The Basis of Shakespeare’s Language and Exploration of Mental Illness

The Basis of Shakespeare’s Language and Exploration of Mental Illness

            Many see William Shakespeare as the name an extraordinary individual who wrote over thirty-eight plays (folger.edu) and 154 sonnets (AbsoluteShakespeare.com), but he is mostly known for his uniquely famous language that he brought forward that other playwright or poet of his time could be known for.

            During Shakespeare’s time, there were no dictionaries and organized grammar books were not composed until the 1700s (about 100 years after Shakespeare’s death) (Shakespeare Resource Center). The closest thing to a dictionary was Robert Cawdrey’s Table Alphabeticall, which was published in 1604 (British Library), which was long after Shakespeare received an education at King’s New School in Stratford-upon-Avon during his youth (Donnelly and Woledge, 2010).

Shakespeare did not receive a college education most likely because of the financial decline of his family (Dunton-Downer and Riding, 2004). Despite this, Shakespeare’s language is known to be his most striking feature. He is credited by Oxford English Dictionary by introducing almost 3,000 words into the English language (Shakespeare Resource Center).

 Many find Shakespeare’s language “arcane and impossible to decode”, but something will “click” if one kept studying it for a prolonged period of time (Signature, 2016).

This reason might be a mixture of constant practice of understanding the language and the fact that the English that Shakespeare spoke during his time period is Early Modern English, which only one linguistic generation removed from the Modern English language that we speak today (Shakespeare Resource Center).

            The evolution of the English language is presented in four Eras; Old English (450-1066), Middle English (1066-1450), Early Modern English (1450-1690), and Modern English (1690-Present) (Shakespeare Resource Center).

            The Old English Period lasted from 450 to 1066 and is known primarily as the language spoken during the Anglo-Saxon period in England. During this time, the Angles and the Saxons invaded Celtic England and the invasions extended to William The Conqueror’s conquest of England in 1066. Through this the Anglo Saxons were converted to Christianity at the start of the 7^th century and language shifted to written literature as opposed to being completely oral (borah and profile). The language itself has three dialects: West Saxon, Kentish, and Anglian. Many words in this language were derived from French as well as Latin (Slocum and Lehmann). A most wildly used example of Old English in context is the Lord’s Prayer;

            Old English:  Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum; Si þin nama gehalgod to becume þin rice gewurþe ðin willa on eorðan swa swa on heofonum.

            Modern English (Present): Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.

                                                                                                (Shakespeare Resource Center).

            Middle English lasted from 1066 to 1450. The transition between Old English to Middle English was mostly caused by the Norman Conquest 1066 as mentioned. William the Conqueror invaded England by leading direct descendants of Vikings of France. They claimed land belonging the Anglo-Saxons. The French language was integrated into England. It was derived from Latin branch as opposed to the Germanic branch of Indo-European. This caused England’s official language to be “Anglo-Norman French” while English was the third most spoken language of the country was hardly ever written down (The History of English).

            Between 1197 and 1209, London became the Norman capital as well as the largest city in England. The universities of Oxford and Cambridge were also founded during these times. These two universities caused general literacy of the English language to increase through writing down books by hand and eventually commercial and political influence of the East Midlands and London (The History of English). This new form of English became known as “Middle English” it was a very mixed language, considering that a vast majority of its vocabulary was borrowed from Norman French (Western Washington University).

Middle English: Oure fadir that art in heuenes, halewid be thi name; thi kyndoom come to; be thi wille don in erthe as in heuene.

Modern English (Present): Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.

                                                                                    (Shakespeare Resource Center).

            Early Modern English lasted from 1450 to 1690. It coincides with the Tudor Dynasty (established under Henry VII) (1485-1603) and the Stuart Dynasty (1603-1714). This time period marked  the end of the Wars of the Roses, as well as establishing the ‘Glorious Revolution’ that caused religious and political settlement. This time period also caused Act of Union between England and Scotland in 1707 (Weiner).

            While dialects differentiated by location, London had become the seat of administration as well as the court. The speech of the people of London became prestige and more uniform. The more it was spoken and written, the more it became a standard (Weiner).

            Early Modern English: Our father which art in heauen, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdome come. Thy will be done, in earth, as it is in heauen.

Modern English: Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.

                                                                                                (Shakespeare Resource Center).

