2. Shakespeare
used courtly
English, street
slang and local
dialects.
Theaters
became public.
Playwrights
transformed
the mixes and
unsettled
English
language.
Regional
varieties of
speech and
accents were
criticized. The
language has
been
consolidated as
“that of
London”.
The plays of
William
Shakespeare
wrote 38 plays
and 154
sonnets mostly
in the 1590s.
SHAKESPEARE.
3. The expansion of the language.
Theatrical language addressed people across class
and educational lines.
Combination of poetry and charm vocabulary with
the vulgar slang of the commoners.
Language was the means of choice on the stage to
captivate the audience.
4. THE SONNET.
The sonnet
became a
providing ground
for poets.
Sir Thomas Wyatt,
in the French and
Italian courts
found a form that
would shape and
fit English for
poetic future: the
sonnet.
The sonnet was a
14 line poem, was
in use in sue since
13 century.
5. English was in the
shadow of other
European languages.
English had Chaucer, and
works written in English
started to extent.
The educated and upper
classes brought from Italy
fashions, new words and
poesy, later emulated by
English.
Queen Elizabeth I was
the best educated
monarch ever to sit on
the throne of England.
She spoke six languages.
In 1554 sir Philip Sidney
had written and
published a collection of
love poems.
16TH CENTURY .
6. 17 TH CENTURY .
England had its own dictionary with only 2543 words.
It was a recognition of the new status of the English Language.
There were glossaries from Italian, French and Spanish to
English.
London had developed their own street slang, and glossaries
were published by John Awdely’s The Fraternyte of Vocabondes.
John Donne, Thomas Campion, Michael Drayton, Ben Jonson,
George Herbert, poets enriched English as a language.
