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This category is for English phrases which were invented by Shakespeare, and older phrases which were notably used in his works. The main article for this category is William Shakespeare . Pages in category "Shakespearean phrases"
William Shakespeare's play Hamlet has contributed many phrases to common English, from the famous "To be, or not to be" to a few less known, but still in everyday English. Some also occur elsewhere (e.g. in the Bible) or are proverbial. All quotations are second quarto except as noted:
Shakespeare added hundreds of new words to the English language, including many commonly used words and colorful expressions that we still use today.
In some of Shakespeare's early works, punctuation at the end of the lines strengthens the rhythm. He and other dramatists at the time used this form of blank verse for much of the dialogue between characters to elevate the poetry of drama. [22] To end many scenes in his plays he used a rhyming couplet, thus creating suspense. [23]
Shakespeare introduced or invented countless words in his plays, with estimates of the number in the several thousands. Warren King clarifies by saying that, "In all of his work – the plays, the sonnets and the narrative poems – Shakespeare uses 17,677 words: Of those, 1,700 were first used by Shakespeare."
The word weed in line 6 is an expression common in Shakespeare's works used to mean garments or dress. It occurs in that sense in many plays, including in The Two Gentleman of Verona , when the character Julia wants to dress herself as a young man, she says "fit me with such weeds/As may beseem some well reputed page."
Apart from rhyme, and considering only the arrangement of ideas, and the placement of the volta, a number of sonnets maintain the two-part organization of the Italian sonnet. In that case the term "octave" and "sestet" are commonly used to refer to the sonnet's first eight lines followed by the remaining six lines.
Booth explains that the slave imagery is a commonly used metaphor, the wording of the speaker's metaphors creates a witty and unconventional depiction of his relationship with the unknown woman. Through phrases such as "pent in thee" found in line 13, the reader is exposed to the image of the speaker imprisoned in the Dark Lady.