Monday, February 13, 2012

"The play's the thing"-Textual Analysis

I thought that since I haven't already done so, I need to give a quick little review of what I've been doing, textually, to enhance my research and understand Shakespeare better.
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While I do feel as though this is one area that I need to put more emphasis on, I have been studying the texts and noting many grammatical quirks that Shakespeare employed. I'd like to share something with you.

Shakespeare certainly liked to mix up the sentence order!

- If you look closely at some of the texts, like "Hamlet" for instance you may notice that not all sentences and speeches are written in the form of:

Subject-verb-object, etc.

Rather, Shakespeare took great pains to mix things up a bit write his sentences backwards to our modern tastes. Let me give you a few examples:

In ACT I Scene I of "Hamlet" Horatio speaks:

HORATIO
Before my God, I might not this believe
Without the sensible and true avouch
Of mine own eyes.
Another can be noted here in ACT III Scene II

  QUEEN GERTRUDE
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
HAMLET
Mother, you have my father much offended.
It is interesting to note these difference in grammatical structure. And they are scattered throughout the entire play! I think that this structure helps to bring the poetic and artistic flare to the production, but I almost get the impression that there's more to it than just that.

It certainly is interesting to see how he plays with the structure! It sort of reminds of of this guy:

1 comment:

  1. Digging the Yoda poster! I wonder if they got the idea from Shakespeare?

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