![]() In the opening scene of Henry VI, Part 2, for example, the dramatist quickly establishes that the action will be played out by those occupying the most elevated strata of late medieval European political culture. Some words and phrases are strange not because of the “static” introduced by changes in language over the past centuries but because these are expressions that Shakespeare is using to build a dramatic world that has its own space, time, and history. In the opening scenes of Henry VI, Part 2, for example, the word depart is used where we would say “departure,” conference where we would say “conversation,” vantage where we would say “profit,” and starved where we would say “died.” Such words, too, will become familiar as you continue to read Shakespeare’s language. In Henry VI, Part 2, as in all of Shakespeare’s writing, more problematic are the words that are still in use but that now have different meanings. Words of this kind will become familiar the more early plays you read. In the early scenes of Henry VI, Part 2, for example, one finds the words alderliefest (i.e., “very dear”), yclad (i.e., “clothed”), hoise (i.e., “remove”), and Methought (i.e., “it seemed to me”). Some are unfamiliar simply because we no longer use them. Shakespeare’s WordsĪs you begin to read the opening scenes of a play from Shakespeare’s time, you may notice occasional unfamiliar words. When we are reading on our own, we must do what each actor does: go over the lines (often with a dictionary close at hand) until the puzzles are solved and the lines yield up their poetry and the characters speak in words and phrases that are, suddenly, rewarding and wonderfully memorable. In the theater, most of these difficulties are solved for us by actors who study the language and articulate it for us so that the essential meaning is heard-or, when combined with stage action, is at least felt. Most of his vocabulary is still in use, but a few of his words are no longer used, and many of his words now have meanings quite different from those they had in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. More than four hundred years of “static”- caused by changes in language and in life-intervene between his speaking and our hearing. And even those skilled in reading unusual sentence structures may have occasional trouble with Shakespeare’s words. Others, however, need to develop the skills of untangling unusual sentence structures and of recognizing and understanding poetic compressions, omissions, and wordplay. ![]() ![]() 1 Those who have studied Latin (or even French or German or Spanish) and those who are used to reading poetry will have little difficulty understanding the language of poetic drama. For many people today, reading Shakespeare’s language can be a problem-but it is a problem that can be solved.
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