Reading Shakespeare: A Primer

If you’re a high school student, you might think of William Shakespeare’s plays as a particularly cruel form of torture. A number of factors make them difficult to read, including the linguistic challenges they present, the cultural differences between contemporary society and Elizabethan England that sometimes make the characters and their behavior seem strange to us, and the sophistication and depth of Shakespeare’s characters and ideas. However, with patience and experience, you might find that reading Shakespeare can be a stimulating challenge rather than a frustrating chore. I hope that in the end you will come to appreciate the plays and understand why they are still so widely read and performed today. Despite their superficial alienness, they have things to say about society and life and human nature that are universal and timeless. Give ol’ Bill Shakes a chance.

Important Shakespearean Vocabulary

Familiarity with these frequently used expressions will make Shakespeare’s works much easier to read. They fall into two basic categories:

1. Words and forms that are not used (or are only rarely used) by contemporary English speakers and writers

2. Words that have a different meaning in Shakespeare’s texts than they do in contemporary English

Note: This list is adapted from “Shakespeare: An Overview” by Sylvan Barnet, found in the Signet Classic editions of Shakespeare’s plays, though I have made many additions and revisions.

Study these words on Quizlet here.

Interpreting Shakespeare’s Punctuation, Syntax, and Diction

Another challenge presented by the language of Shakespeare’s plays is that even when we understand the superficial meaning of the individual words or the overall meaning of a character’s speech, sometimes the reasons for his word choices and word order are still unclear. With practice at translating individual lines, speeches, and exchanges between characters into contemporary English, these choices become easier to understand, and eventually lines that would have seemed strange and indecipherable will become clear to you on your initial reading. When you get to the point at which you don’t have to expend so much effort to understand each line, reading Shakespeare’s plays becomes much more enjoyable, and you can more easily appreciate their brilliance.

Use of apostrophes to show metrical elision

Because much of the speech in Shakespeare’s plays is written in verse (usually iambic pentameter), there are strict rules about the number of syllables in each line. One tool that provides flexibility for writers trying to make words fit the meter of a given line is called metrical elision. (You might also see this referred to as syncope.) In Shakespeare’s plays, apostrophes are often used to show the elision (omission or removal) of certain sounds or syllables to make words fit the metrical requirements of the line.

One of the lines quoted above from Act 1, Scene 3 of Othello is an example of this:

She swore, in faith, ’twas strange, ’twas passing strange…

If the words “it was” are written separately, with the vowel sound of it included in the line, the line would not be in iambic pentameter. It would have twelve syllables instead of ten, and the words was and it would be stressed, and the more important word strange would not be stressed. The words ’twas and o’er both occur frequently in Shakespeare’s plays because they are often useful in filling out the meter of a line appropriately. Here’s another example of metrical elision:

Her collars, of the moonshine’s wat’ry beams… (Romeo and Juliet Act 1, Scene 4)

In this case, the three-syllable word watery is reduced to two syllables that fit the line perfectly and allow the last stress of the line to fall on the word beams.

Unusual syntax

One source of confusion is unusual syntax—word order and sentence structure. Much of the characters’ speech in many of Shakespeare’s plays is written in poetic verse, and the demands of rhyme and meter often result in, for example, the verb coming at the end of the line or before the subject. Sometimes these choices are made to achieve a certain dramatic effect or to give emphasis to a certain idea in the sentence.

Consider the closing couplet from the final scene of Othello, spoken by a gentleman who announces that he is leaving to give a report to government officials about the events that have just occurred:

Myself will straight¹ aboard, and to the state²
This heavy act with heavy heart relate. (Othello Act 5, Scene 2)

¹ straight: immediately
² state: government

These lines have a few interesting features:

1. The use of the pronoun myself instead of I is contextually appropriate because the speaker, Lodovico, is contrasting what he will do with what he has just suggested that someone else do. But it also happens that myself, a two-syllable word with the stress on the second syllable, fits the iambic pentameter of the line.

2. The phrases “this heavy act” and “with heavy heart” occur one after the other. In normal syntax, this clause might be rendered as “and with heavy heart relate this heavy act to the state.” But by juxtaposing these two phrases, Shakespeare emphasizes the parallel structure and the repetition of the word heavy, giving the lines a poetic and emotional force that they would not otherwise have.

3. The placement of the verb relate is also a departure from normal syntax, but in this case the demands of end rhyme dictate its placement at the end of the line; it rhymes with state.

With such analysis, the reasons for and cleverness of Shakespeare’s syntactic choices become clear, and lines that at first seem unreasonably difficult become eloquent and beautiful (or hopefully at least interesting).

Parts of speech

In Shakespeare’s language, as in poetry in general, parts of speech are often more flexible than they are in contemporary Standard English; words that are normally only used as one part of speech are sometimes used as another part of speech.

One common and relatively straightforward example is the use of adjectives as adverbs. In the lines below, the adjective meek is acting as an adverb:

…Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne¹ his faculties² so meek… (Macbeth Act 1, Scene 7)

¹ borne: used, exercised
² faculties: (political) power

Translated into contemporary English, these lines mean “Duncan has used his power meekly (humbly).”

