Understandıng Shakespeare's language and thought through the use of Similes and Metaphors (original) (raw)

Understanding Shakespeare’s Language and Thought Through the Use of Similes and Metaphors

2019

William Shakespeare (1564–1616), the Bard of Avon, is commonly acknowledged as England’s greatest writer (playwright and poet) of all time. Shakespeare is an iconic symbol of English and, by extension, British identity. While sketching the portrait of the English, Jeremy Paxman (2007) recognizes Shakespeare as a crucial icon of Englishness, perhaps given the existing tensions that have characterized relations between member states of the UK. However, by extension, he is an iconic personality of British identity, encapsulating the culmination of the literary achievement associated to the British nation.

"A rhapsody of words" : Language and Imagery in Three Shakespearean Tragedies

This brief paper examines some imagetic patterns that pervade the language of Shakespeares's Othello, Macbeth and Hamlet. We discuss the characterization of an specific set of images for each play and propose another one, built on the notion of 'unnaturalness', as the big picture that unifies the plays and promotes a deeper undestranding of Shakespeare's use of imagery.

Shakespeare and Literary Semiotics: One Word with Many Meanings

This essay proposes an analysis based on Literary Semiotics in William Shakespeare’s King Lear, Macbeth and Othello. Few studies have been made in this area, not only because Semiotics is a much understudied area of Linguistics, but also due to the complexity of language in Shakespeare’s plays. This paper will begin with a small framework of Semiotics’ pioneers and will discuss the most basic notions of several semioticians (e.g. Saussure, Pierce, Jakobson and Eco). Moreover, the paper will explain how Semiotics and Structuralism were so influential in the development of Literary Theory. In the tragedies mentioned, the consistent repetition of several words is noticeable: nothing in King Lear, blood/bloody/bloodier in Macbeth and honest/honesty in Othello. These words have different meanings according to the context in which they are used. The same word can mean the exact opposite or have a sarcastic significance for the audience. A literary analysis is necessary to understand the alteration of meanings in the same word. With it, it is possible to have a better understanding of Shakespeare’s intent. Keywords: William Shakespeare, Semiotics, Linguistics, Literary Analysis, Literary Theory

Metaphors in William Shakespeare’s Play Hamlet

International Journal of Education and Literature

Metaphors were mosly found in the drama “Hamlet.” It confused and made it hard for the readers to understand some dialogue in that drama. It became an interesting one to explore more profound about the use of metaphors. This study explored more the metaphors in the conversation among characters in William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. The researcher applied a qualitative descriptive method with the theory of the Metaphor, according to Parera (2004), as a detailed explanation. The study results found that the most frequently occurring types were Animal Metaphors (35%), and Anthropomorphic Metaphors as the rarest one (15%). Animal Metaphor uses animal parts to mock people in this story. Anthropomorphic metaphors are parts of the human body that are transferred to various inanimate objects used to praise in this story. Metaphors occured in a drama which can make it more interesting to read and perform

A Method to his Madness: Language in Distress in Shakespeare's Major Tragedies

This dissertation explores the progressive change in language and rhetoric Shakespeare employs to portray distress in his tragedies. Shakespeare began his career as a fairly conventional dramatist, but soon began to develop a new style and to acquire a voice of his own. This shift is most easily detected in the scenes in which his characters are overcome by the difficult situations they find themselves in, when emotions distort and affect their ability to speak. Using Titus Andronicus as a stylistic point of departure, this dissertation compares his early tragedies with his more mature and iconic ones, also known as ‘the major tragedies’: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. The first half analyses the relationship between syntax and eloquence in these passages; sentence length, sentence complexity and pause patterns all gradually change to accommodate a new, less poetical form of versified language. The latter section explores Shakespeare’s changing use of rhetorical devices from the overtly artificial language of the early plays to a more realistic and natural style. As the title suggests, pattern and a systematic procedure sustain this new dialect of overwhelming emotions, and contribute to Shakespeare’s unprecedented success at depicting distress.