The Nevada journal., 1857-12-18
SHAKsPEARE's EMPLOYMENT OF Mon.

SHAKSPEARE'S EMPLOYMENT OF Mon
osYLLABLEs. Il offer the following finn
fam to the examination of your readers,
all of whom are, l presume, more or
less, readers of Shakespeare, and far bet
ter qualified than | am to "anatomize'
his writings, and '.see what bred about
his heart
start with the proposition that the
language of passion is almost invariably
broken and abrupt, and the deduction
that wish to draw from this proposition
and the passages that | am about to
quote is, that-.Shakspeare on more than
one occasion adrisedly used monosyllables,
and monOsyllabIes only, achen he wished
TO cypress cioIent and orera0helming emo
tiOn, ex gratia -
Lear ''Thou know st the first time that smell the
We wawl and cry Il viii preach to thee; mark me.
[Goster. "Aackl alaek the day .
Lear. 'Whenwe are born, cry, that we come
To his great stage Of foos-This good block king
Lear, Act ", Sc 6.
In this passage 7 bracket Gloster
we find no fewer than foriy-ttoo monosyl-
tables following each other consecutive
~ AGAIN,
''-but through his lips do throng
Weak words thick come, in his poor hearts aid
That no man could DISTINGUISH what he sad"
Rape of Lucrecc, Stanza 255.
After l had kept this among other
fim-hams for more than year in my
notebook, | submitted it in a letter to
the examination of friend his answer
was as follows Your canon is ingeni-
Gus, especially in the line taken from
the sonnet. | doubt it however, much.
and rather believe that sound is often
sympathetically, and as it were uncon-
sciously, adapted to sense. Moreover,
monosyllables are redundant in our
tongue, as you will see in the scene you
quote. In King John, Act Ill, Sc 3,
where the King is pausing in his wish to
incense Hubert to Arthur's murder, he
says -
Good friend, thou hast no cause SO yet;
But thou shalt have: and creep time neer slow
| Yet it shall come, for me to do thee good
1 had a thing to say,-but let 1t go: =
forty monosyllables."
,Crednus. an qui amant ipsi siBi somnia inguntr
The very passage he quoted seemed
to my eyes, rather c0rfobordtion Of the
theory than an argument against 1t |
might, think, have quoted the remain
der of Lear's speech ending with the
words xii, kill, kill, kill, kill kill, -
and with the exception of three words
consisting entirety Of monosyllables, and
one or two other passages.
IL Beaumont and Fletchcr's Boadicea,
Act 3, Sc. /. Edinburgh, 1922 meet
with the following lines in Caratach' S
Apostrophe to Divine Andate," and
! which seem 10 corrouoratc the theory on
the employment Of monosyllables by
Shakespeare, when he wished to express
violent and overwhelming emotion; at
least they appear to be used much in the
same way by the celebrated dramatists
whom | quote -
| Gve US this day good hearts good enemies.
Good blows ON both sides, nis that fear or flight
/ Can claim share in steel us both with anger.
( And wariIkc executions ht thy viewing.
Let Rome her best strength. and thy Britain,
! Thy ltto Britain, but T. great ia fortune,
/ Meet her strong as She, As proud as daring
And then look thou red eyed God who does best,
| Rev ard with honor; whn de pair makes fly,
| Unaru forever. and brand with HfIuyi I"
N',yo. x,.I