Shakespeare's world
By Mark Vernon on Saturday, September 26 2009, 07:52 - General - Permalink
It is unremarkable that Shakespeare did not have the words 'motorcar' or 'telephone', and of interest that he didn't have, say, 'teenager' or 'homosexuality'. It is fascinating that Shakespeare did not have the words 'embarrassing' or 'ideal'.
Did he never redden in discomfort? Did he not have notions of the best? Presumably he did. So did he not much think to question them, to problematize them, as having a word might imply? Did they just not feature so much in his time? Was there not such a crystallization of meaning around these notions, as if they were never more than in his peripheral vision, whereas for us they might be dominant concerns? What difference does a word make?
Comments
I can't imagine a world without these two words. Surely Shakespeare articulated those meanings at some point in his work, even if without using those particular terms...The book jacket to the left of my screen (congratulations by the way) nudges me to wonder how would an Elizabethan have spoken about Platonic 'ideals' without that term in the vocabulary?
Louise - I wondered about that very thing, though it's 'idea' in Plato not 'ideal'. Probably they would have used the Greek words themselves, eidos and idea, which I think are Latin words too.