The Voice of a Writer: Shakespeare

   Style is the essence and imprint of a writer’s soul. This style gives a writer his own unique voice and allows his words to speak to a reader’s heart and manifest into something real and living to the reader. This voice that speaks from an author’s writing makes it evident that no two authors have the same style. No two authors speak to a reader’s heart the same way. No two author’s souls are the same. Through these facts Shakespeare also has his own unique style, his own unique voice, and his own way of speaking to his readers. Shakespeare’s voice is like no other. No one but Shakespeare could understand the human condition. He understood people in a way that no other author could.  Due to his ability to comprehend and perceive people in any living dramatic situation Shakespeare was able to create characters that weren’t just symbolic figures but, remarkably actual living human beings who struggled sometimes successfully and sometimes with tragic failure. This ability to recognize people as who they really are, is just one piece of the puzzle that makes Shakespeare’s style what it really is. Shakespeare’s style does not solely depend on his understanding of human nature but is also contributed to the many literary elements that he uses. William Shakespeare is able to create visional imagery out of the emotions of people through wordplay which he uses to create poetic imagery and a variety of impassioned and intense human emotions. However, because Shakespeare’s writing is so difficult to decipher, this is merely the beginning of his distinctive style which ultimately consists of wordplay, sentence structure, verses, and odds and end (character types).

         The essence of wordplay is as unfathomable as human emotions. Wordplay is almost completely unexplainable and incomprehensible for though it creates dramatic imagery it is difficult to perceive how it was created. The truth is, when words are played with by someone as gifted and talented as Shakespeare the emotions emitted from the words played with are so impassioned and intense that it is extremely difficult to understand the words true meaning with one’s mind for these words are not merely speaking to a person’s mind but to their hearts. If people try to reason out Shakespeare’s wordplay they may be lost in their own reasoning because the only way for them to truly understand Shakespeare’s wordplay is by feeling the emotions that have manifested in them through Shakespeare’s talents. Furthermore, reasoning requires too many facts and relation to reality and with that no one will understand Shakespeare’s wordplay. This is true because his wordplay also creates poetic imageries that are dreamlike and must require the ability to visualize and feel the emotions that manifest out of the poetic imageries not by reasoning through facts and reality for his wordplays create intangible imageries. For example, how is it that someone can reason out love? Love is a feeling not a thought. Love is felt in the heart not the mind. This is what makes Shakespeare’s writing so unique for when he plays with his words he is able to create emotions that are so abstract that they can’t be understood but only felt. Moreover, the uses of his wordplay don’t end here, for he also creates humor through wordplay. Humor is again another one of Shakespeare’s intangible elements because if a person has to reason out the humor all that is funny about it is sucked out. Ultimately, Shakespeare’s wordplay creates intangible, unfathomed, impassioned, intense, emotions, poetic images, and humor through his use of similes (extended and epic), metaphors, personifications, dramatic irony, oxymoron, and puns.

