The Ins and Outs of the Bard's Language

The language William Shakespeare used in all his plays is like a whole new geographic world. I say ‘geographic’ because it is certainly has texture and allows for movement, constructed with topography and features. And although the structure and workings of Shakespeare’s language can sometimes make the dialogue of his plays difficult to decipher, it is in this structure that Shakespeare focused his most concerted effort, as his plot-lines were often revamped versions of old stories and myths, as with Hamlet. Therefore, this geographic world of the structure of Shakespeare’s language is undoubtedly worth exploring.

One example of the interesting structural practices the Bard utilized with this writing is inverted sentence orders, as described more fully in this article. By switching around the sequence of the subject, verb and object of his sentences, Shakespeare accomplished multiple things. He was able to match the rhyming metrics of the time better, turn certain parts of speech into different ones (verb -> noun, noun -> adjective, etc.), and also shift the overall emphasis of a line to particular parts of it which would have been otherwise glossed over.

Another especially troublesome structural tactic Shakespeare used in his plays is omitting a whole array of things, from individual letters and punctuation to whole words or lines. Similar to the inverted sentence structures, this was probably done primarily for practical reasons, allowing him to get his ideas across in the demanded number of syllables and with the vocal stresses that made performing the play easier and more powerful. However, this practice also resulted in the creation of a sort of new language altogether, anachronous in all eras. As years of human development lead to the shortening of words in everyday language to breed colloquialisms, Shakespeare did the same for the communities of characters in his plays, making the language uttered by the actors in The Globe Theatre in 1610 and the actors in The Chicago Shakespeare Theatre in 2010 equally as foreign to their audiences.

A third particularly nasty structural habit Shakespeare had with his language was the insert large swaths of text in the middle of ordinary dialogue which leads the audience in hundreds of other tributaries and rivulets they were not expecting to traverse on their journey down the river of the play. While confusing, a lot can be said for insight these additions provide into the rationale and conscience of the characters as we are not simply taken from the characters’ observations to their conclusions, but have to buckle up and take the trip through their entire path of coming to that conclusion as well. This leads to better character development and depth and complexity in the stories.

So whether for practical or rhetorical reasons, Shakespeare’s purposeful use of unusual structural techniques definitely resulted in his language remaining memorable over more than 400 years. And perhaps that is its biggest legacy. While students may be cringing in their classroom desks while reading his plays off paper, people all over the world still flock to theatres to see them performed, leaving their own world behind to explore the ins and outs of the Bard’s language.