Language Matters: Activity 9
Language and History: Style, Time and Text
Target Audience
AS/A2 students with an interest in exploring how linguistic analysis can help in the interpretation of
historical literary texts.
Key Concepts
historical stylistics; style-shift
Objectives and Outcomes
This activity aims to familiarise students with the basic tenets of a philological approach to textual
analysis. Students will acquire:
• an understanding of the concept of a text as a social product
• an understanding of the relation between language variation, language change and stylistic
choice
• an understanding of how meaning in historical texts arises from the interplay of the
linguistic and socio-cultural contexts in which they are produced
• subject-specific knowledge of the socio-stylistic uses of second-person singular pronouns
and double comparatives in Early Modern English.
The Activity
Below (p.4) is an extract from William Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear (Act I, Scene i. You can
also find the relevant extract here). If you have read the play at school, please review your notes to
refresh your memory of the plot, characters and setting. If you have not read the play before, you
may want to consult the introduction of a good edition of the play. (The Arden Shakespeare edition
is
a
good
option.)
Study
guides
are
also
available
online
(e.g.,
<http://absoluteshakespeare.com/guides/king_lear/king_lear.htm>).
We will explore how subtle nuances of meaning can be extracted from the text if careful
consideration is given to the way characters address one another. We will concentrate on terms of
address such as Sir and My Lord and on second-person pronouns used in face-to-face
conversation between King Lear and any other speaker(s) in the scene.
As you may have noticed already from reading through the extract, Shakespeare’s English makes
a distinction between you (and your) and thou (and thee/thine) as second-person singular
pronouns. The rules regulating the use of the two pronouns are explained in the following links:
• <http://www.shakespeareswords.com/thou-and-you>
• <VP9ReadingMaterial>
• See below (p.9) for Sylvia Adamson’s Notes on Shakespeare’s Thou
Once you have familiarised yourself with the play and the characters and have read about the
distribution of you/thou in Shakespeare’s time, fill in the table below and answer the questions
which follow. (Warning: please remember to disregard any instances where you is used to address
more than one speaker, e.g., you girls).
1 Terms of
address
YOU is used
when speaking
to…
THOU is used
when speaking
to…
Why?
King Lear
Kent
Goneril
Regan
Cordelia
King of
France
Duke of
Burgundy
(1) Are all the characters consistent in their choice of pronoun? Do they always use the same
pronoun type (i.e., you or thou) to address the same person?
(2) If so, do the speakers’ choices reflect differences in power relations? Consider the terms of
address the speaker uses to help you answer this question.
(3) If there are characters who are not consistent in their use of pronouns, how do you explain
their shifts in usage?
(4) What conclusions can you draw from the analysis? In what ways does Shakespeare exploit
the linguistic choices of the time to create literary meaning?
Resources
• Useful contextual information about Shakespeare’s plays and times can be found here:
<http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Foyer/resources.html>
• Matty Farrow’s free and fully searchable collection of Shakespeare’s plays (based on the
Folio (1623) edition) is available here:
<http://sydney.edu.au/engineering/it/~matty/Shakespeare/test.html>.
2 Going Further
• Using the knowledge that you have acquired by doing the activity, analyse the terms of
address and second-person pronoun use in Shakespeare’s Richard III (Act I, Scene iv).
The scene is rather long, so concentrate on the exchanges which follow the stage direction
[Enter the two Murderers] (around line 79). You may want to use Matty Farrow’s e-version:
<http://sydney.edu.au/engineering/it/~matty/Shakespeare/texts/histories/kingrichardiii_1.ht
ml#xref006>
• Reread these extracts from the scene you looked at for the main activity and consider the
constructions in italics:
(i)
CORDELIA
Then poor Cordelia!
And yet not so; since, I am sure, my love's
More richer than my tongue.
(ii)
KING LEAR
For you, great king,
I would not from your love make such a stray,
To match you where I hate; therefore beseech you
To avert your liking a more worthier way
Than on a wretch whom nature is ashamed
Almost to acknowledge hers.