            With the utmost shrewdness Shakespeare was able to understand the abysmal parts of the human emotions. Yet the abysmal parts of the human heart are arguably the most incomprehensible things to exist in the world but once again William Shakespeare will be William Shakespeare and defy what is possible. His understanding of the deepest parts of the human emotions led him to the use of similes. The abysmal parts of the human emotions are truly almost ungraspable for they are filled with an endless array of mystified feelings. These mystified feelings are hidden deep within the human heart and are concealed by its lack of comprehension. These feelings lie so deep in the human heart that when tapped into they are filled with multiple unconceivable emotions that cannot be explained. Shakespeare, being who he is a great dramatist, was able to understand this part of the human heart. He was able to understand that when people reach this emotional state there is no one word that can describe their condition. Whether it is excessive sorrow or dramatic or impassioned vengeance these sentiments are filled with feelings that all contribute to form this emotion that cannot be explained or understood. Shakespeare’s use of similes contributes to describe these impassioned and intense emotions. Yet no basic simile can describe these emotions only the heavy duty boys can handle this….the epic and extended simile. This quote from A Midsummer Night’s Dream represents how an epic simile portrays a ceaseless and unremitting stream of emotions,  “Or if there was a sympathy in choice war, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, making it momentary as a sound, swift as a shadow, short as any dream, brief as the lightning in the collied night….,” (1.1.142-147).  There is no one word that describes the dreadful feeling that Lysander is experiencing for this is a stream of excessive and ceaseless feelings that he is experiencing. Through this epic simile Shakespeare is able to emit the emotion of the tragedy and obscurity of love because this feeling is a mystified feeling that is deep within the human heart and is filled with an unremitting stream of emotions that combine to form one feeling which is reflected in a simile that is also unremitting and also combines to form one emotion.  He understood that there is no one word in the English language that can sum up the evitable emptiness that Lysander feels when he thinks of how love is short-lived. In is only reasonable that a epic simile would be used to describe this evitable emptiness for this emotion is built from with many other emotions that include, the sorrow of not being able to spend a lovers life together, hatred of the world for being so cruel and causing their separation, and envy of how other lovers seemingly have perfect lives. This epic simile portrays Lysander’s emotional state perfectly because it is indescribable in one word for this state is not native to the English language. This emotional state is merely a chaotic uncontrollable ceaseless emotional sequence that is portrayed in a ceaseless detailed epic simile. Moreover, this ceaseless detailed epic simile works within Shakespeare’s creation of character also. Real people cannot even begin to explain the abysmal parts of their emotions when overwhelmed by it, they can merely mutter the continual emotions manifesting within them. By causing his characters to speak in similes Shakespeare was able to create real people with real perplexing and mystifying emotions.

           Furthermore, Shakespeare is able to appeal to the soul of a human. Through his cunningness and talents Shakespeare is able to use an extended simile to produce a poetic image in the minds of his readers. Shakespeare, with the use of extended similes, is able to create visionary images of love as if it were a person or poetic images of a sisterhood, a bond between two friends, or even create jealousy as something living, real, and physical. His use of similes further allow him to create poetic images by giving emotions, feelings, thoughts, dreams, or, ideas a existence outside of their box, outsides of their simple metaphysical existence; through his use of similes, Shakespeare is able to give an emotion, feeling, thought, dream, or idea a more physical existence and image. For example, in this quote Shakespeare describes the metaphysical bond of sisterhood as something more physical, “We Hermia like two artificial gods, have with our needles created both one flower, both on one sampier, sitting on one cushion, both warbling of one song, both in one key, as if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds, had been incorporate,” (-Hermia 3.2.208-213). Shakespeare used this extended simile to turn the metaphysical, imageless, bond of a sisterhood into something physical with a distinctive image and existence. He was able to portray the hazy imageless bond of a sisterhood as two goddesses united as one to show the intimate bond of these sisters. No longer was the concept of a sisterhood just a thought or feeling but through Shakespeare’s use of similes, it was able to exist in a whole new dimension. This bond of a sisterhood was able to exist as a physical image, through the use of similes; it was able to become a living manifestation of the sisterhood. By creating a living manifestation of a particular emotion or feeling through similes, the reader is able to better understand the particular emotion or feeling. This simile was able to create a physical image of the bond of a sisterhood as living evidence that this metaphysically existing feeling does truly exist. Furthermore, his similes work within the reader because to create these poetic images, similes must firstly speak to the heart. Shakespeare’s similes speak to the heart of a person’s emotions and his/her understanding of a particular emotion, feeling, thought, or idea, and use that as the foundation to create the poetic image in the person’s mind. This is true because the understanding of the emotion or thought makes the image truly poetic in the reader’s mind since they understand the how the image symbolizes the emotion. For example, for one to picture Shakespeare’s portrayal of jealousy as a “green-eyed beast” one must understand jealousy on its own.