Shakespeare had a major role in transforming the English language. At the time, English had become relatively free and flexible with more liberal rules of grammar, which was something that Shakespeare had used in his writings. He used nouns as verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and substantives. He introduced about 2,000 neologisms through the medium of his works, many of which are still used in Modern English today including leapfrog, monumental, castigate, majestic, homicide, puking, countless, (The History of English) and the popular female name, Jessica first used in The Merchant of Venice (Campbell).

Seventy four years after Shakespeare’s death, Modern English or “New English” started to become the official standard language spoken in England. Two factors caused this, which was the Industrial Revolution and the Rise of the British Empire. The Industrial Revolution brought new terminology for new things and ideas that did not exist in the past, like new machines, materials, working techniques, as well as science-based words containing “-ology” or “-onomy” like biology, petrology, morphology, or taxonomy. The rise of the British Empire caused the English language to borrow and integrate foreign vocabulary causing the 19 Century socio-cultural world to establish English as a world language, which wouldn’t have been possible before. (The History of English).

Some of Shakespeare’s words were shifted or dropped due to age and present vocabulary during Shakespeare’s works were being transitioned to Modern (New) English. Word order has changed since 1690. However, because Early Modern English with Elizabethan dialect is so close to our current English, the transition is proven easy and able to maintain Shakespeare’s unique way of speaking and writing (Shakespeare Resource Center).

Sir, I loue you more than words can weild ye matter,

Deerer than eye-sight, space, and libertie,

Beyond what can be valewed, rich or rare,

No lesse then life, with grace, health, beauty, honor:

As much as Childe ere lou'd, or Father found.

A loue that makes breath poore, and speech vnable,

Beyond all manner of so much I loue you.

                                    (King Lear Act I Scene I Line 54) (Early Modern English)

Sir, I love you more than word can wield the matter,

Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty,

Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare,

No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour,

As much as childe e'er loved, or father found.

A love that makes breath poor and speech unable,

Beyond all manner of 'so much' I love you.

(King Lear Act I Scene I Line 54) (Modern ‘New’ English) (The History of English).

In George Steiner’s Grammars of Creation he states that “there is something almost blasphemous in Shakespeare’s total, never-to-be-surpassed, linguistic virtuosity, in Shakespeare’s sovereign trust in the power of the word to say the world and all that it contains. It may be that there is in that seeming power an illusion, a vaunt, ultimately hollow, that human discourse and parlance can penetrate and transmit the essence of being (Steiner 269)”. 

It seems that Steiner is almost afraid of disturbed at what Shakespeare was capable of through his works and therefore sees them as “almost blasphemous”. While I don’t agree with the statement of ability of Shakespeare’s works being “blasphemous”, I do agree that there is power in his works that “can penetrate and transmit the essence of being”. Along with changing the English language, Shakespeare changed what it meant to be a modern man through Hamlet. The character Hamlet was the first dramatic protagonist in literature to hold inner conflicts and desires. The play also put more value in human frailty with the famous grave digging scene (McCrum).

Steiner’s statement on Shakespeare seems to expand on Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s quote, “the pen is mightier than the sword” go into description on how that can be. After all, is was Shakespeare’s Hamlet that was one of the prompts for Bulwer-Lytton to coin this phrase (Martin)

"... many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills and dare scarce come thither."

(Hamlet, Act II Scene II Line 322).

True, This! - 
Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold
The arch-enchanters wand! - itself a nothing! - 
But taking sorcery from the master-hand
To paralyse the Caesars, and to strike
The loud earth breathless! - Take away the sword - 
States can be saved without it!

(Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy, Act II Scene II) (Martin)

            In John Kerrigan's Shakespeare’s Binding Language, William Kerrigan states

"To rely too much on vowing is, we might say, young. It represents a development which, for the psychoanalytically minded, is regressive because it undoes the hard-earned distinction between word and deed. It falls back on “magical thinking,” and substitutes a binding word for the moral judgements of maturity (Kerrigan)."

            It’s possible that Shakespeare’s interest in mental illnesses may have been from Shakespeare’s relationship with his son-in-law Dr. John Hall. Hall found a medical practice in Stratford-upon-Avon in the early 1600s and later married Shakespeare’s eldest daughter Susanna on June 5^th 1607. Susanna and John became executors of Shakespeare’s will and moved into New Place shortly after Shakespeare’s death in 1616 (Alchin).

