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4. Literary Devices in Shakespeare's drama and tragedies.
Shakespeare's works are full of literary devices, such as drama and tragedies, metaphors, comparisons, puns, allusions, etc.
In Shakespeare's tragedies, the main protagonist generally has a flaw that leads to his downfall. There are both internal and external struggles and often a bit of the supernatural thrown in for good measure (and tension). Often there are passages or characters that have the job of lightening the mood (comic relief), but the overall tone of the piece is quite serious⁵.
A brief look shows that these 10 classic tragedies all have common themes.
1) “Antony and Cleopatra”: Antony and Cleopatra’s affair brings about the downfall of the Egyptian pharaohs and results in Octavius Caesar becoming the first Roman emperor. Like Romeo and Juliet, miscommunication leads to Anthony killing himself and Cleopatra later doing the same.
2) “Coriolanus”: A successful Roman general is disliked by the “play Bienz“ of Rome, and after losing and gaining their trust throughout the play, he is betrayed and assassinated by Aufidius, a former foe using Coriolanus to try to take over Rome. Aufidius felt like Coriolanus betrayed him in the end; thus he has Coriolanus killed.
3) “Hamlet”: Prince Hamlet devotes himself to avenging his father’s murder, committed by his uncle, Claudius. Hamlet's quest for revenge causes the deaths of many friends and loved ones, including his own mother. In the end, Hamlet is lured into a fight to the death with Laertes, brother of Ophelia, and is stabbed by a poisoned blade. Hamlet is able to kill his attacker, as well as his uncle Claudius, before dying himself.
4) “Julius Caesar”: Julius Caesar is assassinated by his most trusted friends and advisers. They claim they fear he is becoming a tyrant, but many believe Cassius wants to take over. Cassius is able to convince Caesar‘s best friend, Brutus, to be one of the conspirators in the death of Cesar. Later, Brutus and Cassius lead opposing armies into battle against each other. Seeing the futility of all they have done, Cassius and Brutus each order their own men to kill them. Octavius then orders Brutus be buried honorably, for he was the noblest of all Romans.
5) “King Lear”: King Lear has divided his kingdom and given Goneril and Regan, two of his three daughters, each a part of the kingdom because the youngest daughter (Cordelia), previously his favorite, would not sing his praises at the dividing of the kingdom. Cordelia vanishes and goes to France with her husband, the prince. Lear attempts to get his two oldest daughters to take care of him, but neither wants anything to do with him. They treat him poorly, leading him to go mad and wander the moors. Meanwhile, Goneril and Regan plot to overthrow each other leading to many deaths. In the end, Cordelia returns with an army to save her father. Goneril poisons and kills Regan and later commits suicide. Cordelia’s army is defeated and she is put to death. Her father dies of a broken heart after seeing her dead.
6) “Macbeth”: Due to an ill-timed prophecy from the three witches, Macbeth, under the guidance of his ambitious wife, kills the king to take the crown for himself. In his increasing guilt and paranoia, he kills many people he perceives are against him. He is finally beheaded by Macduff after Macbeth had Macduff’s entire family assassinated. The “evilness” of Macbeth and the Lady Macbeth‘s reign comes to a bloody end.
7) “Othello”: Angry that he was overlooked for a promotion, Iago plots to overthrow Othello by telling lies and getting Othello to cause his own downfall. Through rumors and paranoia, Othello murders his wife, Desdemona, believing she has cheated on him. Later, the truth comes out and Othello kills himself in his grief. Iago is arrested and is ordered to be executed.
8) “Romeo and Juliet”: Two star-crossed lovers, who are destined to be enemies because of the feud between their two families, fall in love. Many people try to keep them apart, and several lose their lives. The teens decide to run away together so that they can wed. To fool her family, Juliet sends a messenger with news of her “death“ so they will not pursue her and Romeo. Romeo hears the rumor, believing it to be true, and when he sees Juliet’s “corpse,“ he kills himself. Juliet wakes up and discovers her lover dead and kills herself to be with him.
