Russ McDonald - Shakespeare and the Arts of Language

Oxford Shakespeare Topics
Shakespeare and the Arts of Language

OXFORD SHAKESPEARE TOPICS

Published and Forthcoming Titles Include:

David Bevington, Shakespeare and Biography

Lawrence Danson, Shakespeares Dramatic Genres

Janette Dillon, Shakespeare and the Staging of English History

Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells, Shakespeares Sonnets

Gabriel Egan, Shakespeare and Marx

Andrew Gurr and Mariko Ichikawa, Staging in Shakespeares Theatres

Jonathan Gil Harris, Shakespeare and Literary Theory

John Jowett, Shakespeare and Text

Douglas Lanier, Shakespeare and Modern Popular Culture

Ania Loomba, Shakespeare, Race, and Colonialism

Raphael Lyne, Shakespeares Late Work

Russ McDonald, Shakespeare and the Arts of Language

Steven Marx, Shakespeare and the Bible

Robert S. Miola, Shakespeares Reading

Phyllis Rackin, Shakespeare and Women

Catherine Richardson, Shakespeare and Material Culture

Bruce R. Smith, Shakespeare and Masculinity

Zdenk Stbrn, Shakespeare and Eastern Europe

Michael Taylor, Shakespeare Criticism in the Twentieth Century

Alden T. Vaughan and Virginia Mason Vaughan, Shakespeare in America

Stanley Wells, ed., Shakespeare in the Theatre: An Anthology of Criticism

Martin Wiggins, Shakespeare and the Drama of his Time

Oxford Shakespeare Topics

GENERAL EDITORS! PETER HOLLAND AND STANLEY WELLS

RUSS MCDONALD

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6DP
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Russ McDonald 2001

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First published
2001 Reissued 2012

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Data available

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

McDonald, Russ, 1949

Shakespeare and the arts of language / Russ McDonald,

p. cm.(Oxford Shakespeare topics)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Shakespeare, William, 15641616Language. 2. Shakespeare, William,
15641616Technique. 3. Shakespeare, William, 15641616Literary style.
4. English languageEarly modern, 15001700Style. 5. English languageEarly
modern, 15001700Rhetoric. I. Title. II. Series.

PR3069.L3 M38 2001 822.33dc21 00062406

ISBN 978-0-19-871171-1

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Typeset by Kolam Information Services Pvt. Ltd, Pondicherry, India
Printed in Great Britain
on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd, Guildford and Kings Lynn

Many people have assisted in the preparation of this book, but two have been especially generous. Stanley Wells and Peter Holland, although they must be as busy as anyone in the Anglo-American academy, have never been too busy to read drafts of chapters (and to read them rigorously and sympathetically), to answer queries about historical or bibliographical puzzles, to suggest additional (and usually superior) examples, to offer advice about organization and pitch, to rescue an author from embarrassing errors and they have performed all these labours promptly and cheerfully. As general editors of the Oxford Shakespeare Topics series, they have been exemplary in making their supervisory presence both inspiring and reassuring.

For answers to questions, general advice, critical inspiration, and good-humored support, thanks to Denise Baker, Thomas Berger, A. R. Braunmuller, Christopher Hodgkins, James Longenbach, Catherine Loomis, and George Walton Williams. Stephen Booth and George T. Wright have not only written brilliantly on the topic of Shakespeares language but have also been magnanimous to me in ways that frustrate attempts at acknowledgement. I am grateful to Hugh Parker for help with the Latin. Maggie DiVito did an expert job of helping me proofread; the errors that remain are my fault. Frances Whistler at Oxford University Press is such a scrupulous editor that she will probably object to my expression of gratitude: she has been unfailingly attentive, encouraging, and accommodating.

Many chapters have been improved by the responses of various audiences and readers. At meetings of the Shakespeare Association of America, members of Maurice Hunts seminar (1998) and Ann Baynes Coiros seminar (2000) offered useful advice, as did readers in John Drakakiss seminar at the International Shakespeare Conference in Stratford-upon-Avon (August 2000). I thank Janet Field-Pickering, Margaret Maurer, and Robert Watson for allowing me to present some of this material to students and colleagues at the Folger Shakespeare Librarys Teaching Shakespeare Institute; Kate Levin at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the City University of New York; Fran Teague at the University of Georgia; Russell Peck and Mervyn Willis at the University of Rochester. Staff members at several libraries have been helpful: the British Library; the Folger Shakespeare Library, especially Betsy Walsh; the Jackson Library at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, especially Nancy Fogarty and Mark Schumacher; and the Perkins Library at Duke University.

I wish to thank my wife and son for their patience and good will: as usual, Gail McDonald has put aside her own work to read, discuss, and improve mine. Although this book comes with no formal dedication, I wish to express my gratitude to my mother, who purchased a copy of Reading with Phonics in 1954 and with it taught me to take pleasure in words.

. (a) and (b). The title page and first page of Robert Cawdreys

A Table Alphabetical (1604)

Reproduced by permission of The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Shelfmark Mal.745(2)

. A page from Henry Peachams Garden of Eloquence (1577)

Reproduced by permission of The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Shelfmark Arch. Ae.61

Reproduced by permission of The Britsh Library. Shelfmark L.23.C.2