            Many of Shakespeare’s plays demonstrate the concept of mental illness, including Antonio’s depression in The Merchant of Venice,

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.

 It wearies me, you say it wearies you,

But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,

What stuff ’tis made of, whereof it is born,

I am to learn. (The Merchant of Venice Act I Scene I Lines 1–5)

There is possible “mental collapse” demonstrated by Theseus in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Rosalind from As You Like It and Ophelia from Hamlet.

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,

Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend

More than cool reason ever comprehends.

The lunatic, the lover and the poet

Are of imagination all compact. (A Midsummer Night’s Dream Act V Scene I Lines 4–8)

‘Love is merely a madness, and … deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do’ (As You Like It Act III Scene II Lines 359–60)

(Sings) How should I your true love know

From another one?

By his cockle hat and staff,

And his sandal shoon.

                                    (Hamlet Act IV Scene V Lines 22-25)

And finally King Lear demonstrated age-related dementia

I am a very foolish, fond old man,
Fourscore and upward,
Not an hour more nor less; and to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind. (King Lear Act IV Scene VII Lines 59–62) (Tosh)

            There are two major Shakespearean plays that demonstrate mental illness the most clearly, and that is Hamlet and Macbeth. As Macbeth progresses, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth become more and more ambitious for power, but as a result their mental health steadily declines.

Macbeth displays the symptoms of being a sociopath throughout the play, particularly during Act V. After stating that he has been through many horrors in his life, he almost seems immune to feeling and thus not feeling any kind of remorse for the killing of multiple innocents.

His wife displays different symptoms, but she declines just like her husband. While she seems perfectly sound in the beginning of the play, Lady Macbeth starts to display obsessive compulsory disorder and depression in Act V Scene I through her sleepwalking and constantly trying to wash the blood that she hallucinates seeing on her hands ("Macbeth").

            One of the most famous of plays, and probably the play that Kerrigan was referring to is the madness that is demonstrated in Hamlet. We first see Hamlet depressed by his father’s death and even forgets precisely when his father died.

By what it fed on, and yet, within a month--

Let me not think on’t. Frailty, thy name is woman!

A little month, or ere those shoes were old

(Hamlet Act I Scene II Lines 145-147)

HAMLET: For look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.

OPHELIA: Nay, ‘tis twice two months, my lord.

(Hamlet Act III Scene II)

            Before his meeting with the Ghost, Hamlet faces ethical struggles or morality and even contemplates suicide with the thought of what comes in the afterlife (To be, or not to be) (Belling). However, the Ghost servers as a magical element that becomes the source of Hamlet’s change in thinking and personality. The Ghost catches Hamlet in the middle of despair from the death of his father, the rushed marriage of his mother, and Denmark being in the hands of Claudius.

It is belief that the Ghost really is Hamlet Sr. and he died a sinner, but not in sin, hence burning in perjury. It brings up speculation if Hamlet Sr. was a good King and why he is making his son carry out revenge on his brother, when the concept of revenge is not something that is morally acceptable (Egan).

There is also the theory that the Ghost was merely an illusion, which would support speculations of Hamlet’s ailing mental health and the only motive to seek revenge on his uncle (Egan).

There is also speculation from readers and from Hamlet himself that the Ghost was actually the devil disguised as his late father, that has come to tempt him into murder. Hamlet makes the statement that he’ll need other evidence of his father’s murder besides the Ghost.

May be the devil, and the devil hath power

T' assume a pleasing shape. Yea, and perhaps

Out of my weakness and my melancholy,

As he is very potent with such spirits,

Abuses me to damn me. I’ll have grounds

More relative than this. The play’s the thing

Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.

(Hamlet Act II, Scene II Lines 561-567)

Going back on Kerrigan's statement, Hamlet does make a vow to avenge his father’s death and through this vow he does develop madness and becomes morally regressed. Gertrude and Ophelia have both stated that Hamlet was a well-liked character before his father died. This supports Kerrigan’s statement in saying that after Hamlet’s father died and he took the oath to revenge, his “hard-earned distinction between word and deed” is undone. Hence, he denies writing Ophelia letters and fantasizes about killing Gertrude along with Claudius against the orders of the Ghost.

           

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