        Shakespeare’s creation of his characters ultimately reflects people in real life. His understanding of humans and the quietest utters from their hearts allowed him to express human emotion and create poetic images through wordplay. His use of wordplay truly reflected his understanding of the deepest, quietest, utters of human motives, desires, and emotions. The extensive emotions portrayed in each of his characters reflected his use of wordplay and that of real people’s emotions. Real emotions are unexplainable, perplexing, and mystifying with no one definite word to explain the feeling. Shakespeare’s wordplay allowed him to describe these feeling with extensive detail upon detail through similes, metaphors, etc. because in life, emotions are filled with some many other elements combined extensively to form one manifested emotion and through this he was able to create characters who also were filled with indescribable, perplexing, mystifying and extensive emotional feelings like people in real life. These emotions were described similes and metaphors that were used by Shakespeare to create an intense expression of emotion, create a likeness between two objects, as well as create poetic images. Yet of those two wordplay elements, metaphors were used by Shakespeare to express the deepest, most perplexing and mystifying emotions. Similes are able to show a similarity between two objects using the words “like” or “as” yet by adding those words it weakens the overall emotion expressed since the two things being compared to are similar to each other but is not exactly one with each other. Metaphors on the other hand do not use like or as and thus creates a likeness between two objects more realistically, with a stronger bond of likeness through words of being including the words “is” and “are”. For example, when someone says, “your eyes are the sunset that I long to see each day,” it further enhances the emotion emitted then saying “your eyes are like the sunset I long to see each day”. This is true because without the words “like” or “as” metaphors describe emotions, create a likeness between objects, and create poetic images as they truly are. This quote “belike for want of rain, which I could well beteem them from the tempest of my eyes,” (-Hermia 1.1.132-133), shows two essences of metaphors. Shakespeare uses metaphors to communicate a stronger bond between two different elements to a point in which there common likeness makes them one and more significant and more expressive than a simile. In the quote above, Shakespeare is able to use the metaphor to describe the emotion of sadness and create a likeness between it and rain. The sorrow described in this quote is truly passionate because of its resemblance to rain. When it is raining everything is depressing and it seems as if mother nature is crying, crying because the lives of her children are dying. Her tears come from the emptiness that accompanies the loss of a life because her plants are dying from lack of water her people are suffering from an unquenchable thirst, and it seems as if she no longer as control over her life. In the same way, Hermia is crying, crying over the fact that she no longer has control over her life and that her life is slowly being stripped away from her. This metaphor shows the connection between the depressions that rainy days bring along with it as well as the pure sorrow from that emit from tears to create a truly impassioned emotion which ultimately reflect the impassioned, intense, emotions that real people deal with. Metaphors create stronger bonds and likenesses between two elements than similes for when the two elements are being compared they are treated as one being and through it rain are tears, and tears are rain. Metaphors create a single identity and single meaning.

          Personification gives life to inanimate objects. With this unique ability of personification, Shakespeare is able to give people a perspective other than that of a person. Through personification people are able to see inanimate objects as people themselves. It is feel known that when Shakespeare wrote his plays he wrote them for the entertainment and benefit of the common people whom lacked education and read few books. Through the use of personification these uneducated common people could see the poetic images that Shakespeare was trying to make real because it turned these intangible elements into something they could understand and relate to people. Shakespeare’s use of personification allowed the common people who read his plays to relate to things beyond them for these things were being pictured as people. This quote explains why this is possible, “Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind,” (-Helena 1.1.240). Once again as it was stated before in this essay, love is definitely and intangible element and indescribable emotion so how were these common people going to understand love? The quote is a personification in which love is personified as a person. Most people cannot understand love yet through Shakespeare’s wordplay of personification, it makes it possible for people to since the perspective at which they look at love is changed to a person’s perspective. Furthermore, personification is a tool that Shakespeare uses to create poetic images easier rather than writing detail upon detail of similes. The quote “The jaws of darkness do devour it up,” (-Lysander 1.1.150) easily creates a poetic image in practically everyone’s minds yet its meaning is still very deep. This image is easily created in a person’s mind due to the fact that all humans have jaws and it is easy to imagine a jaw; using this fact Shakespeare was able to create the poetic image of jaws of darkness because simply all people know what jaws look like and it would be no giant feat to imagine jaws in darkness. However, even though the simplicity of this personification may catch some people off guard this is still a very deep phrase. Jaws of darkness refer to the wickedness of both the world and of mankind that devours people into greed, selfishness, evil, and ultimately darkness. This seems to prove Shakespeare’s third reason for using personification, which is to give his readers a better perspective of human qualities. For example, the quote “…angry winter…,” (-Titania 2.1.115) allows the readers of Shakespeare’s plays to perceive a winter that is angry. Anger is an impassioned feeling of displeasure and rage, so if a winter is angry it is filled with an impassioned feeling of rage. This impassioned feeling of rage could portray winter as a destructive and violent force which would ultimately reflect a destructive and violent person in which winter is personifying. This would allow the readers to see people in a different point of view and better view human qualities including their flaws. These personifications truly speak to the reader’s heart and appeal to them because it reveals to them their qualities, their traits, and their flaws and tells them that these are universal emotions, these are human qualities. With this powerful message being displayed by Shakespeare, his audience can’t help but relate themselves towards the characters in his plays who are truly people.

