Вільям Шекспір. Фразеологізми в творчості В. Шекспіра

Дослідницько-проектна робота

на тему:

«Вільям Шекспір.

Фразеологізми в творчості Шекспіра.»

“William Shakespeare.

Phraseologisms in Shakespeare’s Works.”

Contents

I. Introductions

II. Biography of William Shakespeare

       2.1. Shakespeare and his Plays

III. Phraseologisms in Shakespeare’s Works

  3.1. Phraseological Joint

 3.2. Phraseological Unity

 3.3. Phraseological Combinations

 3.4. Phraseological Expressions

IV. Winged Words in Shakespeare’s Works

V. Conclusions

VI. References 

    

I. Introduction

There were and still are many people in the world, who step-by-step create the modern language. Phraseology plays one of the most important roles in this process. It enriches the language with picturesque images, vividness, clarity and colourfulness. Among people, who developed and improved our language we can name dramatists, actors and writers, but in this research I want to pay attention to the creative work of William Shakespeare.

W.Shakespeare made a great contribution into the de­velopment of the language. V.Jartseva writes that "when we turn to analysing Shakespeare's works, we find not only his individual technique that possesses his way of writing, but also a great majority of language forms and constructions that with the years passed have spread into various style systems of the English language ".

It also should be highlighted that quite many W.Shakespeare's sayings are always used in literature. Part of them has become part and parcel of the world's literary heritage. Every day one can find them in the forms of say­ings in different speeches and written works. And if a person considers himself/herself intelligent or well-educated, s/he should have some knowledge of W.Shakespeare's creative works. A person should know at least some of his sayings.

II. Biography of William Shakespeare

On April 23, 2004 William Shakespeare's birth­day will be cel­ebrated around the world. More has been written about the greatest English dramatist and poet than about any other writer. And yet many facts of his life are unknown to us.

William Shakespeare was born on or around April 23, 1564, in the town of Stratford-on-Avon. His father, John Shakespeare was a glove maker and a dealer in wool and other farm products. He was a respected figure in Stratford. In his childhood William went to the Gram­mar School where, besides reading and writing he learned Latin.

In 1582 being 18 Shakespeare married Anne Hathway, a farmer's daughter, who was eight years his senior. In 1583 Susanna, their first child, was born and then twins, Hamnet and Judith, followed in 1585. It is presumed that later that year Shakespeare left for Lon­don.

We know absolutely nothing about Shakespeare's life for the next seven years. We know for certain that in 1592 a playwright Robert Greene wrote an angry pamphlet on Shakespeare from which we may conclude that by that year Shakespeare had become a dra­matist.

Shakespeare's son Hamnet died in 1596 but apart from this his life during the last years of Queen Elizabeth I's reign seems to have been happy and prosperous. In 1597 he bought one of the chief houses in Stratford, called "New Place". The following year he became a partner in the profits of the Globe Theatre, which had been built in London for his company to act in. After a few more years in London, however, he left the company and went back home to Strat­ford to live, and there he probably wrote his last plays. On March 25, 1616, he made his will; and one month afterwards, on April 23, he died. He was buried two days later in the same church where he had been baptized.

Shakespeare wrote all in all 2 long poems ("Venus and Adonis" and "Lucrece"), 154 son­nets and 37 plays.

Shakespeare's sonnets occupy a unique place in his literary legacy. There are three main characters in his sonnets: the Poet, his Friend and the Dark Lady. The Poet expresses the warmest admiration for the Friend and love for the Dark Lady.

       2.1. Shakespeare and his Plays

In England there is a special Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-on-Avon. All Shakespearean plays are staged or have been staged in this theatre and though Stratford is a small town, the house is always packed. Before the terrible plague that raged through England, Shakespeare's plays were notable for their light wit and optimism. His comedies such as "Two Gentlemen of Verona", "The Comedy of Errors", "All is Well That Ends Well", "The Taming of the Shrew" are written in his playful manner and the bright spirit of the Renaissance. The heroes are the creators of their own fate and the scene is laid mostly in Italy.

But at the same time he produced some of his histori­cal plays telling of the War of the Roses full of dramatic tension. This was the war of two royal families that had brought much disaster to the country.

He reaches the height of tragedy in his play about the villain - King Richard III. The part of Richard III at­tracted many first-class actors who became interested in the idea of playing absolute evil. A famous English actor Lawrence Olivier was a great success in this role. Many critics think that Shakespeare's best works were written after 1592 when the plague raged throughout England and the theatres were closed. The tragedy suffered by people was revealed in his tragic plays: "Romeo and Juliet", "Hamlet", "Othello", "King Lear" and "Macbeth". But there are also beautiful comedies of this period: "A Mid­summer Night's Dream", "Merry Wives of Windsor", "As You Like It" and "The Twelfth Night". All these plays are about love. In his comedies Shakespeare mocks hypocrisy, evil spirit, self-interest and envy. Merry and spectacular comedies of this period remain favourite plays of modern theatre-goers.

