MATT TORONTO: Hi, my name's
Matt Toronto, and I teach
acting and directing
at Penn State.
And one of the courses I teach
is Acting for Shakespeare.
And so we're going to talk a
little bit about dealing with
Shakespeare's language.
And I think a lot of people
get nervous about talking
about Shakespeare and his
language because it seems
foreign, it seems weird, it's
kind of inverse, and all of
these things.
And hopefully we're going to
demystify that a little bit
with some concrete ways of
approaching the language.
And I think, hopefully what
you'll realize, is that you
already understand
Shakespeare.
He's writing about human beings
just like you and me.
We just have to figure out in
the course of his language the
clues that help us understand
who these people are, and what
they want, and what
they're doing.
So what we're going to do is
I'll take you through the five
keys to unlocking the bard.
But before we do that, I want
to show a little clip from a
production of Romeo and Juliet
that I directed.
That will give us
sort of a start.
And you'll probably recognize
this passage, but we'll be
dealing with it as we unravel
the language and find the
clues that will help
us understand it.
So here's Romeo and Juliet.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
-But, soft!
What light through yonder
window breaks?
It is the east, and
Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the
envious moon, who is already
sick and pale with grief that
thou, her maid, art far more
fair than she.
Be not her maid, since
she is envious.
Her vestal livery is but sick
and green, and none but fools
do wear it.
Cast it off.
It is my lady, O,
it is my love!
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
MATT TORONTO: So that's a great
clip from a production I
directed at Penn State.
And the actor in that
is Gilbert Bailey.
And the woman playing Juliet
is Leah Miller.
And they were both
terrific actors.
So I wanted you to be able to
see somebody do a really great
job with that particular speech,
which is very familiar
to many of us.
What I want to do is, because
that's a little bit familiar,
sometimes we think we understand
what that speech
is, but there's much
more to it.
And we can kind of unravel what
it's saying in it, and
really get a lot more from the
language, from the speech, and
from what's happening there.
So we're going to go through the
five keys to unlocking the
bard's language.
And the first key, the first
step that we want to take, is
called follow the thought.
And it just means what it sounds
like it means, follow
the thought.
What is the character saying?
What is the character
thinking?
You take the words and
try to figure out
what they're saying.
It's simple enough, but
sometimes it takes a little
detective work, OK.
So we're going to look at it,
and the first thing we should
do is look up any words that
we don't understand, OK.
So if there's a word that looks
like it's a key word to
understanding what's going
on, you can look it up.
Try an old fashioned
dictionary.
Try an online dictionary.
You can also find online lots
of Shakespeare glossaries,
Shakespeare dictionaries.
Or an old fashioned book, the
way they used to make them.
This one is one of
my favorites.
It's called A Shakespeare
Glossary by C. T. Onions.
OK.
And you can just look
up the words.
So say in the first line we're
looking at it, "But, soft!
What light through yonder window
breaks?" Maybe you
don't know what the
word yonder means.
Maybe you do.
Maybe you don't.
If you don't, you look it
up in the glossary.
And then you realize it
means, over there.
Simple.
Over there.
Yonder means over there.
That thing over there.
OK.
So we're going to look at this
first line and try to
translate it into modern
day English, OK.
So "But, soft!" Who
says, but soft?
Nobody says but soft, unless
a butt is very soft.
We don't say that anymore.
So we've got to find, what
is he really saying?
What's going on?
Well, he's looking up at a
window and he says, "But,
soft!" I think he's saying check
it out, what's that,
holy moley, holy cow.
But soft, check it out.
"What light through yonder
window breaks?" What's that
light over there?
Over yonder.
What is that light?
OK.
And then he goes on to the
second line and he defines
what that light is.
And he says, it's the east.
And Juliet is like the sun
rising in the east, OK.
And I think that's
clear enough.
And then it gets a little
more complicated.
"Arise, fair sun, and kill the
envious moon." So he says,
rise up Juliet, and kill the
moon, who's jealous because
the moon is not as beautiful
as you are, as fair, as
beautiful as you
are, all right.
And the moon is already sick and
pale, sick and white and
sickly and ugly with sadness,
because you, her maid--
and you can look thou her maid,
what is her maid?--
thou her servant.
You, her servant, are more
beautiful then she, OK.
And then he says, "Be not
her maid, since she
is envious," OK.
So don't be her servant,
since she is jealous.
"Her vestal livery."
OK, there's a word
we should look up.
What is a vestal livery?
We'll find out that that is what
devotees of the Goddess
Diana would wear.
It's a vestal livery, a very
chaste, virginal sort of
uniform that a devotee of the
Goddess Diana would wear. "Her
vestal livery is but sick and
green and none but fools do
wear it," OK.
Only fools wear that chaste
sort of garment.
Cast it off.
And what I love in this little
clip that I show you is when
he says cast it off, there she
does, she takes off her robe.
And he gets to see
a little action.
What does Juliet look like when
she's getting undressed
and getting ready for bed?
And then the last line, "It is
my lady, O, it is my love!"
He's just saying,
that's my girl.
That's the girl I'm
in love with, OK.
And it's kind of simple when
you break it down.
And I hope that it wasn't
too obvious.
But if you just kind of
translate it into your own
words, it just helps you
understand, what is this kid
going through?
He's still a kid.
He's a teenager.
What is he thinking?
He's just looking at the girl,
he's in love, and trying to
process that.
The other thing I wanted to
mention, just as we go, as you
follow the thought a lot of time
Shakespeare constructs
his language in the form
of an argument.
To be or not to be is an
argument with Hamlet sort of
weighing the choices.
Should I kill myself, should
I not kill myself?
And that's a lot of
time what he does.
So he's uses a lot of rhetorical
devices and things
that help construct
an argument.
So you might think as you
follow the thought, is
Shakespeare constructing an
argument, trying to persuade
someone, or trying to
weigh the options?
And you can kind of see that
in a lot of the language.
And we'll kind of see some
of that later on today.
But that's the first step,
follow the thought.
And if you do that and translate
it into your own
words, you're already miles
ahead of the person who didn't
take the time to do that.
