The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 17.0889 Saturday, 7 October 2006
[1] From: Peter Bridgman <
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Date: Wednesday, 4 Oct 2006 17:51:48 +0100
Subj: Re: SHK 17.0876 New Screenplay
[2] From: Rolland Banker <
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Date: Thursday, 5 Oct 2006 22:14:18 -0700 (PDT)
Subj: Subject: New Screenplay
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Peter Bridgman <
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Date: Wednesday, 4 Oct 2006 17:51:48 +0100
Subject: 17.0876 New Screenplay
Comment: Re: SHK 17.0876 New Screenplay
Mark Alexander asks ...
>Do we know anything of the vernacular during Shakespeare's
>life? If we recorded a conversation, what would it have been
>like? How similar or different was it to the character's language
>in Shakespeare's plays? Are the linguistic interactions between
>characters in his plays highly artificial or realistic?
If you want something approaching the vernacular, try 'The Merry Wives
of Windsor'. It's the only play not in blank verse.
Peter Bridgman
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Rolland Banker <
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Date: Thursday, 5 Oct 2006 22:14:18 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Subject: New Screenplay
Mark Alexander writes:
>I am contemplating an idea for a screenplay with
>Shakespeare being transported to the modern day. Sorry
>I can't reveal any more of the premise than that. One
>of the themes involved revolves around the differences
>between the plain, ordinary, everyday Elizabethan
>language and the plain, ordinary, everyday language of
>today (in the US).
>
>Do we know anything of the vernacular during
>Shakespeare's life? If we recorded a conversation,
>what would it have been like? How similar or different
>was it to the character's language in Shakespeare's
>plays? Are the linguistic interactions between
>characters in his plays highly artificial or
>realistic?
You can't do better for a possible example of recorded conversation than
to go to Anthony Burgess' book, Nothing Like the Sunday, to catch
snippets of stuff like this (opened at random, page 26): "Hast a privy
for a gob, with the shit in't. Sayest?
Not one fart do I give, nay, for all they great tally. Woulds't test
it, then? Thou wouldst not, for thou art but a hulking snivelling
codardo. I have been in the wars and do speak the tongues of the Low
Countries....Thou yeanling, thou, had I my hanger I would deal thee a
great flankard. But I have but my nief and that will I mash thy fleering
bubbibubkin lips withal...."
As for Shakspeare being transported from his time to the present, part
of the realism and surprise that Will might express could be in the
sobriety of post-modern discourse, as brought out in Burgess'
Shakespeare, by Penquin Books, page 71-72:
"It was a city of loud noises-hooves and raw coach-wheels on the
cobbles, the yells of traders, the brawling apprentices, scuffles to
keep the wall and not be thrown into the oozy kennel. Even normal
conversation must have been loud, since everybody was, by our standards,
tipsy. Nobody drank water, and tea had not yet come in. Ale was the
standard tipple, and it was strong. Ale for breakfast was a good means
of starting the day in euphoria or truculence. Ale for dinner
refocillated the wasted tissues of the morning. Ale for supper ensured
a heavy snoring repose. The better sort drank wine, which promoted good
fellowship and led to sword-fights. It was not what we could call a
sober city."
The remainder of your query I will leave to the linguists. Although my
opinion of Shakespeare's language is that it became the sacred template
for the vernacular forever after the hearing or reading of it; and the
linguistic interactions in his plays ring so true and realistic that
surely they took place in reality somewhere-perhaps before the fall of
man into sin.
Another Bardolator,
Rolland Banker
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