Shakespeare's Language

by Frank Kermode

A magnum opus from our finest interpreter of The Bard

The true biography of Shakespeare--and the only one we need to care about--is in his plays. Frank Kermode, Britain's most distinguished scholar of sixteenth-century and seventeenth-century literature, has been thinking about Shakespeare's plays all his life. This book is a distillation of that lifetime of thinking.The finest tragedies written in English were all composed in the first decade of the seventeenth century, and it is generally accepted that the best ones were Shakespeare's. Their language is often difficult, and it must have been hard even for contemporaries to understand. How did this language develop? How did it happen that Shakespeare's audience could appreciate Hamlet at the beginning of the decade and Coriolanus near the end of it?

In this long-awaited work, Kermode argues that something extraordinary started to happen to Shakespeare's language at a date close to 1600, and he sets out to explore the nature and consequences of the dynamic transformation that followed. For it is in the magnificent, suggestive power of the poetic language itself that audiences have always found meaning and value. The originality of Kermode's argument, the elegance and humor of his prose, and the intelligence of his discussion make this a landmark in Shakespearean studies.

Genres: Shakespeare, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Literature, Criticism, Language, Biography

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Sir John Frank Kermode was a highly regarded British literary critic best known for his seminal critical work The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction, published in 1967 (revised 2003).

Reviews

[Dave H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Any idiot can find the flaws in a work of art. Setting a name to what is good is the real challenge.

I'm a fan of Kermode's The Genesis of Secrecy: On the Interpretation of Narrative covering the role of enigma in narrative. Here he sets out to show how the language of Shakespeare moved from traditional rhetoric to a new style, eloquent and easy in complexity and obscurity.

Not for the expert or the beginner, this is aimed at a readers who have at least some familiarity with the dramatist. I imagine experts would find much of this too glossy and too familiar to be thoroughly engaging. Kermode has a simple, familiar writing style that I find a welcome break from the overly wrought and dense logging in some literary criticism.

The first section covers the early and middle plays, highlighting the transition as Shakespeare developed the 'mature' style employed for the later plays. The second section is a series of essays on each of the 'mature' plays. Some of these are better than others and some have more of an academic interest. At times he seemed to lose his way, given over to summarizing and cataloging minutia (particularly the case with the disappointing essay on Hamlet).

The first section is very worth reading. I gave high marks to the chapters on Measure for Measure, Macbeth, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest. The chapter on Pericles is interesting for it's discussion on narrative elements that feature in subsequent plays.

[Andrea Hickman Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very interesting. I picked it up at the Hout Bay Library sale for the excessive amount of R5 (it was the most expensive book I bought that day, that sale was incredible!). I'm not really sure what I expected, but this was fascinating.

Essentially it looks at a bunch of Shakespeare's plays (not all of them) and talks about the language that he used, what it meant and what patterns there are. There's a lot of talk about the frequency of words in certain plays and how what he touches on in one play is developed fully in another. It was very interesting to read about the concepts that seem to underline particular plays and the ways that Shakespeare used language in order to get the ideas across in various ways.

If you have any interest in the way people use language, you should read this book.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Old pro Frank Kermode discusses the language--mainly the classical rhetoric--used by Shakespeare particularly in the plays after 1600. He also discussed how the rude, aparently unlettered and ignorant audiences of Shakespeare's time were able to understand many of the complexities of his plays that are either forgotten or simply not dealt with now.

Very rewarding book, "popular" criticism in the very best sense of the the term--based on decades of close reading of the texts and familiarity with critical works in several languages it is uncompromising in its scholarship but free of jargon and most accessible.

Highly recommended to anyone who loves Shakespeare.

[Benj · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really don't know why I enjoyed this book so much. I quite like watching Shakespeare's plays, but I find reading them a problem - the language is difficult, ornate and full of allusions. This book specifically talks about his use of language, how it shifted, how it matured, and whilst I didn't understand everything the author is trying to say, I absolutely loved it. At one point there are four pages on a single use of the word "prone" in Measure For Measure, discussing alternative meanings and how a contemporary audience would or could have interpreted it - just brilliant.