        Humor is wine to the mind. Humor is insanity over sanity. Humor is a much needed laugh in the most solemn times. Oxymorons create the seemingly most illogical statements ever, yet people have a desire to laugh, and to enjoy the most out of life that they can. Life doesn’t last forever and people must never take life absolutely seriously because everyone should make the most out of life and that includes just living a little and going with the flow instead of forcing and steering life in a particular direction. People need to take each time as if it were the last and allow themselves to be stripped of their sanity, pride, and dignity to just allow humor to work its appeal to the sense of ludicrous and insanity that every person has. Ultimately this sense of ludicrousness is just what every person needs. People need this sense of ridiculousness because it appeals to the desire of everyone’s sense of freedom with no restrictions. With ridiculousness comes with no true set of laws or rules that must be obeyed; people are able to be who they are, individual, self-existent, free-willed, living humans without any boundaries or limits. Once again Shakespeare understood this free-spirited side of people and thus in his creation of characters used oxymoron. Real people do not live up to any standards or do follow a step-by-step procedure; they are individual, free-spirited people. In the same way Shakespeare created his characters to say whatever they want, whenever they want and defy what is said the be “the rules”. Humor allows his characters to be whatever they want and do whatever they want for humor is filled with nothing but absurd and ludicrous intangible elements that nourish the human soul with relaxation and contentment of fulfillment of self-expression. In the same way when Shakespeare’s characters use oxymoron they no longer follow a set of written principles but follow that of their own will. For example, this quote “…the smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,” (Snout 5.1.232-234) shows the absurdity of humor. Through humor Snout was able to bypass the rules of the world that everything must be in this orderly way yet Shakespeare allowed Snout to have his own personality and contradict the “rule” that stated that mice are small and harmless. The statement of a mouse being both small and monstrous is both insane, unique, just a joke, and is completely ridiculous yet this is an expression of who a he is as a true individual human being.

         Alliteration is also used by Shakespeare to create a manifestation of humor. Strangely enough people laugh at the strangest things. There may be absolutely no explainable reason to this outburst of pure laughter but they find whatever that strange thing is, funny. Then again, humor is one of Shakespeare’s intangible elements. One can make the inference that since humor is almost unexplainable it is a natural human emotion that everyone has deep within them. With that conjecture, humor’s unpredictability causes it to be an intangible element. Some things in this world are just naturally funny without any explanation. Alliteration in that same way creates humor due to its uniqueness. Nobody talks using alliteration anymore and if somebody were to speak using alliteration to someone else, it would appeal to the person hearing it because it is seemingly so inventive. With alliteration comes uniqueness which ultimately comes with ridiculousness because humor contradicts all that is unoriginal and what the world says to be right. This defiance of the world allows people of humor to stink out as something different and ultimately something laughable. In the same way the alliteration in this quote, “….that lived, the loved, that liked, that looked with cheer,” (-Thisbe 5..309) is unique and appealing because it defies what the world says to be right and allows the individuality of a person to fully stink out as a true person not a pawn to the world. The humor of alliteration comes ultimately from its uniqueness and ability to stray away from what English says to be proper writing and grammar.

        Humor is an intangible concept filled with many underlying components that contribute to its unbelievable success and of those components is dramatic irony. This component of humor is quite interesting for through this literary element Shakespeare continues to prove that his characters are not false figures but actual human beings who are not omniscient for they do have human limits. People don’t always know what is going on and it is this obliviousness that makes the sequence funny. This obliviousness reveals imperfection which is ultimately laughable because the world expects people to all be a certain “perfect” way and do certain specific things. The obliviousness of people to certain things is completely natural yet the humor truly comes from the fact that in some ways obliviousness is unnatural for the world demands perfections. As people stray away from perfection and allow their flaws to be revealed it disrupts the orderly function of the world and allows humor to be born through the uniqueness and blemishes of each person being unveiled. Dramatic irony in the same way allows the blemishes of characters to be revealed because their ignorance to the situation leads to ludicrous behaviors which appeals to the audience because they know exactly what is going on and ultimately know the “standards” of life which doesn’t include idiotic behavior. This comparison of a human flaw to the “standards” of life creates the humor because it seems uncustomary that someone would be oblivious to the “rules” of life and with that comes excessive humor to the audience.

