Ordering Shakespeare Around: Syntax and Word Order
The order of Subject, then Verb, then Object dominates Standard English today. However, the farther back you go in the history of English, the more accepting English speakers/readers were of moving the order of S, V, O around, changing the order for stylistic reasons.
Look at the following sentence. Rewrite the sentence four times, changing the word order each time. Put one word on each blank provided below the original sentence.
Original Sentence: I lost my homework.
Rewrite #1: ______.
Rewrite #2: ______.
Rewrite #3: ______.
Rewrite #4: ______.
Decide why a poet might change the S V O order:
1. By moving the words around, the poet can achieve the desired meter (stress on certain syllables).
2. The poet can bring a specific word into a position of emphasis.
3. The poet can make her/his language memorable by deviating from typical speech patterns.
Shakespeare used inversion more and more in his later plays because he saw how moving words around could have the above 3 effects. Reword these phrases into more typical Standard English:
In Hamlet, Horatio’s says: “When he the ambitious Norway combated.”
______
In Hamlet, Claudius says: “which have freely gone / With this affair along”
______
This from Hamlet follows SOV, emphasizing the harsh verb by putting it at the end of the line:
Queen Gertrude: “Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.”
Hamlet: “Mother, you have my father much offended.”
______
In Macbeth, Macbeth says: For Banquo's issue have I filed my mind;
For them the gracious Duncan have I murder'd;
______
______
OSV From Antony and Cleopatra:
Antony twice resolves himself to leave Cleopatra. Each inversion places “break” and “break off” at the end of the line to create parallelism. The inversion also places the 2 consequences he will face for not leaving Cleopatra at the end of the sentences for emphasis:
(1.)“dotage” [declining mental faculties] and (2.) “ten thousand harms…doth hatch”).
Antony: These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,
Or lose myself in dotage.
______
______
Antony: I must from this enchanting queen break off:
Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know,
My idleness doth hatch.
______
______
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