[Jacob Hurley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a more substansive work of criticism. He gives a brief survey in one chapter to all the plays prior to Hamlet, and then begins tackling the mature dramas in larger, more focused chapters. Each play he approaches he puts under a careful lens, and his primary interest here is the language (thus the title). He submits the plays to concise and concrete analysis, working off of syntactical and rhetorical devices. Also consulted for this was some dictionary where the occurrences of any given word may be counted and catalogued. Generally what I like so much about this is that while he does not do so much to the plays as artistic stories, his analysis of the prose is very legitimate and exists as an almost post-formalist study in concrete poetry. This attention to language, coupled with his detailed queries into the textual history, makes this a very compelling little volume about shakespeare's prose, and is delightfully bereft of bardolatry.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is dense. I consider myself a lover of Shakespeare, but this is for scholars of Shakespeare.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

'As I believe in the value of Shakespeare and, without ignoring historical issues, regard the plays as being about more than such issues, I shall not pay much attention to what are nevertheless the prevailing modes of Shakespeare criticism.' (p.ix, Penguin, 2001)

Frank Kermode comes at the subject of Shakespeare and his language with a belligerent stance, in his preface. His intolerance is that Shakespeare, while largely held in idolatry, is also criticised via modern literary perspectives in ways that appear to define the self-confident endeavours of new criticism as ways of merely needing to find something new to assert, or some new way of analysis, without primary consideration of the language. Not that the latter of these desires is at all punishable, but he does seem to be 'cocking a snook' at the need for modern academia and literary theorists to promote their uniquely novel dissection of Shakespeare's plays, language and historical place as having primacy over the dramatic language of a playwright and poet who must have had moments himself where he struggled to express in words what he wanted to say, and who, as his craft developed - and took a quantum leap around 1600 - found more economical ways of saying it, as far as to leave the final meaning implicit in the silences we can find in the later plays such as Isabella's in Measure For Measure [1604] and Virgilia's in Coriolanus [1608]. It is, anyway, an opening to make one smile along with his humourous curmudgeonly cudgelling, and leads to the concomitant thought that all perspectives into Shakespeare must be welcome by all who not only love his works but wish to see and hear them analysed by those who have similarly given much time, thought, observance and affection for him. (Not that the issue of patriarchy will never leave us).

So, a bold rallying cry for openers.

'What happened in the fifteen years or so between Titus and Coriolanus is the main subject of this book.' (p13)

It is interesting that in his introduction, Frank Kermode discusses Titus Andronicus [1591-1592], one of his Shakespeare's first plays, comparing with it Coriolanus [1608], one of his last. Already we have a consideration of the development of both Shakespeare's use of language as well as of silences. Reading into silences must necessarily be a consideration while reading the plays, more pertinently to directors interpreting them in performance, perhaps. It is interesting also that, having just debunked non-specific modern modes of literary perspective and criticism, that Kermode should discuss one of those in the modern panoply of literary theory. Again, we must smile. Because it is so pertinent to our understanding in key moments, as much as the language this series of essays investigates.

You only have to read Measure For Measure to hear that silence as voluble, as our imaginations finish the play for us. Isabella surely cannot agree to marry a man who has pulled a couple of very nasty - even cruel - tricks on her, surely? Virgilia speaks as much for peace in her reticence as Volumnia for war. And Hermione, in The Winter's Tale [1611], is silent for 16 years ... 'Much has come to depend on everything not being said, and this is essential to the later Shakespearian development of character.' (p.12) And outcomes, in fact. For silence, as Sally Shuttleworth notes (in her introduction to Jane Eyre, Oxford Word Classics, 2000, p.xv), is not quiescence.

