William Shakespeare as the father of English literature and the great author of America. His place in drama of 16th century and influence on American English. Literary devices in works and development style. Basic his works: classification and chronology.
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Contents

• Introduction
• Chapter 1. William Shakespeare - the father of English literature and “the great author of America”
• 1.1 Shakespeare's place in English drama of 16th century
• 1.2 Shakespeare's works: classification and chronology
• 1.3 Shakespeare's influence on American English
• Chapter 2. The Language of Shakespeare
• 2.1 Morphological peculiarities
• 2.2 Literary Devices in Shakespeare's works
• 2.3 The development of Shakespeare's style
• Conclusion
• List of literature

Introduction

William Shakespeare (26 April 1564 (baptised) - 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.

By that time England had become a powerful state, but there was not much change for the better in the life of the English people and the power of money grew stronger. Shakespeare saw these contrasts and showed them in his works.

All the writing of Shakespeare deal with love, life and death and these universal themes get beautiful touch by him. His poetry and dramas reflect that he had extraordinary knowledge of human psychology. Therefore, his characters have become memorable in the field of literature.

Shakespeare explored poetry and drama but it is drama that brought fame for him. Even his dramas are poetically crafted. Poetry is inseparable from his writing. He has given immortal lines. “To be or not to be” is oft quoted line from “Hamlet” that is reflected in a modern man who is caught in the same idea of perplexity.

This work is relevant because with its help we can learn more about Shakespeare's influence not only on English literature but language.

Words and phrases from Shakespeare's writings have become part of the English language and are used by all. That is why, this theme is so actual.

The aim is to read the grammatical and stylistic techniques that were used by Shakespeare.

The object of work is a process of influencing of Shakespearian language on English literature and American English.

The subject is analysis of Shakespeare's works.

The information base of investigation is journal and newspaper articles, articles published in scholarly books, textbooks, and publications on the Internet.

Chapter 1. William Shakespeare - the father of English literature and “the great author of America”

1.1 Shakespeare's place in English drama of 16th century

16^th century was the period of rapid literature development in England. Suppressive French influence on state sphere and culture was negotiated. National typography developed violently. Also many temporal and turned books appeared during that period. Bible's translation into English was of great importance.

There were two trends aught to the problem of regulatory language among the 16^th century writers. Edmund Spenser was the representative of first trend and William Shakespeare - of second one.

Edmund Spenser is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and is considered one of the greatest poets in the English language. Though Spenser was well read in classical literature, scholars have noted that his poetry does not rehash tradition, but rather is distinctly his. This individuality may have resulted, to some extent, from a lack of comprehension of the classics. Spenser strove to emulate such ancient Roman poets as Virgil and Ovid, whom he studied during his schooling, but many of his best-known works are notably divergent from those of his predecessors. The language of his poetry is purposely archaic, reminiscent of earlier works such as The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer and II Canzoniere of Francesco Petrarca, whom Spenser greatly admired.

Spenser was called a Poets' Poet and was admired by William Wordsworth, John Keats, Lord Byron, and Alfred Lord Tennyson, among others.

During Shakespeare's lifetime, the English language experiences a significant growth spurt in both the number of words and the variety of syntactical structures in which words can be employed. While writers are bringing numerous words from Latin into English, they are also experimenting with syntax to achieve the accuracy and the expressive range of lost inflections. This freedom of experimentation is unhampered by established systems of rules and usage that might confine the range of meaning of individual words or that might restrict the ways in which words are combined and ordered.

Shakespeare thus writes not only in a linguistically rich field, but also in an age where there is little grammatical strictness. Like dictionaries, grammar books were written for (and associated with) foreign languages rather than English.

The most striking feature of Shakespeare is his command of language. It is all the more astounding when one not only considers Shakespeare's sparse formal education but the curriculum of the day. There were no dictionaries; the first such lexical work for speakers of English was compiled by schoolmaster Robert Cawdrey as A Table Alphabeticall in 1604. Although certain grammatical treatises were published in Shakespeare's day, organized grammar texts would not appear until the 1700s. Shakespeare as a youth would have no more systematically studied his own language than any educated man of the period.

Despite this, Shakespeare is credited by the Oxford English Dictionary with the introduction of nearly 3,000 words into the language. His vocabulary, as culled from his works, numbers upward of 17,000 words (quadruple that of an average, well-educated conversationalist in the language).

Shakespeare has had a huge influence on the English language. Some people today reading Shakespeare for the first time complain that the language is difficult to read and understand, yet we are still using hundreds of words and phrases coined by him in our everyday conversation.

Here are some of the most popular Shakespeare phrases in common use today[15]:

§ A laughing stock (The Merry Wives of Windsor);

§ A sorry sight (Macbeth);

§ As dead as a doornail (Henry VI);

§ Eaten out of house and home (Henry V, Part 2);

§ Fair play (The Tempest);

§ I will wear my heart upon my sleeve (Othello);

§ In a pickle (The Tempest);

§ In stitches (Twelfth Night);

§ In the twinkling of an eye (The Merchant Of Venice);

§ Mum's the word (Henry VI, Part 2);

§ Neither here nor there (Othello);

§ Send him packing (Henry IV);

§ Set your teeth on edge (Henry IV);

§ There's method in my madness (Hamlet);

§ Too much of a good thing (As You Like It);

§ Vanish into thin air (Othello).

In many cases, it is not known if Shakespeare actually invented these phrases, or if they were already in use during Shakespeare's lifetime. In fact, it is almost impossible to identify when a word or phrase was first used, but Shakespeare's plays often provide the earliest citation.

The strength of Shakespeare's plays lies in the absorbing stories they tell, in their wealth of complex characters, and in the eloquent speech - vivid, forceful, and at the same time lyric - that the playwright puts on his characters' lips. It has often been noted that Shakespeare's characters are neither wholly good nor wholly evil, and that it is their flawed, inconsistent nature that makes them memorable. Hamlet fascinates audiences with his ambivalence about revenge and the uncertainty over how much of his madness is feigned and how much genuine. Falstaff would not be beloved if, in addition to being genial, openhearted, and witty, he were not also boisterous, cowardly, and, ultimately, poignant. Finally, the plays are distinguished by an unparalleled use of language. Shakespeare had a tremendous vocabulary and a corresponding sensitivity to nuance, as well as a singular aptitude for coining neologisms and punning.

Shakespeare is cited as an influence on a large number of writers in the following centuries, including major novelists such as Herman Melville[9], Charles Dickens[4], Thomas Hardy and William Faulkner[8]. Examples of this influence include the large number of Shakespearean quotations throughout Dickens' writings[4] and the fact that at least 25 of Dickens' titles are drawn from Shakespeare[6], while Melville frequently used Shakespearean devices, including formal stage directions and extended soliloquies, in Moby-Dick[7]. In fact, Shakespeare so influenced Melville that the novel's main antagonist, Captain Ahab, is a classic Shakespearean tragic figure, “a great man brought down by his faults”[1]. Shakespeare has also influenced a number of English poets, especially Romantic poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge wh...