At the beginning of the 17^th century Shakespeare wrote most of his Roman plays, presenting different epochs of ancient history: "Anthony and Cleopatra", "Coriolanus", "Timon of Athens", "Pericles", "Titus Andronicus" and "Julius Caesar". Shakespeare is greatly interested in the problems of man and power, heroism and mediocrity. He gave his own interpretation of history which was al­ways convincing. Lawrence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, who played the parts of Anthony and Cleopatra in the London production of Shakespeare's play, were probably among the best performers of these parts and those who saw the play will remember their acting for a long time.

It is interesting to note that almost all plots of Shakespeare's plays were not original. He took them from the works of other authors. At that time the audience was rather ignorant and the playwrights tried to attract it to the world literature through their plays. Shakespeare took his plots from history, old legends, novels and poems; he also used Plutarch's "Historical Portraits". The plots of "Othello" and "The Twelfth Night" were taken from Ital­ian novels, of "Hamlet" and "King Lear" - from early English authors. But every borrowed plot began to live a new life in his plays. At the end of his life Shakespeare retired to Stratford. There he created his third cycle of plays called the "romantic dramas". These are the plays "Cymbeline", "The Winter's Tale", "The Tempest". The emotional and ideological conflicts in these plays are less strong. Shakespeare transports us to a world of fantasy and allegory. These plays are less popular and are staged mainly in England. Shakespeare pays no attention to arbi­trary rules of classic drama, the action takes place in dif­ferent places — from king's palace to the graveyard, many years pass between the two acts, and some side-lines are often more vivid and expressive than the main ones. Moral and psychological truth is with him more important than mere beauty of style.

III. Phraseologisms in Shakespeare’s Works

Phraseologism (a phraseological unit, comes from a Greek word "phrasis" — turn of speech) — is the com­mon name for semantically connected word combinations and sentences. They are not created in accordance with a general rule and a combination of words when organising a speech, in contrast to similar forms of syntactical structures. But they appear in the language in a steady correlation of a semantic structure and certain lexical and grammatical composition. More often it is a new understanding of freely connected words.

Phraseologisms are characterised by unity of compo­nents, integrity of meaning and automatic reproduction in speech. The main peculiarity of the phraseologism is that it expresses just a single notion regardless of the number of the words included in this phraseologism. That's why it's used as a ready unit in the language and a single part of a sentence. Phraseologisms are widely used in speech, giving it emotionality. They can express additional shades of a joke, irony, mockery, condemna­tion, reproach etc.

As a rule phraseologisms have a form of word combina­tions. Only some of phraseologisms have a form of sentences. Most often they are proverbs, sayings and winged words. It should be mentioned that namely W.Shakespeare's phrase­ologisms have a form of sentences in most of cases.

Phraseologisms are divided into the following groups depending on the level of words meaning integrity: phra­seological joints, phraseological unities, phraseological combinations, and phraseological expressions. They mean separate notions, but have single lexical meaning.

  3.1. Phraseological Joint

Phraseological joint is a set combination of words, where a general meaning of a phrase doesn't arise from the meanings of every word in the combination. They can­not be accepted by the modern Ukrainian language as set word combinations. Their internal logic and essence look incomprehensible to us. W.Shakespeare very often uses the method of phraseological joint in his works. To support this idea, here come several examples:

1. The milk of human kindness: "...yet do I fear thy nature; it is too full o' the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great..." (W.Shakespeare, Macbeth, act I, scene 5);

2. Midsummer madness: "Why, this is very midsum­mer madness." (W.Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, act III, scene 4);

3. Lay it on: "Well said: that was laid on with a trowel." (W.Shakespeare, As You Like It, act I, scene 2);

4. All shall be well, Jack shall have Jill: "...and the country proverb known, that every man should take his own, in your waking shall be shown: Jack shall have his Jill nought shall go ill..." (W.Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, act III, scene 2);

5. How now: "How now? Who's there?" (W. Shakespeare, King Lear, act IV, scene 1);

6. That's flat: "...No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I'll not march through Coventry with them, that's flat..." (W.Shakespeare, King Henry IV, part I, act IV, scene 2);

7. The green-eyed monster: "O! Beware, my lord, of jealousy. It is the green-ey'd monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on..." (W.Shakespeare, Othello, act III, scene 3).

  3.2. Phraseological Unity

Phraseological unity is a set word combination where general meaning could be obtained from separate word meanings. Most often there is a metaphor or comparison in the basis of this word combination. Shakespeare also used such a type of phraseologisms.

Example:

1. Know the world: "Old folks, you know, have discre­tion, as they say, and know the world." (W.Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, act II, scene 2);

2. The prince of darkness: "The prince of darkness is a gentleman; Modo he is-called and Mahu." (W.Shakespeare, King Lear, act III, scene 4);

3. Golden opinions: "...and I have bought golden opin­ions from all sorts of people, which would be worn now in their newest gloss, not cast aside so soon." (W.Shakespeare, Macbeth, act I, scene 7);

4. Paint the lily: "...To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, to throw a perfume on the violet..." (W.Shakespeare, King John, act IV, scene 2);

5. Gild refined gold: "...To gild refined gold, to paint the lily..." (W.Shakespeare, King John, act IV, scene 2);

6. Fetch and carry: "...Here is the cate-log (pulling out a paper) of her conditions. Imprimis, "she can fetch and carry". (W.Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, act III, scene 1);

7. Cakes and ale: “Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?” (W.Shakespeare. Twelfth Night, act II, scene 3).