(iii)
KING OF FRANCE
This is most strange,
That she, that even but now was your best object,
The argument of your praise, balm of your age,
Most best, most dearest, should in this trice of time
Commit a thing so monstrous, to dismantle
So many folds of favour.
These constructions are called double comparatives (more richer) and double superlatives (most
best, most dearest) because they are formed by the doubling of comparative markers (i.e., more
and –er for the double comparative; most and –est for the double superlative).
(1) Think about your own language: do you use double comparative/superlative forms? If so, in
what contexts? If not, what kinds of usages do you associate double
comparatives/superlatives with?
(2) Use Matty Farrow’s searchable collection of Shakespeare’s plays (see the link above) to
retrieve all the examples of double comparatives in Hamlet (e.g., more friendlier, more
easier). You will have to type the word ‘more’ in the search box and then discard those
instances in which it is not followed immediately by an –er comparative. In other words,
discard phrases such as more important and more money.
(3) Make a note of the speakers who use the double comparative forms in Hamlet. Compare
your results with the distribution of double forms in your examples from King Lear. What
kinds of socio-stylistic deductions can you make on the basis of your results?
© Villiers Park Educational Trust 2013
3 THE TRAGEDY OF KING LEAR
(ACT I, SCENE I)
[Sennet. Enter KING LEAR, CORNWALL, ALBANY, GONERIL, REGAN, CORDELIA, and
Attendants]
KING LEAR
Attend the lords of France and Burgundy, Gloucester.
GLOUCESTER
I shall, my liege.
[Exeunt GLOUCESTER and EDMUND]
KING LEAR
Meantime we shall express our darker purpose.
Give me the map there. Know that we have divided
In three our kingdom: and 'tis our fast intent
To shake all cares and business from our age;
Conferring them on younger strengths, while we
Unburthen'd crawl toward death. Our son of Cornwall,
And you, our no less loving son of Albany,
We have this hour a constant will to publish
Our daughters' several dowers, that future strife
May be prevented now. The princes, France and Burgundy,
Great rivals in our youngest daughter's love,
Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn,
And here are to be answer'd. Tell me, my daughters,-Since now we will divest us both of rule,
Interest of territory, cares of state,-Which of you shall we say doth love us most?
That we our largest bounty may extend
Where nature doth with merit challenge. Goneril,
Our eldest-born, speak first.
GONERIL
Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter;
Dearer than eye-sight, space, and liberty;
Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare;
No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour;
As much as child e'er loved, or father found;
A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable;
Beyond all manner of so much I love you.
CORDELIA
[Aside] What shall Cordelia do?
Love, and be silent
LEAR
Of all these bounds, even from this line to this,
With shadowy forests and with champains rich'd,
With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads,
We make thee lady: to thine and Albany's issue
Be this perpetual. What says our second daughter,
Our dearest Regan, wife to Cornwall? Speak.
4 REGAN
Sir, I am made
Of the self-same metal that my sister is,
And prize me at her worth. In my true heart
I find she names my very deed of love;
Only she comes too short: that I profess
Myself an enemy to all other joys,
Which the most precious square of sense possesses;
And find I am alone felicitate
In your dear highness' love.
CORDELIA
[Aside] Then poor Cordelia!
And yet not so; since, I am sure, my love's
More richer than my tongue.
KING LEAR
To thee and thine hereditary ever
Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom;
No less in space, validity, and pleasure,
Than that conferr'd on Goneril. Now, our joy,
Although the last, not least; to whose young love
The vines of France and milk of Burgundy
Strive to be interess'd; what can you say to draw
A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.
CORDELIA
Nothing, my lord.
KING LEAR
Nothing!
CORDELIA
Nothing.
KING LEAR
Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.
CORDELIA
Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty
According to my bond; nor more nor less.
