Download - Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
DiscoveringShakespeare’smeaning
목차 1 IMAGERY 목차 2 LITERAL AND FIGURATIVE
IMAGES
목차 3 METAPHOR
목차 4 SIMILE
목차 5 PERSONIFICATION
목차 6 EMBLEM
목차 7 SYMBOL
Again Boramae ParkA TABLE OF CONTENTS
Definition of Imagery
Any series of words used to create a mental image,
figure, or likeness of a person, place or thing.
Uses of Imagery
To suggest the atmosphere of a scene
To reveal the attitudes of his speakers
To define the nature of the universe in which his dramatis
personae function
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
1. Imagery
Uses of Imagery
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
1. Imagery
<bloody knife before Macbeth>
Definition of Literal Images
where a straightforward evocation of a specific object is
involved
Uses of Literal Images I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,Where oxslips and the nodding violet grows,Quite over-canopies with luscious woodbine,With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine.
(p.32) (A Midsummer Night's Dream, II.i.249-252)
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
2. Literal and Figurative Images
Definition of Figurative Images
where an object, or state is defined in terms of another
Uses of Figurative Images
To make an imaginative leap in order to comprehend an
author's point
"He ran like a hare down the street" - Figurative
"He ran very quickly down the street" - Literal
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
2. Literal and Figurative Images
Definition of Metaphor Identifying, rather than comparing, one object with another, thus
transferring the qualities of the second to the first.
Uses of Metaphor To realize a new and different meaning To increase stylistic colorfulness and variety
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
3. Metaphor
When we are born, we cry that we are comeTo this great stage of fools,
(p.33) (King Lear, V.iii.189-190) A walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage
(Macbeth)
Definition of Simile
Involving a comparison between one object and another,
and being usually introduced by 'as' or 'like'
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
4. Simile
Uses of Simile
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
4. Simile
"And what's her history?""A blank, my lord. She never told her love, but...sat, like patience on a monument, smiling at Grief."
Sblood, I am as melancholyas a gib cat, or a lugged bear.(p.32) (Henry IV, I.ii.71-72)
(Twelfth Night, II.iv.114-116)
Definition of Personification
The representation of an abstract concept or inanimate
object in human terms
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
5. Personification
Uses of Personification To makes objects and their actions easier to visualize for readers
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
5. Personification
But look, the morn in russet mantle cladwalks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill -
(p.32) (Hamlet, I.i.171-172)
Sleep...knits up the raveled sleeve of care.... balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, chief nourisher in life's feast.
(Macbeth)
Definition of Emblem Pictorial image that represents an abstract idea or a
concept, or a person such as king or saint. Emblem embodies some abstraction in concrete, visual terms; a tribe, or nation, a virtue or a vice.
Definition of Symbol Something such as an object, picture, written word,
sound or particular mark that represents something else by association, resemblance or convention, and evokes one object, or concept, while simultaneously suggesting another, unrelated one.
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
6. Emblem and Symbol
Differences between Emblem and Symbol
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
6. Emblem and Symbol
The christian cross is a symbol of the Crucifixion; it is an emblem of sacrifice.
Red Cross is a symbol of the International Red Cross; it is the emblem of the humanitarian spirit.
Uses of symbol
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
6. Emblem and Symbol
Come, seeling Night,
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful Day,
And, with thy bloody and invisible hand,
Cancel, and tear to pieces, that great bond
Which keeps me pale! - Light thickens; and the crow
Makes wing to th'rooky wood;
Good things of Day begin to droop and drowse,
Whiles Night's black agents to their preys do rouse.
<Macbeth, thinking about Banquo's murder > (p.34) (Macbeth III.ii.46-53)
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
Cleo, I dreamt there was an Emperor Antony. O such another sleep, that I might see But such another man!Dol[abella]. If it might please ye, -Cleo. His face was as the heavens, and therein stuck A sun and moon, which kept their course, and lighted The little O, the earth.Dol. Most Sovereign creature, -Cleo. His legs bestrid the ocean, his rear'd arm Crested the world: his voice was propertied As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends: But when he meant to quail, and shake the orb, He was as ratting thunder. For his bounty, There was no winter in't: an autumn 'twas That grew the more by reaping: his delights Were dolphin-like, they show'd his back above The element they lived in: in his livery Walk'd crowns and crownets: realms and islands were As platers dropp'd from his pocket.
(V. ii. 76-92)
• In Antony and Cleopatra, the imagery implies the superhuman qualities of the central figures.
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throneBurn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;Purple the sails, and so perfumed thatThe winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and madeThe water which they beat to follow faster,As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,It beggar'd all description: she did lieIn her pavilion - cloth of gold, of tissue - O'er-picturing that Venus where we seeThe fancy outwork nature. On each side her,Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seemTo glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool, And what they undid did.
Through literal and figurative images, Enobarbus creates a vision of ultimate sensuousness and eroticism to describe Cleopatra.
