Shakespeare's Language
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Overview
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.
Synopsis
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.
Publishers Weekly
Pleasure is not usually associated with reading literary criticism, but this work of beauty and grace by one of our most distinguished critics is in no way typical textual analysis. Aiming less at specialists than at "a non-professional audience with an interest in Shakespeare that has not... been well served by modern critics," Kermode writes from a conviction that "every other aspect of Shakespeare is studied almost to death, but the fact that he was a poet has somehow dropped out of consideration." Kermode's thesis is both basic and subtle: around 1600, he argues, the Bard's already masterful works "moved up to a new level of achievement and difficulty"; Kermode associates a "turning point" with Hamlet and the poem "The Phoenix and the Turtle." In proof of this, he demonstrates certain linguistic "matrices" that become "fundamental to Shakespeare's procedures" and identifies passages that represent a new linguistic "suppleness" and "muscularity." He devotes particular attention to the four great tragedies written at the height of Shakespeare's powers: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. While Kermode's concern is with the Bard's verse, he betrays no simplistic notions about literary language operating in a vacuum. A careful, close analysis of passages in each play is informed by a breathtaking knowledge of Elizabethan history and culture, as well as by the entire history of Shakespeare criticism from Coleridge to Eliot and the new historicists. Kermode's volume succeeds in doing the two things a great work of literary criticism should: it makes us want to read and reread the original texts in light of the critic's findings, and it makes us wonder how the literary world has been getting along without this work for so long. (June) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|
Editorials
From the Publisher
". . .the honey of a lifetime's visits to the Shakespearean garden . . . Kermode proves himself Coleridge's worthy heir." —James Woods, The New Republic
"[T]he crowning action of [Kermode's] splid career of criticism . . ." —Richard Howard, The American Scholar
"[A] wonderful book, in which a master critic at the summit of his powers pays homage to a master playwright . . ." —Kiernan Ryan, The Independant on Sunday
Publishers Weekly -
Pleasure is not usually associated with reading literary criticism, but this work of beauty and grace by one of our most distinguished critics is in no way typical textual analysis. Aiming less at specialists than at "a non-professional audience with an interest in Shakespeare that has not... been well served by modern critics," Kermode writes from a conviction that "every other aspect of Shakespeare is studied almost to death, but the fact that he was a poet has somehow dropped out of consideration." Kermode's thesis is both basic and subtle: around 1600, he argues, the Bard's already masterful works "moved up to a new level of achievement and difficulty"; Kermode associates a "turning point" with Hamlet and the poem "The Phoenix and the Turtle." In proof of this, he demonstrates certain linguistic "matrices" that become "fundamental to Shakespeare's procedures" and identifies passages that represent a new linguistic "suppleness" and "muscularity." He devotes particular attention to the four great tragedies written at the height of Shakespeare's powers: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. While Kermode's concern is with the Bard's verse, he betrays no simplistic notions about literary language operating in a vacuum. A careful, close analysis of passages in each play is informed by a breathtaking knowledge of Elizabethan history and culture, as well as by the entire history of Shakespeare criticism from Coleridge to Eliot and the new historicists. Kermode's volume succeeds in doing the two things a great work of literary criticism should: it makes us want to read and reread the original texts in light of the critic's findings, and it makes us wonder how the literary world has been getting along without this work for so long. (June) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|Library Journal
Kermode, one of the foremost British scholars of 16th- and 17th-century literature, has written a host of highly regarded studies. Here he turns his finely tuned literary ear to Shakespeare's linguistic development by concentrating on the poetic evolution of the Bard from 1594 to 1608. Kermode maintains that between the creation of Titus Andronicus and Coriolanus Shakespeare grew into a different kind of poet, developing a more complex and more ambiguous poetics. Kermode explores this development by diving into Shakespeare's language, pulling and pushing at the verse to reveal its secrets and illustrate his thesis. He revels in the wonder of Shakespeare's words and constructions as he works his way through play by play, explaining what is going on, explicating the verse, showing how the change, both subtle and powerful, affects the heart of the work. His take on Shakespeare, view of the plays, and summation of the Shakespearean world are all explained with finely crafted prose. This long-awaited work is an essential purchase for all large public and academic libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/99.]--Neal Wyatt, Chesterfield Cty. P.L., VA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\Burrow
[This book] will speak, as ceiticism now usually does not, to people who read and go to plays. It will make sense of Shakespeare for them, and will reassure them when he seems not to make sense. That makes it valuable. It also has a larger purpose, in which I hope it will succeed: to make us all think about how and why we value Shakespeare's language.—London Review of Books
Wood
Frank Kermode's book is magnificent, the honey of a lifetime's visits to the Shakespearean garden. As befits the book's air of tested longevity, Kermode, who is now eighty, writes about Shakespeare calmly, unpossessively, and lucidly, with a nicely smothered academicism.—The New Republic