        Humor is lastly displayed by Shakespeare through the use of puns. This literary element is also, in its own right, extremely unique and useful for it adds another dimension to language other than what is said to be correct. Puns are used as tools to produce humor, using a word in a way that suggests two or more interpretations. Ultimately this creates humor because it questions the knowledge of people of what they believe to be right. This quote “…It shall be called ‘Bottom’s Dream’ because it hath no bottom,” (-Bottom 4.1.225-226) contradicts and inquiries the understanding that people have of the word “bottom” for in this quote it suggests two meanings. The humor of puns comes from the misunderstanding of the words being portrayed since it questions the intellect of the reader and questions all that they believe to be real. Puns create unreal fantasies out of reality to question what people know to be fact. Ultimately the humor of puns reflect the world because puns question what people believe to be reality and what they believe to be fantasy since these statements made by puns are completely ridiculous yet the possibility of it existing in the language of people suggests that it just may exist which ultimately reflects the world and its own natural mystery of life.

         On a different note, Shakespeare uses sentence structure as an entirely different tool towards creating successful literature. Sentence structures add a whole another dimension of literature in which wordplay could never do. With the use of sentence structure Shakespeare is able to communicate a certain mood through emphasis by the use of his syntax. The emphasis on the particular mood that is created in return helps to further enhance the creation of a character. This particular emphasis on a mood that a character makes gives readers a glimpse at his/her personality and who he/she is as a person. Furthermore, Shakespeare’s sentence structure components are also built from his use of interrupters. These interrupters not only open a new dimension of a specific character, they also open windows of dimensions for objects, emotions, and passions. In addition, these interrupters enhance the perspective of whatever it is trying to portray in the most colorful of ways through symbolism and other literary elements. 

        Firstly, the use of subject, verb and subject, verb, direct object inversion is not used loosely by Shakespeare but is used in the most meaningful ways to express emotions and emit a certain mood. As this essay has long since begun talking about Shakespeare’s understanding of people, it doesn’t end now because his understanding of humans is also used by him in his sentence structure. The inversion that Shakespeare uses is essentially based oh the emotions of people and how they speak, not with their mouths but in their hearts. People can never truly say what they feel for life limits the power of their words. Yet the reason that Shakespeare’s writing is so powerful and able to truly touch the human spirit is base mainly on the fact that he did not let the “rule” limit his writing. When Shakespeare saw that a certain emotion needed to be express he did not limit himself to using meaningless words or phrases that the law of literature enabled him. He took it in his own hands to manipulate the syntax of his language to truly express the most inexpressible feelings to the limits of words. For example in this quote, “…Helena I love,” (-Lysander 2.2.120) the “rules” of English would demand that the subject be placed before the verb and direct object yet Shakespeare did not see that this way of writing would fit the passionate emotion that was willing itself out of the mouth of its beholder and manifest into something real instead of allow itself to be mere words. Shakespeare replaced the order of the subject, verb, and direct object because he understood the quiet yet tormented, and trapped feeling that was compelling itself out of the restraints that the English language has trapped it in. In the abysmal parts of the human heart love is truly the most unexplainable. Yet as love is being expressed the one thing that truly matters is the beloved by the lover but by merely saying “I love Helena”, in which the English language insists in the correct and most proper way to say this phrase of love, weakens the overall effect. Shakespeare understood this weakness for when love is at the verge of expression the one thing that truly matters is their beloved yet life they can never truly say what is in their hearts since the English language limits the impact of their words. So to allow more emphasis on the emotion, Shakespeare switched the order of the subject, verb, and direct object to reflect what the true emotion that was being restraint in the heart. Instead of saying “I love Helena,” he switched the syntax to be “Helena I love” because in the abysmal parts of the human heart the only name of utmost importance is the name of the lover’s beloved thus by switching the order of the sentence so that the name “Helena” would be first puts the emphasis of the emotion of love all on that name and on her.

