In the opening scenes of The Merchant of Venice, for example, we find the word still where we would use “always,” the word straight where we would say “at once” or “immediately,” the word disabled where we would use “depleted” or “reduced,” and the word ripe where we would say “urgent.” Such words, too, will become familiar as you continue to read Shakespeare’s language. In The Merchant of Venice, as in all of Shakespeare’s writing, more problematic are the words that are still in use but that now have different meanings. Words of this kind will become familiar the more of Shakespeare’s plays you read. In the opening scenes of The Merchant of Venice, for example, we find the words sooth (i.e., truth), piring (i.e., peering), an (i.e., if), and doit (i.e., jot). Some are unfamiliar simply because we no longer use them. Shakespeare’s WordsĪs you begin to read the opening scenes of a Shakespeare play, you may notice occasional unfamiliar words. When we are reading on our own, we must do what each actor does: go over the lines (often with a dictionary close at hand) until the puzzles are solved and the lines yield up their poetry and the characters speak in words and phrases that are, suddenly, rewarding and wonderfully memorable.
In the theater, most of these difficulties are solved for us by actors who study the language and articulate it for us so that the essential meaning is heard-or, when combined with stage action, is at least felt. Most of his vocabulary is still in use, but a few of his words are no longer used, and many of his words now have meanings quite different from those they had in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. More than four hundred years of “static”-caused by changes in language and in life-intervene between his speaking and our hearing. And even those skilled in reading unusual sentence structures may have occasional trouble with Shakespeare’s words. Others, however, need to develop the skills of untangling unusual sentence structures and of recognizing and understanding poetic compressions, omissions, and wordplay. Those who have studied Latin (or even French or German or Spanish) and those who are used to reading poetry will have little difficulty understanding the language of poetic drama. This is collective intelligence, with no artificial ingredients.Editors of the Folger Shakespeare Library Editionsįor many people today, reading Shakespeare’s language can be a problem-but it is a problem that can be solved. Once you start reading and bookmarking on Gentle Reader, you can ask Gentle Reader to find other readers with very similar reading habits to yours, and then to show you what other articles they are also reading. Browsing, bookmarking and saving are the one-two-three of serious reading.
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