But it is telling that Kermode should open his introduction on Shakespeare's language with silences. It is almost combative, yet still gentle. Like Paulina, perhaps, who shields Hermione from Leontes' wrath. Or Viola, as Cesario. In other words, there is masculinity and femininity in the most interesting characters. And when someone speaks with an authority on a much loved subject, with such balance, we listen the more readily. Certainly, I love this opening.

Kermode goes on to compare Beethoven's early with his later quartets, and Mozart's earlier serenades with those worked into his more complex later operas, as threads of richness within a more elaborate complexity:

'These musical allusions are meant to suggest by analogy the comparable development in Shakespeare: his later language, and so his theatre, does not lose all contact with the eloquence of his earlier work, but moves deliberately in the direction of a kind of reticence that might [...] be thought close to silence. Some of the old eloquence remains, but qualified now by its reduction to place in a context altogether more complex and ambiguous.' (p.13)

Certainly ambiguity is a key feature of Measure For Measure and Troilus And Cressida [1601-02], written at the turning point of his art, according to Kermode.
 
Part One: The Early Plays to 1599

Part One, then, has Kermode trace the development of Shakespeare's language and rhetorical (anaphora, epistrophe, analepsis, hendiadys) and dramatic (use of comedy in tragedies, use of bit parts, construction and balance) techniques through some 15 of the pre-1600 plays, that is, pre-Hamlet, which he marks as the major shift in Shakespeare's dramatic mastery. Commencing with the earliest plays - variously considered as either the Henry VI trilogy [1591-2], or The Taming Of The Shrew [1589-92] and Two Gentlemen of Verona [1591-2]; Kermode chooses the former, and omits the Shrew in passing - Kermode tracks the linguistic development of Shakespeare's use of verse and prose, and uses the advent of the Globe (1599), to demarcate this development and his categorisation of the great late plays with the earlier ones.

What Kermode does is manifold: first, he loves Shakespeare and his works (they are synonymous and synecdochic), and this enthusiasm (if not idolatry) spills out from his immersion; secondly, he teaches you linguistic techniques; he then uses examples of those techniques in select plays; and then shows the development of the language from early to late plays. But in Part One, we take in the plays in a couple of pages; some are omitted, like The Taming Of The Shrew [1589-1592], The Comedy Of Errors [1594], Henry V [1599], all given a cursory nod yet no discussion; and All's Well That Ends Well [1605] is bundled in with Measure for Measure [1604] in Part Two.

Part Two provides individual essays on the major plays of the 17th Century, starting with Julius Caesar [1599].

Naturally, as we might expect, the essays from which we gain most are those which we have both read and which are generally deemed as great: Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony And Cleopatra, Coriolanus and The Tempest. It is here that Kermode explodes the language (or, rather, unpacks it), and introduces us to the linguistic tricks of Shakespeare's art. They recur often enough to learn by example, even if poetics is not your first language.

There is sufficient background information to provide contexts for each of the plays, and Kermode's interest in showing us the development of the late maturity of Shakespeare's style is an interesting procession through the later plays.

But it is in the bringing alive the language, often densely packed and running into new ideas and metaphors, often which needs to be interpreted as a foreign language, so that we get the drift, if not the full meaning - as you would have to in the theatre - that the pleasure in the considerable work lies. The speech of Aufidius in the Introduction which he used to exemplify the mature Shakespeare still rings in my ears, especially the line about the osprey. That is why a book like this is worthwhile; that is why Shakespeare is worthwhile - for all that other plain hard work you have to put it, one line or couplet from a play, and something inside you is set on fire, or - though I've not yet tried it - a feeling ignites probably not dissimilar from jumping off a cliff in a hang-glider.

[Martin Ramsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this great book, Frank Kermode looks at the development of language technique in Shakespeare's plays from 1594 to 1608 (Titus Andronicus - Corialanus). This sees a shift from declarative speech to anxious contemplation in the workings of the minds of his characters. The audience rather than being spoken to, is allowed to eavesdrop. This allows for the process of 'personation', the creation of the 'self' on stage. The use of silence is crucial. Instead of speech being used to speak directly to the audience, Shakespeare develops the soliloquy to allow the actor on stage to think aloud. And so the audience is drawn into the minds of the characters. Shakespeare slowly trains his audience to listen differently as he becomes more ambitious with language and his meaning becomes more complex. Kermode looks at a number of features that are critical in his development as a writer.

