Development Of Shakespeare Essay Research Paper The

Development Of Shakespeare Essay, Research Paper

The Development of Shakespeare

“The theater was clearly his chosen environment, and when we direct our attention to Shakespeare the playwright, we have come to the essential man” (Bentley 121). In the United States, Shakespeare is the most well known author of the Elizabethan era, but how did he achieve this magnificent status. Where did he get the ideas for the masterpieces that he produced. What went through his mind when he wrote characters like Hamlet, Julius Caesar, or even Bottom from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. There were many factors that contributed to the works of art he produced, but a few do stand out above the rest: his use of words, his audience, cast, and the literary sources of his ideas. Through these, we can see how Shakespeare developed his personal style of writing and how he constructed his dramatic works.

The first of these factors, Shakespeare’s use of words, shows a definite progression of skill as he wrote each play. In his early plays, he focused much on the sound and the “color” (Harrison 118) of his wording. His best writings were his comedies because the emotional involvement of this genre was low and so the flowery language fit in quite well. However, in his early tragedies, there are many drawn out speeches in which he tries to portray some deep passion of his character. Disappointingly though, these hyped up speeches turn out to be just a load of pretty words used to sway the audience’s feelings one way or another rather than actually portraying the message that Shakespeare had intended (Harrison 121). The end result of this was that his characters did not have deep passions or even likes and dislikes; they did not have personalities.

He used other techniques of wording poorly also. The rhymes were quite common, being every line or every other line. In addition, the rhythms of the speech were regular and forced a singsong flow (Harrison 121). The use of imagery was likewise weak. Imagery is a great touch in writing (and quite vivid and well written by Shakespeare) if it has a purpose. But the only purpose in these early plays, though, was for the sake of adding imagery rather than to clarify an idea or to help the audience visualize certain subjects. “Shakespeare was still more interested in fine writing than in drama” (Harrison 121).

Shakespeare was an intelligent man, though, and he did realize that beautiful use of words does not produce great dramatics works. This progression of his style can be seen in The Merchant of Venice, written in 1595, and even more so in Henry IV, written in 1597. By this time he had learned to use his powerful writing ability for something different. He now developed his characters through their speeches rather than using the speeches to toy with the emotions of his audience (Harrison 124). As a result, Shakespeare’s specialty moves from the shallower comedies to the deeply involved tragedies. Another great example of this development of his style is Hamlet in which the play’s namesake character gives his most intimate feelings and desires in numerous speeches.

Later on, around 1606, Shakespeare wrote King Lear and Macbeth. These both show the epitome of his growth as a playwright. In these two plays, it was his goal to express abstract ideas, which is much more difficult to do than expressing feelings that everyone can identify with. The imagery was much more complex and harder to comprehend. Before, Shakespeare had written his speeches line by line, picking which words and phrases would spruce up the dialogue, but in these plays it looks as though he wrote entire speeches at once (Harrison 136). The strength in this is that it gets across an entire idea at once instead of being broken up into a bunch of mini poems that sound good to the ear. In King Lear, he uses the words ‘nature’, ‘natural’, and ‘naturally’ forty-seven times which becomes a “sinister echo” throughout the play portraying a well-produced message (Harrison 139).

So Shakespeare still loved to play with words after all this learning and development of his style, but now he did it in different ways and in a much more effective manner for play writing. According to G.B. Harrison, former professor at University of Michigan and author of Introducing Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s use of words came to a heightened climax with The Tempest. In his book he states, “In The Tempest he achieved what some competent critics regard as his final and greatest play. In its poetry Shakespeare reached the farthest limits possible to the English language in expression and solemn music. The thought is still packed, but no longer obscure, the verse free but perfectly controlled” (145). Shakespeare has come to a point where he uses all his common literary techniques (lyric poetry, rhyme, blank verse, and prose) with greatest efficiency. In fact, he did not use rhyme in his latest plays unless it had a clear definite purpose. He sets the atmospheres of his scenes with the lyric verse and changes that atmosphere by using different verse, tones and patterns in the speeches of his characters (Harrison 143).

This is the first factor in the development of Shakespeare’s writing. He went from writing like an average poet to the powerful dramatist that we know him as. The next factor in the development of Shakespeare’s style of writing is his audience. This is an important asp