 3.3. Phraseological Combinations

Phraseological combination is a set word combination, where general meaning of the combination could be grasped from separate meanings of the words in the combination. However, the meanings of the words are not equal. Some of them are free, not united, the others are phraseologically linked. Such word combinations are characterised by a relative independency of the components. In most of the cases there is a central word, which is steady and cannot be changed, and a dependent word that could be changed. It shouldn't go unmentioned that there are not so many of these phraseological combinations in W.Shakespeare's writings:

1. Know one's distance: "She knew her distance, did angle for me, madding my eagerness with her restraint..." (W.Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well, act V, scene 3);

 2. Smell to heaven: "...O! My offence is rank, it smells to heaven; it hath the primal eldest curse upon't - a brother's murder." (W.Shakespeare, Hamlet, act III, scene 3);

3. There is luck in odd numbers: "Pry thee, no more prattling; - go: — I'll hold. This is the third time; I hope, good luck lies in odd numbers." (W.Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, act V, scene 1);

4. Hit the mark: "If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark." (W.Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, act II, scene 1).

3.4. Phraseological Expressions

Phraseological expression is a set word combination, which in the process of speech is reproduced as a unit of the language, however, all the words in the combination have free, non-connected meaning. Among them there are proverbs, sayings, winged phrases and cliches. According to my observation I can say that there is a great number of such phrases in W.Shakespeare's works:

1. "If two men ride on a horse, one must ride behind." (W.Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing, act III, scene 5);

2. "All's well that ends well." (W.Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well, act IV, scene 4);

3. "One may smile, and smile, and be a villain." (W.Shakespeare, Hamlet, act I, scene 5);

4. "There are more things in heaven." (W.Shakespeare, Hamlet, act I, scene 5);

5. "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." (W.Shakespeare, As You Like It, act II, scene 7).

IV. Winged Words in Shakespeare’s Works

Winged words are steady, gnomic, phraseological, usu­ally figurative phrases, word combinations, which came into the language use from some folklore, literary, publicistic or scientific source. They are also sayings of prominent historical figures, which became widespread among people. They are used in metaphorically-broadened meaning and also as a stylistic device for decorating, strengthening of expressiveness of a text or speech. They are also used for condensed transmission of thoughts or ideas. The most famous winged words of W.Shakespeare are:

- "To be or not to be—that is the question." (W.Shakespeare, Hamlet, act I, scene 3);

- "Brevity is the soul of wit." (W.Shakespeare, Hamlet, act II, scene 2);

- "Neither a borrower nor a lender be." (W.Shakespeare, Hamlet, act I, scene 3);

    In general, winged words are considered to be steady phrases, which belong to one literary, cultural and his­torical source, and through rich expressive and figurative colouration they become widespread in oral speaking, in science fiction and in journalism. So when these or those phrases, sayings, quotations have an opportunity to denote some ideas in a bright, unusual and new way, when they become common in the language of native speakers, then after their multiple usage, winged words transform into phraseologisms.

V. Conclusions

Dates and facts do not tell us much about the kind of person Shakespeare was, but there are other ways of finding out a little about him. People who knew him and admired his plays during his lifetime sometimes wrote about him; and stories about the great playwright went round even after his death, and were told to writers of later times.  

Shakespeare's mind and thoughts, his likes and dislikes, his moods of gaiety or despair, how­ever, were not described by his friends. It is the plays and poems themselves that tell of these. From them we know that the man who wrote them was wise, humorous and kindly, that he loved people, even those who to many of us would seem stupid or annoying, and also that he saw very clearly what evil human beings could do and what suffering they could cause. Often he must have been gay and happy, enjoying wit and laughter; but there were also times in his life when he felt bitter and despairing. For instance, the greatest of the tragedies, the plays that show the grief and suffering of people caught in terrible situations, were written within a few years of each other, and so it seems that at this time Shakespeare may have known un-happiness himself, and must certainly have been thinking about it very deeply.

None of the actual events of Shakespeare's life can really be guessed from the plays, which of course are not about himself; but he did write a whole group of the kind of short poems called sonnets, which probably were about himself. Some of them were written in praise and affec­tion for a young man, probably a nobleman, but although there have been many guesses as to who he was, no one really knows. 

VI. References

1.    Balla M. I. English-Ukrainian Dictionary (Volume 1,2). Kyiv “Osvita” Publishing House, 1996.

2.    Children’s Britannica (Volume 16). Encyclopedia Britannica International,1973.

3.    Dictionary of Contemporary English. Longman. Third Edition, 2001.

4.    Grinberg V. Take all my Love. Газета “English” / Шкільний світ. – 2004, #3.

5.    Koshevenko T. William Shakespeare. Газета “English” / Шкільний світ. – 2004, #13.

6.    Phraseologisms in Shakespeare’s Works. Газета “English” / Шкільний світ. – 2006, #15.

7.    The Internet Resources.