1. His use of hendiadys, splitting an expression in two adding complexity. He used the soliloquy to allow the character to raise theories only to reject them. This dramatic technique creates a level of anxiety and stress in the character on stage - this was new to the audiences at the time.

2.  As the pentameter is treated with less respect in the later plays it raises questions about form and deformity. The imagery of the plays embraces the idea of a natural order which is distorted and made misshapen by evil. And the structure of the lines reflects this sense of order. Is it significant that Shakespeare abandons a rigid obedience to structure later to create a more complex representation of human life. What does this say about order? Is it some kind of delusional totalitarian fantasy?

3. Words, words, words... there Is a common assertion made in Shakespeare that mere words can't be trusted. Action is required. In his later plays, Shakespeare becomes less reliant on a declamatory style and uses silence more to show the audience the inner workings of the minds of his characters. Iago significantly refuses to speak after he has been exposed by Emilia...

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author, Frank Kermode (such an unfortunate surname), does exactly exactly as the title suggests and looks at the minutiae of Shakespeare's language.

Sir Kermode (the knight of the chamber pots) starts off analyzing prose and verse from Julius Caesar and then goes through the remainder of Shakespeare's plays chronologically. Some of the plays written prior to Julius Caesar are referred to briefly in the introduction.

To really appreciate the attention to detail you really need to be very familiar with the majority of Shakespeare's work. So I intend on addressing the great holes in my knowledge before I get back on the Kermode.

The author (I really can't strain out another Kermode pun), refers to some literary and theatrical devices that Shakespeare used which are of general interest.

Overall I found this book to be beyond my wit which never really got me past the author's humourous surname, which tells you a great deal about my intellectual short fall.

[Jeffrey Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fair; quite mixed in terms of utility. Has some good insights. My first disappointment is that the Introduction seems to promise a tracing of Shakespeare’s language development toward a kind of silence. As of his Winter’s Tale chapter, he has not been tracing that evolution, if there is one. The only development he shows in that regard is from Titus Andronicus, in which what’s ‘er name’s brother provides the exposition that she can’t, to a later play, in which the character’s quietude is expressed with a more elegant and dynamically accurate poetic and dramatic solution. But then when we get to Coriolanus, Vergilia’s silence gets the briefest of mentions, certainly not commensurate with discussion of an increasing role for silence and silent characters over the course of Shakespeare’s career. Similarly, the quiet of Cordelia gets no mention in the King Lear chapter. So significant development of this promise is absent.
His program seems instead to be to focus on Shakespeare’s use of various verbal strategies and focuses in each play.
He may over-apply hendiadys in Hamlet; not sure; have to look it up in a rhetoric book.
He commits the error of the student of Shakespeare who becomes too focused on the treasures to be discovered in close reading. Or perhaps Kermode is a certain kind of bardolator, whose ideal, or whose real and best, Shakespeare is in his mind or in the study, and can’t ever be matched on the stage. (Harold Bloom is this type of bardolator, whose best Shakespeare is in his mind. He saw either Ralph Richardson or Anthony Quayle as Falstaff, and the performance has become a standard that can never be equaled.)
In the chapter on All Is True (Henry VIII) and The Two Noble Kinsmen, he pushes rather too hard his theory that Shakespeare’s writing has become unnecessarily knotty at the latter end of the canon. (Indeed, Kermode’s increasing emphasis on this quality in the later plays, say, from Coriolanus on, and then his finishing the book with this analysis, suggests that increasing gnarliness should have been the pattern Kermode’s thesis was to find, rather than a manner of increasingly suggesting [or finding new ways to suggest] silence in his language.) You might or might not feel that Shakespeare’s language has become unnecessarily contorted, but such complexities are present throughout the work. Not all of his examples are that difficult. And as before, I think he misreads. Seems to me that “these vessels” refer to Arcite and Palamon, not to two different perceptions of Palamon. Also, there is nothing that indicates that the vessels are sailing in different directions. In praising Fletcher’s “dying falls,” Kermode seems to imply that ending lines with an unaccented syllable following the fifth beat is more typical of Fletcher than of Shakespeare. Reading the canon shows that Shakespeare used such line endings with great frequency, throughout his career.

