The idea of reading Shakespeare’s literature for hedonistic purposes (pleasure) let alone studying it in schools has sent chills down many people’s spines. Little do we know that we have probably quoted Shakespeare thousands of times without even being aware.
The unfamiliar English (referred to by some as thou, thee, thy language) used in his literary work, is the cause of apprehension among most of Shakespeare’s readers. William Shakespeare wrote and performed his plays during the Early Modern English period of 1590-1612, also known as the Renaissance period.
Hence the early modern version of the English language in his literature. Shakespeare’s literature has significantly contributed to the growth of English vocabulary.
The English language is full of words and phrases invented by Shakespeare (Shay, 2007). Having only lived until the age of 52, Shakespeare has impressively introduced over 3 000 words into the Oxford English dictionary through literature. He achieved this through changing nouns to verbs, verbs to adjectives, connecting words which were never used together before and adding affixes as evident in his different works of literature.
Words such as, assassination, premeditated, blushing, birthplace, fashionable, circumstantial, bloodstained, swagger and compromise are some of the words that are attributed to Shakespeare. One wonders how we would express ourselves in normal conversations if Shakespeare had not put together words to produce phrases that we use in our everyday language up to today.
If one uses phrases like “all that glitters is not gold”, “break the ice”, “naked truth”, “too much of a good thing”, “heart of gold”, “it is Greek to me”, “flesh and blood”, “cruel to be kind,” “vanish into thin air”, “for goodness’ sake”, “the game is up”… they are quoting Shakespeare.
As much as I advocate for our own African literature, I regard other non-African works of literature equally essential in the understanding of the English language, which is our official language. One of his plays and two of his sonnets are included in English as a Second Language at Higher Level curriculum in Namibian schools.
Learning the English language requires good understanding of the English speakers’ culture which can be achieved through numerous literature. Shakespeare’s 37 plays and 154 sonnets give the reader a rich English cultural experience through timeless universal themes such as love, war, the destructive results of weak or corrupt rulers, betrayal, moral failure, human personality, among others, which almost everyone can relate to in the present world, even the Namibian contemporary one.
Literature signifies the meeting of two minds: the mind of the reader and the mind of the author. Of course when there is a gap of over 400 years of language change between the reader and the author as in Shakespeare’s case, there might be some difficulties. When reading Shakespeare, we often make the mistake of focusing on the part of the quote that is too difficult and ignoring the easier ones. However, reading Shakespearean literature does not have to be too frightening. Reading the whole quote before worrying about the difficult part can be helpful. The world of technology as well has made it easy to understand Shakespearean literature by placing at our disposal different online features that can help us understand Shakespearean language. Such features include videos of the plays, online sources placed side by side, one with the Shakespearean language and the other with modern English and summaries of his plays and sonnets.
However way we try to simplify his work to make it easier for us to understand, I believe it is of great essence to refer back to its original form to retain its richness and classical essence. Shakespeare had the greatest impact on the coinage of existing words to form new words and phrases in his literary works which managed to survive and are still in use to date.
“All’s well that ends well.” William Shakespeare
- Leena Iitula is a Master of Arts in English Studies student in the Department of Language and Literature Studies, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Namibia. E-mail address kaunalena@gmail.com