illustrated portrait of English playwright and poet William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

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Student Question

In Macbeth and Julius Caesar, where else do you find shifts in pronoun use? Does overlooking these shifts as modern readers affect our understanding?

Expert Answers

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Very interesting point made here. To be honest, this is not necessarily something I have majored on in my teaching. So much effort seems to go into making students understand what is going on that any in-depth analysis of the Shakespearian use of pronouns seems to only be reserved for AP classes. However, I do believe that the nuances of such an approach can reveal serious fruit, as you have demonstrated, when we consider relationships and how they change in such plays.

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And I continue:

"Of particular interest are those cases where an extra emotional element entered the situation, and the use of thou or you broke the expected conventions. Thou commonly expressed special intimacy or affection; you, formality, politeness, and distance. Thou could also be used, even by an inferior to a superior, to express such feelings as anger and contempt. The use of thou to a person of equal rank could thus easily count as an insult, as Sir Toby Belch well knows when he advises Sir Andrew Aguecheek on how to write a challenge to 'the Count's youth' (Viola): 'if thou thou'st him some thrice, it shall not be amiss' (Twelfth Night, III.ii.42), himself using a demeaning thou in a speech situation where the norm is you. Likewise, the use of you when thou was expected (such as from master to servant) would also require special explanation."

http://homepages.wmich.edu/~cooneys/tchg/lit/adv/shak.gram.html

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I miss the nuances all the time and as a result I don't call much attention to the switches, although students often do.  I found this reference: "By the time of Shakespeare, you had developed the number ambiguity it retains today, being used for either singular or plural; but in the singular it also had a role as an alternative to thou / thee. It was used by people of lower rank or status to those above them (such as ordinary people to nobles, children to parents, servants to masters, nobles to the monarch), and was also the standard way for the upper classes to talk to each other. By contrast, thou / thee were used by people of higher rank to those beneath them, and by the lower classes to each other; also, in elevated poetic style, in addressing God, and in talking to witches, ghosts, and other supernatural beings. There were also some special cases: for example, a husband might address his wife as thou, and she reply with you."  I continue in a subsequent post for this is too long!

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