9) “Timon of Athens”: Timon is a kind, friendly Athenian nobleman who has many friends because of his generosity. Unfortunately, that generosity eventually causes him to go into debt. He asks his friends to help him financially, but they all refuse. Timons invites his friends over for a banquet where he serves them only water and denounces them; Timons then goes to live in a cave outside of Athens, where he finds a stash of gold. An Athenian army general, Alcibiades, who has been banished from Athens for other reasons, finds Timons. Timons offers Alcibiades gold, which the general uses to bribe the army to march on Athens. A band of pirates also visits Timons, who offers them gold to attack Athens, which they do. Timons even sends his faithful servant away and ends up alone.
10) “Titus Andronicus”: After a successful 10-year war campaign, Titus Andronicus is betrayed by the new emperor, Saturninus, who marries Tamora, Queen of the Goths, and despises Titus for killing her sons and capturing her. Titus’s remaining children are framed, murdered, or raped, and Titus is sent into hiding. He later cooks up a revenge plot in which he kills Tamora’s remaining two sons and causes the deaths of his daughter, Tamora, Saturninus, and himself. By the end of the play, only four people remain alive: Lucius (Titus’s only surviving child), young Lucius (Lucius’s son), Marcus (Titus’s brother), and Aaron the Moor (Tamora’s former lover). Erin is put to death and Lucius becomes the new emperor of Rome.
Shakespeare's plays contain a huge number of puns that often do not impress modern readers. This may be due to several reasons; firstly, like many comedies, puns require an internal, instinctive reaction. If a joke has to be explained, it loses most of its poignancy, and this is doubly true of puns. They rely on the sudden manifestation of a connection between two ideas that were previously completely separated. If these individual ideas are not fixed for a long time in the minds of the audience, the explosion that should occur when they are “shorted out” simply will not happen.
Shakespeare uses puns and wordplay for a variety of purposes:
Humorous puns
These are just jokes - they have no other excuse than to cause a quick laugh, and they usually cause groans when performed today. A good example is the skirmish between Lons and Aids in "Two Gentlemen of Verona", right after Lons criticized his dog, and Aids advised him to hurry up so as not to be late for the boat:
Speed: Off, ass! You'll lose the tide if you delay any longer.
Lons: It doesn't matter if the tethers were lost, because these are the cruelest tethers that a person has ever tied.
Speed: What is the most unkind tide?
Lons: But the one who is tied here, the Crab, is my dog.
Obscene puns
Shakespeare's works are full of dirty hints that depend on the fact that one word implies two meanings. For example, the title "Much ado about Nothing" may well be a reference to the intimate parts of female characters.
A more complex example is the “ring conspiracy” at the end of The Merchant of Venice, in which Portia and Nerissa argue with their supposed husbands about the rings they gave to the men earlier in the play. Bassanio and Graziano did not know that these women were actually two “young men” to whom they had given rings. Pretending to be outraged, Portia declares that “I will never go to your bed / Until I see the ring.” When everything is explained, Graziano remarks that “I will not be afraid of anything else / So much as to keep Nerissa's ring.” By all these remarks, of course, a pun is meant, in which the “ring” means both a physical object and genitals. Jealousy and anxiety about who got the “ring” have something in common with the problems of sexual fidelity and control over spouses.
Shakespeare quite often used an oxymoron to express mixed emotions both in his plays and in sonnets. “Honestly is disgusting, and abomination is honest", “Parting is such a sweet sadness", “Oh exuberant love! O loving hate!” - here are some of his famous oxymorons.
"Romeo and Juliet" is a love story that is just filled with an oxymoron, but that's the nature of love. It's wonderful and at the same time painful.
Example from Act 1, Scene 1:
Oh fighting love! O loving hate!
Oh, first create something out of nothing!
Oh, heavy lightness, serious vanity!
A shapeless chaos of good-looking shapes!
Lead feather, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!
A waking dream is not what it is!
I feel this love, but I don't feel any love in it.
The ”serious vanity“ used here is an oxymoron, because ”vanity“ here does not mean vanity or pride, but an older feeling of emptiness, or ”something worthless, trivial, or meaningless," as the dictionary defines it.
We can also find an oxymoron in Macbeth. For example:
“I have never seen such a disgusting and beautiful day”.
This quote simply means that today is one of those days when the fog is followed by sunlight, then a thunderstorm, a little hail and sunlight again. In other words, nature behaves somewhat strangely.