[Mac · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first book by Frank Kermode but it definitely won’t be my last. An analysis of Shakespeare as a dramatic poet rather than simply as a playwright was a welcome addition to my knowledge of Shakespearean scholarship.

Kermode is very clear in the scope of the book, setting aside ideas of character psychology (which I mostly love) and historical-political influences (which I mostly loathe) to focus on an examination of the poetry: word choice, imagery, metaphor.

The book starts with an amazing introduction (which is worth reading all on its own) and a single chapter giving a cursory overview of Shakespeare’s plays pre-1600, and devotes a chapter to each play post-1600 (including “Hamlet”). “Henry VIII” and “The Two Noble Kinsmen” share the final chapter. Kermode’s thesis is simply that Shakespeare’s poetry in the second half of his career exhibits traits and forms that are distinct (and usually better from a technical standpoint) from the first half of his career.

Some of the chapters — like the one on “Hamlet” — are more organized around a singular idea or theme, whereas some of the other chapters — like the one on “Antony and Cleopatra” — are more generalized. I enjoyed the former more than the latter, as they were easier to follow.

I constantly found snarky little witticisms in the book that I would transcribe or snap a photo of to send to folks — such as Kermode’s paraphrasing of Hamlet’s line “windy suspiration of forced breath” as “breathy breathing of forced breathing” — but very few of my friends are nerdy enough to enjoy them as much as I did.

The book was dense, and it took me forever to read, but overall it was mostly pleasant and informative, right on the cusp between being a book you read cover to cover, and being a reference book that you keep on a shelf in order to read a relevant chapter at a time.

[Mike Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Isn’t that As You Like It?” “Not really, but I thought, live and let live.”
Round The Horn from 50 years ago makes very much the same point as Frank Kermode’s masterly study of the language of the plays: it can sometimes be a struggle, seem wilfully obscure or labouredly unfunny, and you’ll wonder whether it’s worth the hard work. And you are not alone, for audiences in his own time sometimes didn’t get every single allusion, metaphor or allegory. It doesn’t matter - for the play’s the thing, and the action and narrative drive carries you through, regardless of missing the odd bit. (Something to hiss in the ear of that sort of person who ostentatiously laughs at the the Fool’s jokes or Nursey’s bawdy humour.) For they live on, these plays, in our speech and consciousness like little ghosts.

There’s so much to learn here about the way language and even thinking have been influenced by one creative genius that it’s worth rereading every so often as a reminder in case we take it for granted (I have just recalled in the closing pages how much I love The Tempest, for instance - “little life is rounded with a sleep”). The antidote to slogging through a desecrated text for school exams.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent stepping stone on my journey to becoming as pretentious as possible.

In all seriousness, a really interesting look at the progression of Shakespeare's plays over his career. I almost wished for a more technical approach at times, in terms of the actual literary techniques employed and the construction of speeches (although not sure how much more technical can you get than "hendiadys"), but as a book specifically targeted at non-academics, it definitely scratched the itch I've had lately for analytical texts on Shakespeare's work.

I may be slightly biased in favor of this book because it clearly agreed with me that King Lear has the most stunning language of any Shakespeare play but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Kevin Gross · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not entirely satisfying. Kermode certainly knew Shakespeare and has much that is interesting and useful to hear. But this book's title is misleading: it is not at all consistently focused on Shakespeare's use of language. The chapters would be better described as varying commentary on a particular play, perhaps whatever it was that Kermode found worth commenting on in that play. I get the sense that each play, each chapter had a prior life as a one-hour college lecture.

