Shakespeare's Small Words (Online)

By highlighting the foundations of Shakespeare’s language, this course brings attention to Shakespeare’s “small words”: common and easily overlooked function words that, despite their seeming transparency or relative insignificance, can offer remarkable insights. The course shows how the common words used by Shakespeare’s characters contain important clues about interaction and interpersonal relationships.

In small words such as modal verbs (like shall and will), deictic markers (like I, this, and now), and conjunctions (like if), we can uncover details about character motivation, interaction, and perception. When we pay attention to these small words, and to charged moments of conflict in which characters must negotiate power and relationships, we can better understand the building blocks of Shakespearean drama. Course participants will learn how approaches borrowed from linguistics and discourse analysis can illuminate small details of Shakespeare’s language to give us a richer appreciation of his linguistic artistry.