.
| ne’er | never |
| e’en | even |
| o’er | over |
| ’tis | it is |
| ’twas | it was |
| ’ere | before |
Listening activity
Listen to this audio clip from the play Macbeth, in which a captain describes Macbeth’s violent fighting on the battlefield.
Click below to reveal what the bold words mean.
“Till he faced the slave;
Which ne’er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
Till he unseam’d him from the nave to the chaps,
And fix’d his head upon our battlements.”
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