Reading Shakespeare’s Language (Lecture Notes)

A comprehensive set of vocabulary flashcards covering key terms related to Shakespearean language, Renaissance educational practices, and forms of verse and rhetoric discussed in the lecture notes.

Strunk and White

Authors of The Elements of Style; advocate omitting needless words to improve clarity and concision.

copia

Latin term for abundance; Renaissance educational goal to express many words for one idea and develop language mastery.

imitatio

Renaissance practice of imitating ancient masters to internalize techniques before creating one’s own style.

Gorboduc

First blank verse drama (1561); featured end-stopped lines and helped establish the form.

blank verse

Unrhymed iambic pentameter; the dominant verse form in Shakespearean drama.

iamb

A metrical foot with an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (da-DUM).

pentameter

Five metrical feet per line.

iambic pentameter

A line with five iambs (ten syllables) arranged in a regular rhythm.

scansion

Analyzing a verse’s meter; not an exact science and often open to interpretation.

end-stopped line

A line that ends with a natural pause or punctuation.

enjambment

When the sense runs over from one line to the next without a syntactic pause.

caesura

A pause within a line that shapes rhythm; can be a noticeable break in the line.

rhymed couplet

Two consecutive lines that rhyme; used for closure or emphasis in verse.

sententiae

Short, pithy moral maxims; often delivered in couplets for emphasis.

chiasmus

Rhetorical device with inverted parallelism (ABBA); emphasizes contrast or balance.

anastrophe

Inversion of the usual word order for effect or emphasis.

metaphor

A figure of speech that compares two unlike things without using like or as.

personification

Giving human qualities to nonhuman things.

apostrophe

Direct address to an absent or inanimate object, or to an abstract quality.

hyperbole

Exaggeration used for dramatic or humorous effect.

antithesis

A rhetorical contrast of opposing ideas or words in parallel structure.

spondee

A metrical foot with two stressed syllables.

trochee

A metrical foot with a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one.

passive voice

Voice in which the subject is acted upon rather than performing the action; affects emphasis.

active voice

Voice in which the subject performs the action; generally clearer and more direct.

prose

Non-metrical speech; Shakespeare uses prose to depict servants, clowns, or rapid-fire banter.

verse

Poetic, metered speech; used for nobility and elevated expression in Shakespeare.

form follows function

Principle that the structure of a sentence or line should reflect its purpose.

pun

A play on words; used by Shakespeare (e.g., son/sun) to create wit or emphasis.

Marlowe’s mighty line

Ben Jonson’s praise of Christopher Marlowe’s powerful, flexible blank verse.