KING LEAR
How, how, Cordelia! mend your speech a little,
Lest it may mar your fortunes.
CORDELIA
Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, loved me: I
Return those duties back as are right fit,
Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
Why have my sisters husbands, if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty:
Sure, I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all.
KING LEAR
But goes thy heart with this?
CORDELIA
Ay, good my lord.
KING LEAR
So young, and so untender?
CORDELIA
So young, my lord, and true.
5 KING LEAR
Let it be so; thy truth, then, be thy dower:
For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,
The mysteries of Hecate, and the night;
By all the operation of the orbs
From whom we do exist, and cease to be;
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee, from this, for ever. The barbarous Scythian,
Or he that makes his generation messes
To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
Be as well neighbour'd, pitied, and relieved,
As thou my sometime daughter.
KENT
Good my liege,--
KING LEAR
Peace, Kent!
Come not between the dragon and his wrath.
I loved her most, and thought to set my rest
On her kind nursery. Hence, and avoid my sight!
So be my grave my peace, as here I give
Her father's heart from her! Call France; who stirs?
Call Burgundy. Cornwall and Albany,
With my two daughters' dowers digest this third:
Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her.
I do invest you jointly with my power,
Pre-eminence, and all the large effects
That troop with majesty. Ourself, by monthly course,
With reservation of an hundred knights,
By you to be sustain'd, shall our abode
Make with you by due turns. Only we still retain
The name, and all the additions to a king;
The sway, revenue, execution of the rest,
Beloved sons, be yours: which to confirm,
This coronet part betwixt you.
[Giving the crown]
KENT
Royal Lear,
Whom I have ever honour'd as my king,
Loved as my father, as my master follow'd,
As my great patron thought on in my prayers,--
KING LEAR
The bow is bent and drawn, make from the shaft.
KENT
Let it fall rather, though the fork invade
The region of my heart: be Kent unmannerly,
When Lear is mad. What wilt thou do, old man?
Think'st thou that duty shall have dread to speak,
When power to flattery bows? To plainness honour's bound,
When majesty stoops to folly. Reverse thy doom;
And, in thy best consideration, cheque
This hideous rashness: answer my life my judgment,
Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least;
Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sound
Reverbs no hollowness.
6 KING LEAR
Kent, on thy life, no more.
KENT
My life I never held but as a pawn
To wage against thy enemies; nor fear to lose it,
Thy safety being the motive.
KING LEAR
Out of my sight!
KENT
See better, Lear; and let me still remain
The true blank of thine eye.
KING LEAR
Now, by Apollo,--
KENT
Now, by Apollo, king,
Thou swear'st thy gods in vain.
KING LEAR
O, vassal! miscreant!
[Laying his hand on his sword]
ALBANY AND
CORNWALL
Dear sir, forbear.
KENT
Do:
Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow
Upon thy foul disease. Revoke thy doom;
Or, whilst I can vent clamour from my throat,
I'll tell thee thou dost evil.
KING LEAR
Hear me, recreant!
On thine allegiance, hear me!
Since thou hast sought to make us break our vow,
Which we durst never yet, and with strain'd pride
To come between our sentence and our power,
Which nor our nature nor our place can bear,
Our potency made good, take thy reward.
Five days we do allot thee, for provision
To shield thee from diseases of the world;
And on the sixth to turn thy hated back
Upon our kingdom: if, on the tenth day following,
Thy banish'd trunk be found in our dominions,
The moment is thy death. Away! by Jupiter,
This shall not be revoked.
KENT
Fare thee well, king: sith thus thou wilt appear,
Freedom lives hence, and banishment is here.
[To CORDELIA]
The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid,
That justly think'st, and hast most rightly said!
[To REGAN/GONERIL]
And your large speeches may your deeds approve,
That good effects may spring from words of love.
Thus Kent, O princes, bids you all adieu;
He'll shape his old course in a country new.
