Shakespeare' As You Like It: Effective Use of Sound In Jaques' Speech
As infamous as Shakespeare is, and as well known as his works are, some prose are just simply more extraordinary than the rest. There are many ways to look at Jaques speech, such as use of language or imagery yet, something we often do not reflect on is the sound of the prose. When reading this particular speech, the subject is directly related to the sounds Shakespeare has chosen.
We are guided gracefully through the stages of life in twenty-seven lines. As it is read aloud, the reader hears the actual sounds that each stage exhibits, and finds themselves part of the speech, experiencing it, as opposed to merely reading it.
The introduction is like a drum-roll before the show starts. The intonation at which the reader proceeds begins with a high sound due to”
...(a)ll...” 1 being the first word. The ‘aw' sound is repeated at the beginning and three times during the next sentence, “And all the men and women merely players;” (2.7.140). The next sentence is lower in pitch, using a lower ‘ e' sound “..exit and their entrances,” (2.7.141). Reappearing in the final two sentences, before the actual ages begin, is the ‘aw' sound. The fluctuation like that of a ring master, is striving to gain attention before the show starts.
The first three stages can be considered the childhood progressing into adulthood stages. “Mewling and puking...” (2.7.144), are two words, which when said, they are slurred and unclear, much like that of the speech of an infant.
The ‘ew' in mewling and the ‘you' sound in puking are common noises from young children. Next we reach the schoolboy stage. Young men are often reluctant to attend school, and their protests take the form of “...whining...” (2.7.145).
When the word whining is pronounced, it sounds like a whine. The word starts with a dragged out ‘why' sound, making the reader again feel like they are making the sounds which are pertinent to that age. Words associated with lovers are soft and flowing, much like those used by Shakespeare in the prose of this age. “Sighing like furnace, with woeful ballad” (2.7.148), depict more emotion than seen within the prior two stages. When sighing is pronounced, it takes the form of an actual sigh, causing the reader to actually act out the verb instead of simply speaking it. The three initial stages are complete, leaving the reader dangling on the edge of adulthood.
Soldiers are usually equated with fast wit and decisiveness. The use of short words and short sounds emphasize these next five lines of prose in
As most people know speech and language issues would only happen with children just learning to talk and tennagers in middle school to high school. The reasoning behind this is because most people don’t correct their children’s speech when they are first learning due to the fact that the parents or grandparents think it is to cute to correct, which only hurts the children more th...
Comparing stale phrases to tea leaves, shows the block the writer has in which he cannot communicate to his readers because of his
hetoric – ars bene dicendi – is, according to the antique definition, the art of speaking and writing well, adequate to the situation, proving morality and the desire to obtain an effect, an expression which can attract the general interest. According to W. Jens, it contains both the theory (ars rhetorica, the art of speaking), as well as the practice (ars oratoria, eloquence). Rhetoric created, as theory (rhetorica docens), a multitude of categories to produce (and analyse) some efficient texts.
In addition to adding an incredible amount to the language, Shakespeare’s work offered a reflection on the language itself through his use of iambic pentameter in his verse. Iambic pentameter is a style of poetic writing in which each line is ten syllables, alternating from soft to hard accents (five soft, five hard). Iambic pentameter captures the natural underlying rhythm in English speech. Some of Shakespeare’s most memorable lines have been written in iambic pentameter. For example, the opening line in one of Shakespeare’s most renowned plays, Romeo and Juliet, reads “Two households both alike in dignity” (I, i, 1).
The means in which Shakespeare develops the dialogue between his characters allows the reader to hear the words as if they are being spoken to them personally. This helps in understanding the personality of each character. Once a reader develops a feel for each character and who they are, the audience begins to foreshadow and analyze a theme for the story. Shakespeare uses imagery and repetition of events in his dialogue to make the story easy to understand. Overall, diction place an important role in every story whether it be describing a character, developing a plot, or understanding a theme.
William Shakespeare’s intellectual use of the English language is what brought him prosperity throughout his lifetime, and what brings us to tears and laughter in the modern world. The life of Shakespeare is of great importance to English literature because of his many contributions including poetry, stories, and plays. However, many people do not know that he also owned a business. “William Shakespeare was a professional actor, a businessman, and a playwright. Today, nearly four hundred years after his death his plays are still performed” (Greenhill and Wignall 4).
Honest Response to the Writing A lot of literally works written in the past, used a unique writing style an example is this poem, at first it was extremely hard to understand it. The Aeneid books poems books re authored by Virgil around the nineteenth century thus the poems need to be thoroughly researched in order to fully understand the plot. After reading the Aeneid book XI, I felt very confused and unaware of the plot in the poem. Initially I had problems interpreting the title at first, the title seemed very simple but in reality it is very complex as it contains foreign vocabulary, this further decreased my chances of comprehension.
One example of this is in Falstaff’s use of prose instead of rhyming iambic pentameter. When Falstaff speaks it resembles the way a commoner would speak, he uses small words in short sentences without the formal poetic style of King Henry. In his honor speech Falstaff conveys his message in choppy, conversational style, with no word longer than four syllables (“catechism”), and no sentence longer than eight words (“Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on?”) (Shakespeare 101). When King Henry speaks it is in iambic pentameter, he uses larger words, and more lofty subject matter. This divergence in speech style helps intensify the rhetorical divide between these two men, and remind the reader of their juxtapositional traits in the play.
The mother reports remembering her daughter babbling, but says she did not say her first word until much later on than her first child. She said that this was a concern for her and that she discussed it with her pediatrician who did not see any cause for alarm at the time. When t...
Shakespeare’s plays are a product of the Elizabethan theatrical context in which they were first performed. A lot of pressure was put on Shakespeare as he wrote his plays because he was not allowed to upset the royal family. His style would have been different than others in those times and a lot more thought has gone into his writing than people listening would think. Usually, the audience take for granted the cleverness and thought of Shakespeare’s writing, however, now we have studied and gone into great detail about Shakespeare’s writing, we can appreciate it more than they did:
The impeccable style and craft of Shakespeare’s writing has always been looked upon with great respect, and it continues to serve as an inspiration to writers and thinkers today even as it did when it was being first performed in London. Shakespeare’s modern audience, however, is far less diverse than the one for which he originally wrote. Due to the antiquity of his language, Shakespeare’s modern readership consists mostly of students and intellectuals, whereas in Shakespeare’s own time, his plays were performed in playhouses packed with everyone from royalty to peasants. Because of this, Shakespeare was forced to write on many different levels, the most sophisticated of which appealed to his more elite audience members, while the more straightforward and often more crude of which appealed to his less educated viewers, and the most universal of which still appeals to us.
Shakespeare’s plays are written in dramatic verse and his use of imagery is very effective, as it engages the audiences’ attention, to give them a deeper meaning and reality to each and every character.
In the stage of "the first sounds", the noises produced by infants are simply responses to stimuli, for instance crying as a reaction to hunger. These noises sound the same in all language communities.
In their essay, ‘The Intentional Fallacy’ (1946), William K. Wimsatt Jr. and Monroe C. Beardsley, two of the most eminent figures of the New Criticism school of thought of Literary Criticism, argue that the ‘intention’ of the author is not a necessary factor in the reading of a text.
a. This line of thinking can prevent a critic from fully embracing what the text