I – Introduction
This paper proposes a trip through the English Language History Development during the transitional time between the Old English and the Modern English – The Early Modern English, aiming to show how important the facts occurred during the period mentioned were so that English Language could achieve its unification, identity and, above all, its respect. The present paper concentrates on the impact of William Shakespeare’s works upon the language development as to show his great contribution, mainly upon lexicon, as well as the implicit link between literature and language.
Before entering into the analysis of Shakespeare’s influence, it is important to go through important historical facts that not only contributed to the development of the language itself but also to the acceptance and welcome to Shakespeare’s works, such as the invention of print, the Renaissance and Queen Elizabeth rein.
As a previous conclusion we may say that never has a writer been so important as William Shakespeare has, not only for his genius ability to play and create words but also for doing so in a way that made him immortal.
II – A General Historical Background
Throughout British History many things have happened: inventions have been created, new lands have been discovered and conquered, revolutions have brought about new orders. For all these transformations have been made by people and to do so people have used the language to communicate, the history of the English Language mixes with the history of England itself.
The dynamic aspect of the language makes it impossible to determine a time limit in which each period of the English Language development begins and finishes. However, some of their facts and characteristics might be highlighted so that a general view of the English Language development can be reached, since the early beginning to the time of Shakespeare.
The Old English Period is characterized as a Paganism Time. The Anglo-Saxon invasions into Britain brought and imposed many different words and dialects. Its not difficult to imagine the chaos people lived during that time, which explains the search people made to find a way to unify the language.
The Middle English Period was marked by the presence of Missionaries in charge of converting the pagans into Christians. The language spoken by the Missionaries – Latin, had a powerful influence upon the development of the English Language by lending it many words. Some of them still remain in usage (e.g. meditation, oriental), some died almost as soon as they were born (e.g. abusion). French also had a great influence in the English lexicon during that time.
The conquers increased and so did the contact with people from different countries, as a result, English Language borrowed many words from other different languages like Spanish, Italian, Greek and Portuguese, and, many years later, from indigenous languages of North America, Africa and Asia.
A traditional time can be observed between the Middle English Period and the Modern English Period – The Early Modern English Period, in which many important facts did contribute so that the English Language could acquire its own identification making it possible its international recognition later, as King James I desired. Among them are the invention of print, the Renaissance, Queen Elizabeth’s rein and the magnificent work of William Shakespeare.
III – The Invention of Print
More relevant than pointing out how print was invented by William Caxton in 1476, what made him a printer or how long it used to take him to print a book, it is to point out the impact this invention had upon the development of the language. Historically, it was important for making it possible the preservation of old manuscripts and also for giving people more opportunity to write texts relating what was going on from that time on.
It is also clear that with the invention of print more books could be printed, in 1500 nearly 150 books. As they were printed people had more access to them, and this access people had not only to read books but also to have some of their own books printed made it possible for people to discuss about these books, about their language and study the language and its properties like grammar, vocabulary and writing system and style. This discussion is what makes the invention of print so significant to the development of the language.
IV – The Renaissance
“The Renaissance was also a scientific revolution and English had to accommodate these changes.” (McCrum, 92)
From the time of the invention of print until around 1650, it was the period later called The Renaissance, a rebirth of man breaking the chains with the Medieval Time and turning into himself as the center of the universe, not only God anymore.
A time of a renewed interest in the Classical languages and literatures – Latin and Greek, bringing new words into English from these languages as those works were translated and no equivalent word in English was found.
A time of a rapid development in the fields of science, medicine and arts, coming up with new inventions, techniques and conceptions which also brought the need of borrowing some words from other languages and especially the creation of new words to name and describe those inventions and techniques along with the need to discuss about those new conceptions.
Some of these new words came up as the borrowing of words from different languages attracted the bitter criticism of those who resisted to do so for they thought that all those “inkhorn terms” would interfere and obscure the development of native English vocabulary and then, they begun trying to find a way to enrich the language. Thomas Elyot and Edmund Spencer were some of those writers to made attempts to “save” the language from so much interference.
V – Queen Elizabeth
As it was said before, the history of the English language mixes with the history of England itself and, for doing so, it would be a big mistake not mention Queen Elizabeth impact upon the development of the language due to the power the queen had during her reign which made her being considered England itself.
“During the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I …about 70 years, the English language achieved a richness and vitality of expression at which even contemporaries marveled.” (McCrum, 91)
Queen Elizabeth reign was a time of great transformation no only in England itself turning it into a powerful nation but especially in people’s mind. The success the country achieved had in its economical, industrial, political and religious and military fields brought into people the proud of being part of that country and the self-confidence necessary to be willing and open to new ideas and discoveries.
Such confidence feeling was a reflection of people inspired by a queen who had assumed the throne in a time when England was economically insecure, torn by religious strife and involved in a disastrous war with France and then, she turned the country into a very powerful and desired nation. These triumphs brought into England a brave spiritual feeling of the age.