[Exit]
[Flourish. Re-enter GLOUCESTER, with KING OF FRANCE, BURGUNDY, and Attendants]
7 GLOUCESTER
Here's France and Burgundy, my noble lord.
KING LEAR
My lord of Burgundy.
We first address towards you, who with this king
Hath rivall'd for our daughter: what, in the least,
Will you require in present dower with her,
Or cease your quest of love?
BURGUNDY
Most royal majesty,
I crave no more than what your highness offer'd,
Nor will you tender less.
KING LEAR
Right noble Burgundy,
When she was dear to us, we did hold her so;
But now her price is fall'n. Sir, there she stands:
If aught within that little seeming substance,
Or all of it, with our displeasure pieced,
And nothing more, may fitly like your grace,
She's there, and she is yours.
BURGUNDY
I know no answer.
KING LEAR
Will you, with those infirmities she owes,
Unfriended, new-adopted to our hate,
Dower'd with our curse, and stranger'd with our oath,
Take her, or leave her?
BURGUNDY
Pardon me, royal sir;
Election makes not up on such conditions.
KING LEAR
Then leave her, sir; for, by the power that made me,
I tell you all her wealth.
[To K.OF FRANCE]
For you, great king,
I would not from your love make such a stray,
To match you where I hate; therefore beseech you
To avert your liking a more worthier way
Than on a wretch whom nature is ashamed
Almost to acknowledge hers.
KING OF FRANCE
This is most strange,
That she, that even but now was your best object,
The argument of your praise, balm of your age,
Most best, most dearest, should in this trice of time
Commit a thing so monstrous, to dismantle
So many folds of favour. Sure, her offence
Must be of such unnatural degree,
That monsters it, or your fore-vouch'd affection
Fall'n into taint: which to believe of her,
Must be a faith that reason without miracle
Could never plant in me.
8 Notes on Shakespeare's THOU
Sylvia Adamson
Thou is a form of address no longer used in Present-day English, except by those from
dialect areas (e.g. Yorkshire) or religious groups (e.g. Quakers) that preserve it in
colloquial speech. Most of us are likely to have encountered thou only in written language
and mainly in the contexts where it survived into the early twentieth century: in poetry and
addresses to God. These contexts naturally predispose us to interpret thou as a marker of
formal language or high style, but this can be very misleading as a guide to
Shakespearean usage. For instance, when Edward IV first uses thou in his long interview
with Lady Grey (3Henry VI 3.ii.1-117), it marks a lessening of formality, -- indeed, it's a
signal that he is about to proposition her; and when thou occurs at the opening of Romeo
and Juliet (1.i.1-31), it's part of the verbal slapstick between two lower-class speakers, the
servingmen, Sampson and Gregory. In both scenes, as in Shakespeare's language more
generally, the choice between thou and you, and particularly the shift from one to the
other, is charged with complex social and emotional significance.
Originally, in Old English, the choice was simply a matter of number: thou was the
form used to a single addressee, while you was addressed to a group of two or more. In
Middle English, it became possible also to use you to a single individual and the choice
between singular-you and thou became a matter of social status. Broadly speaking, thou
was used to inferiors (and between members of the lower class), you was used to
superiors (and between members of the upper class). Between strangers or where the
balance of social power was in doubt, you was the default form, while siblings, intimate
friends or lovers might well opt to use thou. We can represent these social practices
schematically by the following set of rules or norms (remembering that actual social
practice was always much less tidy):
Thou (including thee/thy/thine) is the form appropriately used by:
1)
monarch to subject
2)
husband to wife (and male to female more generally)
3)
parent to child
4)
master/mistress to servant
5)
servant to servant (or lower class to lower class)
6)
intimate to intimate
9 You (including ye/your) is the form appropriately used by:
7)
subject to monarch
8)
wife to husband (or female to male)
9)
child to parent
10)
servant to master/mistress
11)
upper class to upper class
12)
stranger to stranger
Over time, the you/thou contrast was increasingly used to signal not only status but
attitude. This expressive use can be seen as a metaphorical development of its social use.
