Shakespeare and the Arts of Language.

Cover -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- List of Illustrations -- A Note on Texts -- Introduction -- 1. The Language Shakespeare Learned -- 2. Shaping the Language: Words, Patterns, and the Traditions of Rhetoric -- 3. What is the Figure? -- 4. A World of Figures -- 5. Loosening the Line: Shakespeare's Metrical Development -- 6. Here Follows Prose -- 7. Double Talk -- 8. Words Effectual, Speech Unable -- Notes -- Further Reading -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W.

Oxford Shakespeare Topics (General Editors Peter Holland and Stanley Wells) provide students and teachers with short books on important aspects of Shakespeare criticism and scholarship. Each book is written by an authority in its field, and combines accessible style with original discussion of its subject. Notes and a critical guide to further reading equip the interested reader with the means to broaden research. For the modern reader or playgoer, English as Shakespeare used it- especially in verse drama - can seem alien. Shakespeare and the Arts of Language offers practical help with linguistic and poetic obstacles. Written in a lucid, nontechnical style, the book defines Shakespeare's artistic tools, including imagery, rhetoric, and wordplay, and illustrates their effects. Throughout, the reader is encouraged to find delight in the physical properties of the words: their colour, weight, and texture, the appeal of verbal patterns, and the irresistible affective power of intensified language.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.