Help with the language

Thou, thee, you

Early modern English still distinguished singular informal address from polite or plural address. Shakespeare uses the difference the way a modern writer uses a first name versus a title.

• thou / thee

  Singular ‘you’ (subject / object).

  Often intimate, inferior, or insulting — not automatically archaic decoration. A shift from you to thou in a scene is a temperature change.

• ye / you

  Originally plural, then polite singular.

  Characters use you to superiors, strangers, and for formality. Track the switch.

• thy / thine

  Your / yours.

  Thine before a vowel (‘thine eyes’), like an/a.

• hath / doth

  Has / does.

  Third person singular. ‘She hath’ = she has.

• art

  Are (with thou).

  ‘Thou art’ = you are.

Word order (inversion)

Elizabethan English allows verbs and objects to move for rhythm and emphasis: ‘Goes the king hence today?’ = ‘Is the king leaving today?’ Read the sentence once for the beat, then rearrange it into modern order before you analyse. Never stop at the paraphrase — but the paraphrase is how you earn the right to analyse.

Metre, verse and the tricks worth naming

• Iambic pentameter

  Five pairs of unstressed/stressed beats: da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM.

  ‘But SOFT, what LIGHT through YON-der WIN-dow BREAKS.’ Shakespeare uses it as the default for verse, then breaks it — extra syllables, inverted first feet, shared lines — when a mind is under pressure. If you can hear the beat, you can hear the crack.

• Blank verse

  Unrhymed iambic pentameter. The sound of serious thought on Shakespeare’s stage.

  Most of Macbeth, Hamlet and Lear speak it. Rhyme often signals a scene ending, a spell, a couplet of resolve, or a shift into the ceremonial. Ask: why verse here, not prose?

• Prose

  Speech without a metrical line. Not ‘less poetic’ — a different social and mental gear.

  Servants, letters, madness, comedy, and some of Hamlet’s most intelligent talk happen in prose. Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking is prose; her invocation of spirits was verse. Form follows collapse.

• Soliloquy

  A character alone (or as if alone) thinks aloud for the audience.

  Treat it as an argument with steps, not a mood. Where does the thought turn? What image arrives? Who might be listening? Hamlet, Iago and Macbeth all use us differently.

• Aside

  A line the audience hears and another character supposedly does not.

  Iago’s asides make us co-conspirators. Richard III’s asides make us laugh. Complicity is a method — write about it as a relationship with the audience.

• Rhyming couplet

  Two consecutive rhyming lines, often closing a scene or sealing a decision.

  ‘Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell / That summons thee to heaven or to hell.’ The chime can sound like fate clicking shut.

• Antithesis

  Opposites placed to clash: fair/foul, kin/kind, nothing/everything.

  Shakespeare thinks in pairs. If you find a binary, ask which side the scene actually believes — and whether the play later inverts it.

• Dramatic irony

  The audience knows more than a character.

  Duncan calling Macbeth’s castle ‘pleasant’; Othello praising ‘honest Iago’; the mechanicals explaining they are not really lions. Irony is knowledge with a time delay.

• Equivocation

  Language that means two things at once; a lie that is technically true.

  Central to Macbeth (the witches; the Porter’s speech after the Gunpowder Plot). Also Portia’s legal trap, and almost every vow in the comedies.

• Stichomythia

  Rapid single-line (or half-line) exchange, like a verbal duel.

  Richard and Anne; Hamlet and Gertrude; Beatrice and Benedick. Pace is character. If you write about conflict, quote the rhythm as well as the words.

Glossary

Words that regularly trip GCSE and A Level close-reading. Search, then put the original line back at the centre of the paragraph.

anon

Soon; in a moment.

aroint

Begone (as in ‘Aroint thee, witch’).

aye

Yes; always.

but

Often ‘only’ or ‘except’ — not always ‘however’.

cousin / coz

Any kinsman, not only a parent’s nephew/niece.

ere

Before.

fain

Gladly; willing.

fie

Shame on it; an outburst of disgust.

forsooth

In truth (sometimes sarcastic).

hence

Away from here; from now.

hie

Hurry.

hither / thither / whither

To here / to there / to where.

husbandry

Thrift; management (not only farming).

issue

Children; offspring; also a result.

knave

Boy; servant; rascal — tone depends on speaker.

like

Please; equally ‘likely’ or ‘similar to’.

marry

A mild oath (‘by the Virgin Mary’), not always a wedding.

meet

Fitting; appropriate.

methinks

It seems to me.

naught / nought

Nothing; wickedness (‘naughty’ is stronger then).

owe

Own; possess — as well as ‘be in debt’.

perchance

Perhaps.

prate

Chatter.

presently

Immediately — not ‘in a while’.

mark

Notice; pay attention.

soft

Wait; hush (‘But soft, what light…’).

still

Always; continually — not only ‘even now’.

suit

A petition; a courtship; an outfit.

teen

Grief; suffering (as in ‘my teen’).

want

Lack — not only ‘desire’.

wherefore

Why — not ‘where’. Juliet is not looking for Romeo on a map.

withal

With; nevertheless.

wot

Know.