Using you (metaphorically) turns an addressee into a superior or a stranger, thus signalling
respect, politeness or coldness; thou turns an addressee into an inferior or an intimate,
thus signalling either contempt or affection. As a result of this development, each form
became multi-valued; and the choice of one rather than the other became unstable since it
no longer reflected speakers' fixed social status in relation to one another but expressed
the dynamics of particular conversations, with their moment by moment shifts in feelings
and balance of power. In Shakespeare's usage, both social and emotional factors are in
play and the choice of address form becomes complex indeed. Each act of choice and
particularly each switch of choice needs to be interpreted against a background of default
usage – either the norm expected in a given social relationship (as listed in (1)-(12) above)
or the norm established by the preceding conversation.
So, to return to my opening examples, Edward IV would be entitled to address Lady Grey
as thou by social norms (1) and (2): she is a subject and a woman. His initial use of you in
their dialogue (`Now tell me, madam, do you love your children?') can therefore be
interpreted as an expression of kingly courtesy (a courtesy generally extended by kings to
members of the nobility, since it does not do for monarchs to remind powerful supporters
of their subordinate status). This then sets the conversational norm against which his
switch to thou (`What service wilt thou do me...?') can be seen as emotionally significant,
paving the way for his later and blunter declaration: 'To tell thee plain, I aim to lie with
thee'. In Romeo and Juliet, the opening exchange of thou between the Capulets'
servingmen conforms to social norm (5) and also provides a contrast with their exchanges
with the Montague servants in the next phase of the scene (1.i.32-60), where you
becomes the norm:
10 Abram (Montague): Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?...
Sampson (Capulet): No sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb,
sir.
(R&J 1.i.44,46)
In the context of Sampson's aggressive body language (biting the thumb was a gesture of
defiance or contempt), you appears as a marked and unnatural politeness and can be
seen as part of each side's strategy to keep within the law while provoking the other side
into starting a fight. In turn, this studied politeness between the servants of the rival
families provides a striking contrast with what happens next, when the nobly-born Capulet,
Tybalt, comes on the scene and picks a quarrel with his Montague counterpart, Benvolio:
Turn thee, Benvolio, look upon thy death...
Have at thee, coward.
(R&J 1.i.64, 69)
Thou is here interpreted as an insult, because it violates norm (10) by implying that the
addressee is a social inferior. The shock value of being called thou when you was
expected can be gauged from the fact that a verb to thou had been coined (probably in the
early fifteenth century). In renaissance usage, 'to thou someone' commonly refers to the
kind of deliberately provocative or aggressive use of thou that Tybalt demonstrates here.
He could almost be following the advice that Sir Toby Belch gives Sir Andrew Aguecheek
on how to challenge a gentleman to a duel: `if thou thou'st him some thrice, it shall not be
amiss' (Twelfth Night 3.ii.45). Sir Toby's first use of thou in this speech is, however,
intended to give a quite different signal: it's the thou of intimacy rather than insult, part of
the fake camaraderie by which Sir Toby hopes to batten on Sir Andrew's wealth. But,
noticeably, their social relationship is not symmetrical. Sir Andrew, evidently somewhat in
awe of Sir Toby, never ventures to return his intimate thou.
There is no space here to chart the complex fluctuations of address forms that can take
place in the course of an extended dialogue. But the scene between Hotspur and his wife
(1Henry IV 2.iii.36-118), with its mixture of exasperation and affection, is well worth
studying in this respect, as is the wooing of Lady Anne by Richard III (Richard III 1.ii.33 11 224) or the shifting balance of power between Edward IV and Lady Grey in the scene we
have already glanced at (3Henry VI 3.ii.1-117), where Lady Grey arguably emerges as
victor rather than victim (anticipating the feminist interpretation she is given in Philippa
Gregory's The White Queen). In the long scene preceding Clarence's murder (Richard III
1.iv), the fluctuating patterns of you/thou usage are even more complex as they act out in
grammar the protagonists' competing claims of social status, physical power and moral
authority.
