Grammar-school students in Shakespeare's time were taught to recognize the two hundred figures of speech that Renaissance scholars had derived from Latin and Greek sources (from amphibolgia through onomatopoeia to zeugma). This knowledge was one element in their thorough grounding in the liberal arts of logic, grammar, and rhetoric, known as the trivium. In Shakespeare's Use of the Arts of Language Sister Miriam Joseph writes: 'The extraordinary power, vitality, and richness of Shakespeare's language are due in part to his genius, in part to the fact that the unsettled linguistic forms of his age promoted to an unusual degree the spirit of creativeness, and in part to the theory of composition then prevailing. . . The purpose of this study is to present to the modern reader the general theory of composition current in Shakespeare's England.' The author then lays out those figures of speech in simple, understandable patterns and explains each one with examples from Shakespeare. Her analysis of his plays and poems illustrates that the Bard knew more about rhetoric than perhaps anyone else! Originally published in 1947, this book is a classic.
A mature appreciation of Shakespeare's plays might be compared to a connoisseur's love of great music. Each can be enjoyed in a single performance, but the more educated the audience, the greater the pleasure of the work's complexity and richness. In the England of Shakespeare's day, schoolchildren were taught nearly two hundred figures of speech as part of their grounding in the liberal arts of logic, grammar, and rhetoric (known as the trivium). Sister Miriam Joseph maintains that 'the extraordinary power, vitality, and richness of Shakespeare's language are due in part to his genius, in part to the fact that the unsettled linguistic forms of his age promoted to an unusual degree the spirit of free creativeness, and in part to the theory of composition then prevailing.' She proposes to acquaint the modern reader with said 'theory of composition' by defining a substantial sampling of these figures and offering examples from Shakespeare's own plays as illustration. Quoting C.S. Lewis, Sister Miriam humbly and concisely explains her own function within this study: 'It is the chief duty of the interpreter to begin analyses and to leave them unfinished.to awaken the reader's conscious knowledge of life and books.and then to stir those less conscious elements in him which alone can fully respond.' That said, Sister Miriam's own analytical genius transforms Shakespeare's Use of the Arts of Languages into a classic in its own right, accessible to Shakespearean scholar and layman alike. 423 pp.
A mature appreciation of Shakespeare's plays might be compared to a connoisseur's love of great music. Each can be enjoyed in a single performance, but the more educated the audience, the greater the pleasure of the work's complexity and richness. In the England of Shakespeare's day, schoolchildren were taught nearly two hundred figures of speech as part of their grounding in the liberal arts of logic, grammar, and rhetoric (known as the trivium). Sister Miriam Joseph maintains that 'the extraordinary power, vitality, and richness of Shakespeare's language are due in part to his genius, in part to the fact that the unsettled linguistic forms of his age promoted to an unusual degree the spirit of free creativeness, and in part to the theory of composition then prevailing.' She proposes to acquaint the modern reader with said 'theory of composition' by defining a substantial sampling of these figures and offering examples from Shakespeare's own plays as illustration. Quoting C.S. Lewis, Sister Miriam humbly and concisely explains her own function within this study: 'It is the chief duty of the interpreter to begin analyses and to leave them unfinished.to awaken the reader's conscious knowledge of life and books.and then to stir those less conscious elements in him which alone can fully respond.' That said, Sister Miriam's own analytical genius transforms Shakespeare's Use of the Arts of Languages into a classic in its own right, accessible to Shakespearean scholar and layman alike. 423 pp.
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