Agr[ippa]. O, rare for Antony!Eno. Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides, So many mermaids, tended her i'the eyes, And made their bends adornings. At the helm A seeming mermaid steers: the silken tackle Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands, That yarely frame the office. From the barge A strange invisible perfume hits the sense Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast Her people out upon her; and Antony Enthron'd i'the market-place, did sit alone, Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy, Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too, And made a gap in nature.
(II.ii.191-218)
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
Figurative language not only enlarges the arena of the spectators imagination, but also could be interpreted in a wider context which implicates symbolic meaning. Also, the human beings who move about the stage
become ciphers for something larger than themselves, participating in a conflict that has a wider significance than a clash between mundane individuals.
In short, Figurative language.. Evokes an atmosphere or location Defines the idiosyncratic nature of specific individuals Projects the theme by aligning one character with
another, or differentiating between groups.
Drawn from a single area of experience and used
throughout a dramatic composition to widen the implications
of the events that are enacted
Form one of the principal routes by which the meaning of a
specific play may be explored
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
Iterative imagery
ex
In Hamlet, images of disease pervade the dramatic language, suggesting not merely the corruption of one individual but the degeneration of an entire society. -Francisco-Barnardo-Hamlet : Denmark is 'an unweeded garden / That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature / Possess it merely' → Human +natural corruption-Laertes :
The canker galls the infants of the springToo oft before their buttons be disclos'd,And in the morn and liquid dew of youthContagious blastments are most imminent.
(I.iii.39-42) -King(Old Hamlet) : The poisoning of the king, the head of the body politic, emerges as the fount of the sickness that pervades the play world.
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
In terms of plot, Macbeth is merely the story of the murder of a good king by an ambitious subject. Through imagery, it can reflect the cosmic upheaval consequent upon the fracturing of natural bonds, and a horrifying vision of a mental landscape born of the individual's violation of his own moral nature.
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
Imagery of inversion― 'Fair is foul, and foul is fair' ― seated heart knock at [his] ribs, Against the use of nature, (I.iii.136-7) ― Function is smother'd in surmise, And nothing is, but what is not. (141-2)
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
The study of imagery first emerged as a major critical preoccupation in 1930s.
A number of books have appeared on the figurative language of specific plays since 1930s.
The student of studying shakespearian drama has to concentrate to the text
Because we can appreciate the expanding circle of significance that the imagery of a play generates through close reading.
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
Student has to attempt to realize the visual effects and to consider the relationship between those effects and images.
Because Shakespeare’s poetry is designed to work upon the imagination of the spectator as the drama evolves. And Its effects are discovered in the play.
Unfortunately, as opposed to the theatre-goer, the reader is deprived of the visual effects that transform the poetic expression into the dramatic realization of it.
So it is hard to perceive for the reader to perceive close relationship between stage spectacle and figurative language.
‘Richard ’ affords a straightforward example of figurative Ⅱlanguage and stage spectacle complementing one another.
Henry Bolingbroke, having been banished by King Richard, returns to
England in arms and insists his lands distrained by the King.
In act a company of rebels, including Bolingbroke and ⅢNorthumberland, approach Flint castle where Richard has taken refuge.
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
The imagery and stage spectacle in ‘Richard ’Ⅱ
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
Henry Bolingbroke’s message to king Richard
On both his knees doth kiss King Richard’s hand,
And sends allegiance and true faith of heart
Provided that my banishment repeal’d And lands retor’d again be freely granted; If not, I’ll use the advantage of my power And lay the summer’s dust with showers of blood
The fact that a follower commands to his king means reduced King’s majesty.
The imagery that Bolingbroke employs denotes his deferential relationship to his sovereign, and also emphasizes the discrepancy
(=disagreement) between their social status.
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
Tottered battlements is a literal description of the castle. (=> imagery)
The word ‘tottered’ implies that the castle is ‘tattered’(=ruined), and
‘tottering’ as if about to fall.
And the description of the castle has reference to its occupant,
Richard.
The imagery suggests the insecurity, not only of the castle
which is Richard’s physical shelter, but also of Richard’s social
position.
Henry Bolingbroke :
Let’s march without the noise of threat’ning drum,
That from this castle’s tottered battlements
Our fair appiontments may be well perus’d
At this point, the King appears on the upper stage, and his physical eleva-
tion is an emblematic representation of his superior social status.
The aspect of the King’s role that brings glory to his people like the sun
is realized in visual terms on the stage by Richard’s appearance, richly clad,
and upon the upper stage.
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
Henry Bolingbroke :
See, see, King Richard doth himself appear,
As doth the blushing discontented sun
Yet looks he like a king, Behold, his
eye,
As bright as is the eagle’s, lightens
forth
Controlling majesty.
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
The eagle is the king of birds, and Richard is a king among men.
The eagle soars high above the earth, scanning the world below him with
an acute gaze, as Richard, in his majesty, over-sees his subjects.
King’s appearance on the upper stage fuses these concepts.
On the upper stage, Richard looks down, literally, upon his subjects
clear-sightedly.
Richard [To northumberland] :
We are amaz’d, and thus long have we stood
To watch the fearful bending of thy knee,
Because we thought ourself thy lawful king;
And if we be, how dare thy joints forget
To pay their awful duty to our presence?
