Shakespeare and Warwickshire Dialect
The article investigates whether Shakespeare used Warwickshire, Cotswold or Midlands dialect, focusing on the sources of recent claims by Bate, Kathman and Wood, most of which derive from early dialect dictionaries compiled by 18th and 19th century antiquarians. It determines that all of these claim...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Firenze University Press
2016-03-01
|
| Series: | Journal of Early Modern Studies |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/bsfm-jems/article/view/7055 |
| _version_ | 1811258329961332736 |
|---|---|
| author | Rosalind Barber |
| author_facet | Rosalind Barber |
| author_sort | Rosalind Barber |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The article investigates whether Shakespeare used Warwickshire, Cotswold or Midlands dialect, focusing on the sources of recent claims by Bate, Kathman and Wood, most of which derive from early dialect dictionaries compiled by 18th and 19th century antiquarians. It determines that all of these claims – frequently used as a defence against the Shakespeare authorship question – fall into four categories: those based on errors of fact, well-known or widely-used words, poetic inventions, and those derived through circular reasoning. Two problems are identified. Firstly, the source texts on which these dialect claims rest were written two- to three-hundred years after the plays, by which time language use would not only have evolved, but would have been influenced by Shakespeare. Secondly, the continuing academic taboo surrounding the authorship question has meant that these claims, though easily refuted by searching the Oxford English Dictionary and the digitized texts of EEBO, have gone unchallenged in academia. It demonstrates that querying the validity of arguments derived from an assumed biography can – without in any way disproving that the man from Stratford wrote the body of works we call ‘Shakespeare’ – lead to a better understanding of the way Shakespeare actually used language, and the meanings he intended. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-12T18:11:40Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-03bda31a6a8e438bbca0ecdae221d94b |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2279-7149 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-12T18:11:40Z |
| publishDate | 2016-03-01 |
| publisher | Firenze University Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Early Modern Studies |
| spelling | doaj.art-03bda31a6a8e438bbca0ecdae221d94b2022-12-22T03:21:47ZengFirenze University PressJournal of Early Modern Studies2279-71492016-03-01510.13128/JEMS-2279-7149-1808415120Shakespeare and Warwickshire DialectRosalind Barber0Laboratorio editoriale OA / Dip. LILSIThe article investigates whether Shakespeare used Warwickshire, Cotswold or Midlands dialect, focusing on the sources of recent claims by Bate, Kathman and Wood, most of which derive from early dialect dictionaries compiled by 18th and 19th century antiquarians. It determines that all of these claims – frequently used as a defence against the Shakespeare authorship question – fall into four categories: those based on errors of fact, well-known or widely-used words, poetic inventions, and those derived through circular reasoning. Two problems are identified. Firstly, the source texts on which these dialect claims rest were written two- to three-hundred years after the plays, by which time language use would not only have evolved, but would have been influenced by Shakespeare. Secondly, the continuing academic taboo surrounding the authorship question has meant that these claims, though easily refuted by searching the Oxford English Dictionary and the digitized texts of EEBO, have gone unchallenged in academia. It demonstrates that querying the validity of arguments derived from an assumed biography can – without in any way disproving that the man from Stratford wrote the body of works we call ‘Shakespeare’ – lead to a better understanding of the way Shakespeare actually used language, and the meanings he intended.https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/bsfm-jems/article/view/7055AuthorshipBiographyDialectShakespeare |
| spellingShingle | Rosalind Barber Shakespeare and Warwickshire Dialect Journal of Early Modern Studies Authorship Biography Dialect Shakespeare |
| title | Shakespeare and Warwickshire Dialect |
| title_full | Shakespeare and Warwickshire Dialect |
| title_fullStr | Shakespeare and Warwickshire Dialect |
| title_full_unstemmed | Shakespeare and Warwickshire Dialect |
| title_short | Shakespeare and Warwickshire Dialect |
| title_sort | shakespeare and warwickshire dialect |
| topic | Authorship Biography Dialect Shakespeare |
| url | https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/bsfm-jems/article/view/7055 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT rosalindbarber shakespeareandwarwickshiredialect |