Terms Shakespeare

University of Antwerp 2024-2025

Cuckoldry

a man whose wife has been unfaithful or when he believes his wife has been unfaithful

“losing property” to another man

Literature does not focus on the man that steals (temporarily or not) the woman, it focuses on the man who loses his wife à he can’t keep his wife satisfied, he is at fault for this

Othello: Iago has his ego hurt by Othello and in turn makes Othello believe that his newly wed wife is unfaithful to him, Othello is an imaginary cuckuld

Folio <> quarto

Full sized page <> page folded twice à page is a quarter size of the folio, has 4 pages and 8 sides

Shrew

Originally: “an animal that beareth a cruell minde, desiring to hurt ant thing… feared of all”

13^th cent: a wicked, evil-disposed or malignant man

14^th cent: the devil

Chaucer: first recorded usage of ‘schrew’ to denote a “woman given to railing or scolding” (dominant meaning in the 16^th cent

Now: a woman who talks excessively

Induction

A preliminary scene, a preface, or a prologue that precedes the main play

Embargo

An official ban on trade or other commercial activity with a particular country

Act of commodification

the process of transforming objects, services, nature, personal information, people or animals into commodities, or objects for sale

Double track narrative

When the main story is mirrored on the level of the lower class/servants, they can also criticize the actions of the wealthy

Puns

a joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word or the fact that there are words which sound alike but have different meanings.

As a buck: angry as a male animal + sold = betrayed à hints at cuckoldry

usury

making money out of money, interest

husbandry

referred to the economics of the household, to manage goods, money and staff, labour

Housewife

a woman skilled in female bbusiness, they are financially in charge of the household, also hussy

Wittol

A cuckolded man who is in the know and approves of his wife’s infedelity, often for financial gain

Horns

refers to an old practice where people had this habit or interest in castrating a cock/rooster, they cut of their spurs and excised the comb and grafted the cut of spurs on top of their head → horns

also refers to a stag/buck, who grows his horns to fight others in the rutting season

Enclosure

A shared space in common space, where farmers could let their sheep graze, but

aristocrats privatised these lands (enclosed) to profit of off them → shepherds more difficult to survive, they needed this land for their sheep to graze

7 stages of man (all the world’s a stage)

Every man plays 7 acts throughout his life

1.      Baby

2.      Whining schoolboy

3.      Lover

4.      Soldier, seeking glory and honour (fleeting, a bubble personality)

5.      Adult, round belly, justice

6.      Old man, shifts into baggy pants bcs clothes don’t fit anymore (the pants are a world too wide for him now)

7.Dementia, second childishness and oblivion

Conflation

editors who were going to publish Shake’s works had different versions at their disposal, they had to choose which version they should represent, they chose lines from versions depending on what they thought would be shake’s vision

the standard version is definitely not the version Shakespeare intended

Use value

what it can do for you, bread for a hungry person is that it is able to still your hunger, for a baker it is useful as monetary value

Gunpowder plot

A failed attempt by a group of English Catholics to blow up the Houses of Parliament, killing King James I and many others. The plotters hoped to overthrow the Protestant government and establish Catholic rule. The plot was foiled when a warning letter led authorities to discover barrels of gunpowder hidden in a cellar under the House of Lords.

Climacteric

A sudden turning point or critical stage