Sometimes such flexibility of parts of speech is more unusual and potentially confusing, as in the lines below:

…or heaven’s cherubin horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air… (Macbeth Act 1, Scene 7)

The word horse is normally a noun, of course, but in the example above, horsed is used as a participle meaning “mounted (upon a horse).”

Other unusual uses of words

In general, Shakespeare was endlessly inventive in his use of the English language. Many words that are now frequently used in contemporary English were coined by Shakespeare; these words appeared for the first time in his plays. Bedazzle, fashionable, outbreak, pander, sanctimonious, and vulnerable are all examples of such words.

Shakespeare also used existing and familiar words in new ways. Sometimes, as discussed above, he used words as different parts of speech than they were normally used; sometimes these unusual usages involve a kind of reversal of meaning. In the lines above, the expression “sightless couriers” doesn’t mean “blind couriers,” as any contemporary English speaker would probably expect at first glance, but “invisible couriers”; they are “sightless” in the sense that they can’t be seen. Here is another example of this kind of unusual usage:

He did command me to call timely on him.
I have almost slipped the hour. (Macbeth Act 2, Scene 3)

In this context, slipped means “let the hour slip by”; it is really not the subject of this clause (the speaker, Macduff) that is doing the slipping, but the object, hour. If we read these lines intuitively instead of following strictly logical analysis of the syntax, the meaning is easier to deduce. (Another way to interpret these lines is simply to think of slipped as a synonym for missed.)

Shakespeare’s Use of Figurative Language

One aspect of Shakespeare’s diction that can cause confusion is his frequent use of figurative language. While many of these metaphors and similes are familiar to modern readers and immediately recognizable as examples of figurative language, others will be confusing for one reason or another. Keep figurative language in mind as one possible explanation for wording that is hard to understand.

In a soliloquy in Romeo and Juliet, Friar Lawrence makes extensive use of figurative language to describe the growth of plants and the cycle of life and death:

The earth that’s nature’s mother is her tomb.
What is her burying grave, that is her womb;
And from her womb children of diverse kind
We sucking on her natural bosom find… (Romeo and Juliet Act 2, Scene 3)

Here, the earth is being compared to several things:

1. The “mother” of nature: Living things exist because of the earth and are dependent on it.

2. The “tomb” and “burying grave” of nature: Dead things decompose and become part of the earth again.

3. The “womb” of nature: The earth produces (“gives birth to”) living things in the form of plants.

This description suggests the cycle of life and death: things that die become nutrients for new things that are born. The earth is both tomb and womb.

In this passage, plants are figuratively described as “children.” Because they absorb nutrients from the soil, they are like infants suckling on nature’s bosom. (Syntactically, the last part could be changed to “And we find children of diverse kind sucking on her natural bosom.”)

If you understand Shakespeare’s use of figurative language, the passage is both clear and poetic, and even the unsual syntax isn’t too problematic. If you don’t grasp the figurative language, the passage may be terribly confusing.

Common Shakespearean Themes

Obviously, if we know what Shakespeare liked to write about, the ideas that he was concerned with, it’s easier to figure out the significance of his characters’ actions and words. Generally speaking, Shakespeare’s plays are concerned with the kinds of themes and questions that have always fascinated people of different time periods and cultures. Here are some examples:

• The nature of romantic love: Is love meaningful and substantial or shallow and fleeting?
• Lust and passion: Desire can drive people to destructive and self-destructive extremes.
• Jealousy: Jealousy makes people irrational, foolish, and violent.
• Revenge: The desire for revenge often consumes those who seek revenge along with the targets of their revenge.
• Reason vs. passion: These two fundamental forces of the human mind often cause internal conflict.
• Moral dilemmas: Another source of internal conflict is situations in which people feel they have conflicting moral obligations.
• Appearance vs. reality: Things are not always what they seem to be, and our judgments are often superficial and ill-informed.
• Stubbornness: Those who refuse to be open-minded and objective or to be sympathetic toward others’ feelings will pay a price for their stubbornness.
• Greed and ambition: These forces of human nature are destructive (and usually self-destructive as well).
• Power: Power tends to corrupt those who have it and make tyrants of them.
• Guilt: People who commit evil acts are often deeply disturbed by feelings of guilt.
• Justice: In one way or another, those who commit evil acts will eventually pay a price for their actions. But what exactly is the nature of “justice”? Human law is limited and imperfect.
• Fate: People’s lives are subject to many forces beyond their control or even their knowledge.
• Violence: What drives people to commit acts of violence, and what are the consequences of such acts?
• Death: All of us must ultimately face the inescapable fact of death. Does death make our lives meaningless?
• Immortality: Because we all must die, we seek the power to live on in some way—through the lasting effects of our actions, for example.
• The dead: How do people continue to influence us after death (after violent deaths, in particular), through their demands on us, their need for justice, or the demands of our conscience or sense of obligation to them?