A minor point but on a topic Kermode paid much attention to: he stretches the meaning of "hendiadys" well past its breaking point.

[Tom Bain · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable re-read - what I found so refreshing on my first read several years ago was still there, namely Kermode's intuitive approach, never overbearing but always providing valuable insight on each play by the end of its chapter. (Even his slightly curmudgeonly bearing in the preface has aged well for me). The Coriolanus chapter was a big factor in it becoming one of my favourite plays and its strength still shines through as maybe the highlight of the whole book. I'll re-read the Macbeth chapter again ahead of seeing it in March.

[sch · Rating 3 out of 5]

A disappointment after the positively glowing blurbs on the cover (from writers I respect). Obviously Kermode has read many books, both primary and secondary, and obviously he has thought long on these plays. The book does escape the problems of ideological criticism. There is a single thesis that binds together all of the analyses. But much of the argumentation is shaky, disorganized, and distressingly subjective. High points: Part I as a whole (which briefly treats most of the early plays), Midsummer, Lear, and Macbeth.

[James Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kermode was a hero to me at Cambridge, and remains one to this day. he is a brilliant academic, of course, but also a writer of some skill and power, who can turn the study of the words the bard chose into a narrative worthy of a taut thriller. This is a wonderful distillation of Kermode's thoughts on the subject, and probably the last word on the matter.

[Abel Guerrero · Rating 3 out of 5]

A disappointingly ponderous writing style and surprisingly pedestrian walk-through of the later plays. This had been on my 'to read' list for ages, so I felt a real sense of anti-climax on finishing it. I'd suggest something by Ben/David Crystal instead.

[Paging Snidget · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very interesting but I think it is more geared towards scholars of Shakespeare rather than the casual reader. It is rather dry and dense so I found I could only read it in small doses. It would be very useful to those studying Shakespeare in depth.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

This this book has a lot to offer those interested in a more scholarly understanding of Shakespeare's works, and I look forward to returning to it in the future. The author writes at a level I don't believe my students will be quite ready for, so I will not be making much use of it this year.

[Grace · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poor

Poorly written and muddled, I gave up about a quarter of the way in. I fast forwarded to a couple of places but it had improved any.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some good chapters, some less so. Struggled to bring through a consistent idea at times and it thus seemed a loose collection of essays

[Hannah Klein]

skimmed it and it was very technical/kinda dry but made me wanna read Macbeth

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kermode provides a good introduction to Shakespeare using Shakespeare’s penchant for focusing on several key words in a play as a starting point for his interpretations. This is certainly a serviceable exploration of Shakespeare. If you enjoy finely nuanced literary interpretations of books, plays and poems, this is a good book for you.

While he does comment on the common words in plays, I’d like to know much more about Shakespeare’s language, such as his use of odd and invented words, his imagery, his use of rhetorical devices, etc.

This is a good book, but even as an old English major, I don’t enjoy literary criticism.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure why he wrote Part I of the book (and as a personal defender of Early Will, that whole speed-through section was a shame), and there are later plays he doesn't seem to like either, which seems like maybe a waste of time to write about, but it doubtless took more of his time than mine...but all that said, still worth it for the linguistic insights hidden among the crotchety, white-tower-y parts like...something something metaphors.

[Ruthmarie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyable and insightful, and a reminder of how meaningful it is to return from time to time to the study of Shakespeare. Kermode offers us a work of history, literature, linguistics, and so much more. I will read again, I am sure.

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

His notion of Substance and Shadow, more fully developed elsewhere, was instrumental in some of of my own writing. A great read for the intermediate/advanced Shakespearean.

[Lauralee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book taught me more about Shakespeare than the college class I took. I have turned back to it time and again. The author provides clear examples and simple explanations of his analysis.

[Dev · Rating 5 out of 5]

Energetic, rich and thoughtful.

[Ade Couper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another very useful resource for the study of Shakespeare.