The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 19.0113 Wednesday, 20 February 2008
[1] From: John W. Kennedy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 18 Feb 2008 22:22:16 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 19.0108 Shakespeare's Style
[2] From: William Sutton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 19 Feb 2008 00:38:35 -0800 (PST)
Subj: Re: SHK 19.0108 Shakespeare's Style
[3] From: Ted Dykstra This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 19 Feb 2008 09:12:16 EST
Subj: Re: SHK 19.0108 Shakespeare's Style
[4] From: Nicole Coonradt <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 19 Feb 2008 16:55:20 +0000
Subj: Re: SHK 19.0108 Shakespeare's Style
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: John W. Kennedy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 18 Feb 2008 22:22:16 -0500
Subject: 19.0108 Shakespeare's Style
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0108 Shakespeare's Style
One stylistic key to Shakespeare's plays is set forth in C. S. Lewis's
essay, "Variation in Shakespeare and Others"; a occasional cascade of
metaphors or epithets is a powerful tool, quite possibly the best there
is, to make dialog in verse sound like something the characters are
making it up as they go along.
Add catachresis, quant. suff., and some of what would later be called
stream-of-consciousness, and you have most of it. Finish with truth in
simply syllables.
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: William Sutton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 19 Feb 2008 00:38:35 -0800 (PST)
Subject: 19.0108 Shakespeare's Style
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0108 Shakespeare's Style
Hi All,
A very interesting, nay downright exciting book dealing with this
subject is Shakespeare Thinking by Philip Davis.
This Shakespeare Now series from Continuum is trying to bridge the gap
between cutting-edge scholarship for the interested individual
practitioner. The general editors Simon Palfrey and Ewan Fernie in a
Preface describe it as a series of intellectual adventure stories.
Jason I empathise with your quest and would that the answers were
straightforward. But alas, the more you look, the more obfuscate the
result it seems. Still we continue. As these 2 final couplets attest to
a writer's consciousness of the effect of words:
'then others, for the breath of words respect,
me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect'
Sonnet 85
'But since he died and poets better prove,
Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love.'
Sonnet 32
Yours,
William S.
[3]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ted Dykstra This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 19 Feb 2008 09:12:16 EST
Subject: 19.0108 Shakespeare's Style
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0108 Shakespeare's Style
I think you'll find that if Shakespeare's essence or style could be
described at all, succinctly and without stodgy academic rhetoric, it
would have been done by now. The fact that it hasn't (rightly determined
by your extensive research) can't be done is what makes him great.
Ted Dykstra
[4]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Nicole Coonradt <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 19 Feb 2008 16:55:20 +0000
Subject: 19.0108 Shakespeare's Style
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0108 Shakespeare's Style
First, I'd be willing to bet this post gets a high number of replies.
Next, regarding Rhode's early comment "capable of communicating the
author's ideas in a striking and clear fashion." Isn't this the very
problem?
Who can claim with any authority to *know* Shakespeare's ideas? Is
*anything* clear with Shakespeare? I think what's most important about
this is how the language and style you are trying to understand (we all
are!) specifically defies understanding and this more than anything is
his long-standing appeal. My own view of the matter is this: because we
know he is writing during dangerous times of severe censorship he shapes
his style out of dire necessity *specifically* so that his ideas can
*never* be known with clarity or absolute surety. It is a means of
survival, of self-preservation. While the modifier "striking" fits, I
don't think we can ever prove that he has communicated his ideas with
clarity to anyone. If he did, we'd have no reason to debate these issues
half a century later and his "greatness" would be considered far less
than it historically has been. The problem is that his meaning-- the
goal or the prize-- dictates that he use a style that thwarts understanding.
Also, I would not call it a "mystery of genius" but, rather, the *mark*
of his particular genius.
Nevertheless, such pursuits as you wish to undertake have a place in
Shakespeare studies and adding your voice to the critical heritage is as
valued as those myriad voices that precede yours.
When I studied graduate linguistics, my first reaction was that it is
English for math people, what with all its charts and tables and
number-crunching percentages that in many ways seemed so distant from
the words being counted. But, I learned to love its fascinating
possibilities as a different way to read. What might prove fruitful for
you would be examining the linguistic nature of *how* meaning is
generated to perhaps inform what you seek by way of "understanding" by
studying cohesion and repetition, but also heteroglossia/monoglossia
with an eye not just to frequency, but deeper analysis of when and how
speakers use these techniques to generate meaning. Appraisal theory
might be useful as well. While one could study linguistics
independently, it's probably most helpful to take at least an
introductory course on the subject-- unless you've already had that
somewhere along the way.
I'll be eager to see how others respond to the interesting thread you've
started, Jason. Are there some linguists among us who can offer further
comment?
Best,
Nicole
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