The expressive richness of the thou/you choice is not in doubt. But it's worth drawing
attention to the problems of interpretation created by its multiple and potentially
contradictory values. In some contexts it can be very difficult to decide which value or
meaning predominates or what to make of a given switch. A case in point is the opening
scene of Measure for Measure, where the Duke is commissioning Escalus and Angelo to
act as his deputies in his absence. Though entitled by norm (1) to use thou to both of
them, he addresses Escalus as you (as we have seen, the normal polite usage from a
ruler to a fellow nobleman) but he switches to thou for his first address to Angelo. What are
we to make of this difference? It could imply a lesser rank, and hence that Angelo owes his
position to the Duke's favour rather than his own noble birth. (The tone in which he is
summoned - `bid come before us Angelo' - and his protestations of obedience and
unworthiness, reminiscent of Dickens's Uriah Heep, might support this view.) Alternatively,
the thou could be a marker of intimacy, implying that Angelo is emotionally dear to the
Duke in a way that Escalus is not. This view gains support from the end of the Duke's
speech to him:
Old Escalus
Though first in question, is thy secondary
(MM 1.i.45-6)
In fact the slightly disrespectful 'old Escalus' might indicate that the conversation is private
not public. Perhaps, then, the switch to thou when Angelo enters is a kind of stagedirection for physical closeness, indicating that the Duke takes him aside and whispers in
his ear. In this case we might be meant to see `be thou at full ourself' (1.i.43) as a
confidential communication, contrasting with the later public announcement of the same
commission `your scope is as mine own' (1.i.64), which uses the you form to support
Angelo's dignity in front of others. On the other hand, it's possible that the Duke's abrupt
reversion from thou to you marks a chill in the emotional temperature caused by Angelo's
12 reluctance to accept the commission, which prompts the Duke to say (perhaps rather
pettishly):
No more evasion.
We have with a leaven'd and prepared choice
Proceeded to you; therefore take your honours.
(MM 1.i.50-2)
It will always be productive for a reader or an actor to weigh up these different
interpretations; but the very plethora of possibilities is a sign that by 1600 the thou/you
contrast was suffering from an expressive overload and this may indeed be one reason
why historically the generalised polite form you prevailed, – leaving thou to Quakers, poets
and Yorkshiremen.
NB. i) where the addressee is plural, you is the only option. So one very common motive
for thou/you switching is to mark changes of addressee from one to many and vice versa.
This seems to be the explanation for one such switch in the scene of Clarence's murder
(RIII 1.iv.169-171):
How darkly and how deadly dost thou speak!
Your eyes do menace me. Why look you pale?
Who sent you hither? Wherefore do you come?
Here the following text provides evidence that the first line of this speech is addressed to
the First Murderer while the remaining two are addressed to both of Clarence's attackers,
– another instance of the thou/you switch acting as a covert stage direction. But physical
switches of addressee are easy to overlook in a printed play text and sometimes the verbal
signal is ambiguous. In the lines from Measure for Measure quoted above, for instance, a
director could interpret the Duke's use of you in physical rather than psychological terms,
by deciding that only the first line is spoken to Angelo, the remainder being spoken to
Angelo and Escalus together, using the you of plurality.
ii) the evidence of non-literary texts suggests that by Shakespeare's time singularyou was well on its way to becoming the default form. In general, therefore, it is the
selection of thou that needs to be scrutinised for special significance
13 This is a revised and expanded excerpt (pp.226-231) from Sylvia Adamson, 'Understanding Shakespeare's
Grammar', Chapter 14 of Reading Shakespeare's Dramatic Language: A Guide ed Sylvia Adamson et al.,
The Arden Shakespeare, 2001.
(© S.Adamson 2013)
14