Considering that even when England was going through bad times caused by the invasions people fought to have their language unified, fighting against the invasion of foreign words as well, what would they do in a time of triumphs? In a time when England was conquering its respect, its power, if not really battle to have their own language?
It doesn’t mean, however, that the borrowing of words from different languages had stopped. Actually during that time England had an increased contact with people from different regions, countries, etc. which mean that loans words kept on being part of the language.
Moreover, the flourish age of Elizabethan Literature was, probably, the great contribution of Queen Elizabeth Reign to the development of English. Her court was a center for poets, writers, musicians and scholar so it is obvious that when all these people get together, get to work, language is the great winner and, among them, William Shakespeare, the great dramaticist and contributor to the development of the English Language.
VI – The Language of Shakespeare
“… and no Elizabethan wrote with greater boldness than Shakespeare.” (McCrum, 95)
Not many things is known about the man called Shakespeare, as McCrum said: “Shakespeare the man escapes us” (Page 99). However, the knowledge we have about his life show us an intellectual writer whose background, upbringing and youthful experiences were all entirely favorable to the plays he wrote. A poetic and dramatic genius who not only used his own experience of living with both scholars and common people to write about people, about life, about the world and about universal and eternal feelings that makes his plays been up-to-date even after more than 600 years, but also “had an extraordinary ability to spin off memorable combinations of words” (McCrum 103). That was his great impact upon the language, especially in the area of lexicon by crating his own new words, many times used to insult, in idiomatic expressions by coming up with expressions used until now, and yet, diverse hyphenation and words/phases also used to insult and / or ridicule.
When writing his plays Shakespeare played with words in a way that gave them life as these words had the power to create meaning, atmosphere and significance, as “blood”, “fear”, “sleep”, “time”, “done”, night” in Macbeth.
“…And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o’ the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still;
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before – There’s no such thing:
It’s the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes – Now o’er the one-half world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain’s sleep; now witchcraft celebrates…
…Moves like a ghost. – Thou sure and firm-set fear earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for
The very stores prate of my whereabout,
And take the present horror from the time
Which now suits with it. – Whiles I threat, he lives;
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell…”
Repetition was another very effective way used by Shakespeare to make a simple word, like ‘love’ which is used at least 150 times in “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, as well as ‘perjury’, ‘forsworn’ and ‘false’ echo the theme of promise-breaking as they are used during the play and also, increasing dramatic intensity.
“To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn;
To love fair Silvia, shall I be forsworn;
To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn.”
(Act 2, Scene 6, Lines I-3)Farewell the plumed troops and the big wars
That make ambition virtue! O, farewell,
Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, th’ear piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!”
(Othello, III.iii.353–359)
In his plays, Shakespeare wrote some monologues to be performed by only one actor either being alone or assuming that he/she was alone on a stage – soliloquies. In a soliloquy the actor can speak to himself, as he was thinking aloud, to the audience or to a stage prop. For each soliloquy in his play, Shakespeare gave its own distinctive language feature, for example in “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, the character Julia has four soliloquies and for her first one Shakespeare gave a strong repetitive pattern and antitheses, which consist of close juxtaposing of opposites.
“Because I love him, I must pity him”
(The Two Gentlemen of Verona)
“When the battle’s lost and won… fair is foul and four is fair.”
(Macbeth)
These characteristics mentioned above aim to point out some of Shakespeare’s abilities to use language in a broader way as if he had the power to give any meaning he wanted to any word and, when the word he wanted to use didn’t exist or wasn’t in use, Shakespeare used to invent it.
Hyponation was a very simple way he used to create new words. Macbeth if full of hyphened words like ‘new-born’, ‘firm-set’, ‘live-long’, ‘cut-throat’, ‘earth-bound’, ‘bear-like’, etc.
Actually, Shakespeare had a great gift for making up new words, which permits us to estimate his vocabulary in about 30.000 words, one of the largest vocabulary of any English writer.
In addition to that, some English words had their first usage recorded time or their circulation increased in Shakespeare’s play, one of so many examples of these words is ‘obscene’ in King Richard II.
When not inventing new words, Shakespeare played with them not only in meaning but also in pronunciation, by adding and extra syllable to the past tense ending –ed, for example; in word order by placing the complement before the verb, a Renaissance characteristic, and in class word by turning an adjective into a noun or a noun into a verb. A kind of word games very well presented in his work, as we can see in one of his sonnets:
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed.But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest –So long as men can breath, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”
Analyzing the second verse, Shakespeare changed the words order in lines 1 and 2 by placing the complement before the verb:
“Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,” when it should be: Sometimes the hot eye of heaven shines.
“And often is his gold complexion dimmed;” when it should be: And his gold complexion is often dimmed.
Shakespeare does so in order to give his sonnet a good rhyme. As he does by adding to ‘dimmed’ and ‘untrimmed’ and extra syllable to their –-ed ending, in order to make the poem lyrical, musical.