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
By failing to kneel to the monarch, Northumberland not only
withholds a gesture of respect, but also enforce his own
growth in relation to the King.
Richard Unable to imposes his authority, and his surrender
can be seen next speech.
Richard :
Most mighty prince, my Lord Northumberland,
What says King Bolingbroke? Will his Majesty
Give Richard leave to live till Richard die?
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
The ironic speeches in which Richard now salutes
Bolingbroke’s messenger indicate the reversal of
roles and that is unchangeable.
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
Examples from ‘Richard ’Ⅱ
1) Rich. Down, down I come, like glist'ring Phaeton,
Wanting the manage of unruly jades.
In the base court? Base court, where kings grow base
To come at traitors' calls, and do them grace!
In the base court? Come down? Down, court! down, king!
For night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing.
Richard's action : The movement denotes his submission to superior force, but it also enacts a descent from kingship to 'baseness', from supremacy over others to the common human condition.
⇒ the significance of the stage spectacle is enriched by the figurative language that accompanies it.
Playing upon the sun image used in relation to the sovereign : The image transforms Richard from the true, sun-like monarch, to an aspirant to that role, with his descent from the upper stage enacting his waning authority and foreshadowing his destruction.
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
2) Rich. Up, cousin, up; your heart is up, I know,Thus high at least, although your knee be low.
The visual and verbal imagery of ascent and descent is continued.
This points towards the ultimate nature of the predominance that Bolingbroke is to gain.
Bolingbroke is in the ascendancy and Richard is doomed to decline.
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
3) Now is this golden crown like a deep well That owes two buckets, filling one another, The emptier ever dancing in the air, The other down, unseen, and full of water, That bucket down and full of tears am I, Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high. The aspirants to the crown of England, as the
deposed king comments in the above act, are like two buckets in a well. Showing the elevation of one and the decline of
the other. It is alternation of fortunes that the stage
spectacle and the figurative language combine.
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
Examples from 'Othello'1) an old black ram Is tupping your white ewe; The figurative language turns upon a contrast which is
realized in terms of stage spectacle. It is built upon colour. From the very outset of the play
images evocative of darkness and light are in opposition to one another.
2) I ha't, it is engender'd; Hell and night Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light. From this point onwards the literal darkness in which the
action is set becomes evident.
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
3) Rod. Here is her father's house, I'll call aloud. Iago. Do, with like timorous accent, and dire yell, As when, by night and negligence, the fire Is spied I populous cities.
…(skipped) Awake! what ho, Brabantio! Thieves, thieves, thieves!
…(skipped)BRANBANTIO at a window.
…(skipped) Zounds, sir, you are robb'd, for shame put on your gown,
…(skipped) Awake the snorting citizens with the bell, A host of devices are used here to communicate the night-time
setting to the audience. The darkness of the play world has been implied by the nature of the
characters' exchanges, by the imagery, and the disposition of the actors on the upper and lower stage.
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
4) Bra. Give me a taper, call up all my people: This accident is not unlike my dream, Belief of it oppresses me already: Light I say, light! stirred into action by the cries of the men below
him, begins to call for light ⇒ confirming the blackness.
5) Enter BRANBANTIO in his night-gown, and Servants with Torches.
The night-time setting is reaffirmed by his costume, and the torches carried by his attendants.
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
Examples from 'Othello'
The combined significance spectacle and imagery in these
scenes would have been much more evident to the
Elizabethan play-goer than to the twentieth-century reader.
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
The visual impact of these opening scenes is crucial to the meaning of the play as a whole.
From the opening lines of the play in which two gentlemen converse about a third, the verbal and visual imagery combine to carry the spectator forward into a species of hell.
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
stereotype response evoked by stage picture
stereotype response evoked by stage picture
black- evil devil- grotesque black man surrounded by leaping flames - carry off souls
∴ Othello → diabolical force the instigator of evil
white - virtue
∴ Iago → ‘honest’ manreverse
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
The spectator is thus obliged to move from the stereotype
response evoked by the stage picture, through confusion, to
the recognition that it is not the black Othello who is the
instigator of evil, but the 'honest' Iago who is the white man,
and it is from this recognition that much of the intellectual
excitement of the play springs.
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
Examples from ' King Lear '
Actualize the concepts upon which the imagery of the play
turns.
"This coronet part between you."
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
"This coronet part between you."
kingdom
conceivable inconceivable
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
fragmentation of an indivisible entity
possibility of future competition between the two sons-in-law for meaningful sovereignty.
worthless
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
“ Nuncle, give me an egg, and I’ll give thee two crowns.···When thou clovest thy crown i’th’ middle, and gav’st away both part, thou bor’st thine ass on thy back o’er the dirt…”
The fool uses an egg that has been cut in half as an image of Lear’s conduct in relation to the crown.
Cloven his crown in two Violent and disturbing image
Discovering Shakespeare’s meaning
The crown is the crown of Lear’s own head, and the cleaving of it is the rending of his own being as individual, father, and king.
Thank you!