“My stupid brain was busy/with forgotten things” (I:3, line 174-175);
Macbeth falsely justifies himself by saying that he was thinking about something so insignificant that he had already forgotten what it was about. However, these things are far from forgotten.⁶
“May God's blessing be with you and with those,/ Who would like to make good out of bad, and friends out of enemies!” (II:4, lines 53-54).
The old man blesses all those who would like to restore the good and bring peace to the troubled land. The old man knows that Scotland will end up in one big mess.
In Shakespeare's works we can find many examples of metaphors. In Macbeth:
"Honestly is not fair, and dishonestly is honest." (I:1 line 10);
This phrase is a metaphor describing the state of affairs in Macbeth and beyond in Scotland. Evil and sinister things have taken the place of all that is good and just. Macbeth is a tyrannical ruler who communicates with witches and “kills” the sleepers; the kind and venerable King Duncan and Banquo are brutally murdered. In the midst of all this, Inverness becomes a living hell for its inhabitants, while Macbeth and his wife suffer from delirium and paranoia.
“The sleeping and the dead. These are just pictures. These are the eyes of childhood. Who is afraid of the painted devil” (II:2, line 52).
Lady Macbeth's comparison of the sleeping and the dead with “pictures” illustrates her extraordinary courage and calm state of mind after the murder. Lady Macbeth is supposed to be cowardly because she is a woman; however, in fact, she and her husband have switched roles.
We can also find a metaphor in Hamlet.
“Yes, from the table of my memory
I will erase from the face of the earth all trivial, favorite records,
all book cuts, all forms, all the pressure of the past,
This youth and observation are copied there,
And only your commandment will live
Within the limits of the book and the volume of my brain,
Not mixed with lower matter." (II:5 lines 105-111);
Hamlet wants to erase his memory completely, like erasing a slate. All the images of his mother and uncle that he has are now insignificant to him in the face of their betrayal. He will erase these images from his memory so as not to be deceived again. When his memories are erased, Hamlet will be able to properly avenge the murder of his father.
“This is a deception of great wealth and peace,
This internal breaks down and shows no reason without
Why this man is dying.” (IV:4, lines 28-30).
Hamlet talks to Captain Fortinbras about the land that was symbolically given to Norway to prevent their invasion of Denmark. This statement, however, also describes Hamlet's own state. The events that caused his madness fester inside him like an abscess or a tumor. The reason for this is invisible to others, although it destroys it from the inside.
Consider the following examples from Shakespeare's sonnets that use the metaphor of the eye (which also include the use of metonymy - a special type of metaphor when one phrase or word replaces a larger concept).:
Sometimes the heavenly eye shines too hot,
And often his golden complexion fades
Here, in the east, when the blessed light
Raises his flaming head, under everyone's eye
Pays homage to his newfound vision
I serve with the air of his sacred majesty.
My eyes and heart are waging a deadly war
How to share the conquest of your vision.
Regardless of whether the sun is meant by the eye or the concept of vision that surpasses the visual capabilities of the speaker, Shakespeare demonstrates the power of figurative language. Although we may not use poetic pentameters in everyday speech, metaphor prevails in our conversation. We can't talk long or well without metaphors.
A comparison can be considered as an expanded metaphor or a metaphor as a condensed comparison. To illustrate this, when Romeo says of Juliet,
“Oh, she teaches torches to burn brightly!
Her beauty shines on the cheek of the night,
like a jewel in an Ethiopian's ear”;
Here we have two metaphors, as well as one comparison. It cannot be said that Juliet has literally taught the torches anything; but it can be said that her brightness makes them, or rather the owner of the torches, ashamed of their dimness; or it can be said that she is so radiant that torches or their owner can learn from her how torches should shine.. Nor can it be literally said that her beauty rests on the cheek of the night, for the night has no cheek; but it can be said that she has the same relation to the night as a diamond pendant to the dark cheek that shades it. Then the last metaphor becomes one of the parts of the comparison; what is expressed in it is likened to a rich jewel hanging in the ear of an Ethiopian.
Shakespeare sometimes builds a comparison according to the same plan; as in the following from Measure for Measure, I:3:
"Now, like loving fathers,
having tied the threatening branches of a birch tree,
Just to show it to their children
To intimidate, not to use the rod in time
It becomes more of a mockery than a fear; so our decrees,
Dead to harm, dead to themselves;
And freedom leads justice by the nose;
The child beats the nurse, and quite hard
Observes all decency.”