There are some more examples of grammatical conversions, the use of one word class with the function of another, very noticeable during the later Renaissance period and very much copied by William Shakespeare, especially by making verbs from nouns, as we can see in the following examples:
“Season your admiration for a white…”
“Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle…”
“Julius Caesar, I who at Philippi the good Brutus ghosted…”
“Destruction straight shall dog them at the heels…”
“ I am proverbed with a grandsire phrase…”
In addition to his great impact on lexicon, Shakespeare also introduced some idiomatic expressions that are still part of the modern language.
As examples of these expressions we can mention “it’s Greek to me”, when you don’t understand an statement or argument, first appeared in Julius Caesar; “love is blind”, when love actions can’t be explained, as in Merchant of Venice; and many other ones like:
“in my mind’s eyes” (Hamlet, I.ii)
“salad days” (Antony and Cleopatra, I.v)
“I must be cruel only to be kind” (Hamlet, III.iv)
Such contributions William Shakespeare gave to the language make him universal and even compared “as Dante is for the Italians or Goethe is for the Germans – an icon for speakers of his language throughout the world.” (McCrum, 99)
VII – Conclusion
I firmly believe that the history of a language, most of the times, mixes with the history of the people who use it because both are results of people’s actions, thoughts, beliefs and feelings, as time passes by throughout the years.
For believing so, it is not difficult to imagine the chaos Britain people lived until they finally achieved their identity as a nation and as the owner of their own language, not imposed by any kind of invaders or people from different part of the world anymore.
The facts mentioned in this paper were not mentioned in order of importance or the only ones whose impacts upon the development of the language studied were significant, even if only the period in which they occurred is taken into account. For instance, King James Bible and Johnson’s Dictionary were also very significant. However, they were also selected in an attempt, presented in an implicit way, to include another aspect to the study of the language – the literature, showing the history, language and literature are, most of the times, as a part of the same process.
How many literary works were lost before the invention of the print? And what good would print be if they hadn’t been produced? There is a close dependent link between them – the print and the literature. And this link greatly contributed to the development of the language by providing people with material to be read, written and, above all, studied as also by stimulating people to discover, register, learn and organize features of their language, a great step to the language’s identity.
During the Renaissance, man broke the chains with the old world and begun to reflect upon his own existence. New conceptions were created as old beliefs were brought down. New inventions were made and their descriptions were required. And all these had an important impact on literatures and on language as well.
All these important facts combined with the glorious time England had during Queen Elizabeth rein sure deserve to be taking into consideration, specially when we think about how the spirituous age from Queen Elizabeth time was in favor for the most flourish time in England literature which was also totally in favor the coming up of William Shakespeare’s work.
When mentioning Queen Elizabeth, it is necessary to point out what her rein did mean for the English people, because in spite of all the conquers and triumphs England achieved, it was the brave spirituous feeling people acquired from that time that made them really confident to fight for their own language.
I sure believe that it was the self-confidence and proud of their nation that made people be willing to have their language developed, unified and respected. And it was also those feeling which made open to the flourish of literature, providing the most propitious time for Shakespeare’s work as well as for the development of the language.
McCrum (page 98) did not exaggerate when, mentioning Shakespeare, he said:
“It is lucky for us that Shakespeare lived during the first flourishing of the popular presses: centuries later we can still appreciate the extent of his powers, his compassion, his knowledge of the human heart, and above all his genius for words.”
Denying Shakespeare’s influence upon the development of the English language, especially upon lexicon, is to ignore words, expressions and usage of the language presented in nowadays conversation. That some of them that were used by Shakespeare in his plays became odd and lost throughout the years, can’t be ignored either, it is also clear. Many people can only do reading one of Shakespeare’s plays nowadays with the help of a dictionary of old English, especially by those who don’t really study the language.
However, many of them are still in usage, if not exactly the same way they used to be, at least in a very similar way, as, for example, the expression “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Or even more common “love is blind”; the usage of nouns as verbs and some words like: accommodation, countless, premeditated, submerged, etc.
Shakespeare was not the only writer to create his own words, just some days ago I run across with the word “terraform” created by the author of a text I was reading, to give the idea of turning the planet Mars alike Earth.
However, Shakespeare’s brilliant mind together with his genius ability to play with words made him universal and eternal, reinforcing his great importance and influence upon the development of the English language. Never had a writer contributed so much with that, as McCrum said:
“The English writer whose imagination and vocabulary matched the discovered of the New World… (Page 97) He is – as Dante is for the Italians or Goethe is for the Germans – an icon for speakers of his language throughout the world.” (Pages 99 -100)
The English-speaking world is in forever debt with its greatest bard not only for the beauty of his poetic diction but also for the discursive possibilities he made available for his people.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CAMBRIDGE SCHOOL. Shakespeare: Macbeth. Cambridge University Press, 1998.
CAMBRIDGE SCHOOL. Shakespeare: The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Cambridge University Press, 1998.
CHRYSTAL, David. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
CLEMEN, Gina D. B. e STAGNO, Laura. British History Seen Through Art. Canterbury: Cideb Editrice, Geneoa, Black Cat Publishing, 2001.
McCRUM, Robert. The Story of English. London: BBC Books, 1962.