          Interrupters open the window that the audience views characters, objects, and metaphysical emotions, passions, and desires by enhancing the perspective at which people view them. Shakespeare uses this literary element to modify the sentence in colorful ways through symbolism, details, and a combination of other literary elements. However, even though adding interrupters throughout the whole play may truly brighten the symbolism and imageries in the play, Shakespeare wisely uses interrupters only on a need-basis. For example, Shakespeare also limits his use of interrupters to only describing deep and profound emotions and feelings. In this quote, “My good Lysander, I swear to thee by Cupid’s strongest bow, by his best arrow with the golden head, by the simplicity of Venus’ doves, by that which knitteth souls and prospers loves, and by that fire which burned the Carthage queen when the false Trojan under sail was seen, by all the vows that ever men have broke (in number more than ever women spoke), in that same place thou hast appointed me, tomorrow truly will I meet with thee,” (-Hermia 1.1 171-181), Shakespeare was not merely describing a promise for a feeling of that magnitude could merely be described in one short sentence but he elaborated the promise of two lovers which is greater than that of the distance between two worlds. Furthermore one cannot help but feel the power emitted from interrupters. Sentences of different characters vary based essentially on the fact that they are individuals. The passion of a promise from one person may differ from that of another mainly because they are different people. Interrupters allow the perspective at which each character is view by the audience to differ because each sentence is modified differently with different symbolism of passion that they may have. So not only do interrupters modify sentences by adding a certain profound depth to it but they also open the perspective and dimension at which each character is viewed to individualize them as people since the passion emitted in a sentence from one person may be substantially different from the passion of another.

        This individuality that is personified in each character of Shakespeare’s play is based in part from the use of verses. The use of verses help further distinguishes characters from one another. Characters are able to be distinguished as individuals through the use of verses because the way each character speaks in the play varies to the who they are as a person. Shakespeare uses verses as the fundamental language for all the characters in his story who are not common people. More specifically Shakespeare uses rhymed iambic pentameter as the primary language of the lovers, as well as characters that tend to joke and fairies. Shakespeare uses unrhymed iambic pentameter to as the primary language for royalty including the fairy king and queen, Oberon and Titania.  Lastly, Shakespeare uses prose to express the language of the common people.  These poetic verses communicate the fact that all people are their own individuals with their own ways of speaking.

      Lovers speak in a way that is different from most other people. Lovers speak with in a gentle, swaying language of pure tenderness and affection. Shakespeare is able to reflect this form of love language in his characters by using rhymed iambic pentameter. The rhymed iambic pentameter is able to imitate this language of affection, gentleness, and tenderness by ultimately its rhyme. The rhyme that comes with the verse allows a certain calmness to manifest as readers read the verse since each word seems to flow gently to the next in a lovely poetic manner. In this rhymed iambic pentameter no words are forced into place or a meaning forced into existence but due to its gentle calmness of the rhyme the verse ultimately just creates gentle atmosphere that sways the heart. Furthermore, Shakespeare also uses rhymed iambic pentameter as the primary language for fairies. This form of poetic verse seems to fit fairies also due to their gentle, free-spirited, and carefree nature. Once again like lovers fairies allow their words just to flow from one another and allowing this language of rhyme to create its on current instead of forcing a giant wave.

       It is more than obvious that royal people are different from common people. Much of this difference comes from the substantial difference in wealth yet, this wealth ultimately manifests into something more, an extensive difference of ego. Through such connection and contact with such wealth and power it is not uncustomary that royal people have become ego-centric for with such power they need not to depend on others thus do not understand the value kindness. Shakespeare understood that the development of this ego would deserve its own language because royalty over the years has distanced itself from common people. So Shakespeare decided to use the unrhymed iambic pentameter to distinguish the language and personality of royalty from that of other people. The unrhymed iambic pentameter is the perfect literary device use to portray the royal language because royal people have standards to live to. Royalty are they reflection of want the world calls perfection for they have all of which is worldly, fame, fortune, wealth, and power. Royal people do not have the same freedom that common people have to behave in whatever way they want for they are ultimately trapped in their wealth. Furthermore, royalty are not carefree and free-spirited firstly in part because their obligation is to live up to the worlds standards and personify its meaning of perfection. Moreover, royalty are not carefree enough to play with their words because they are the models of what the world wants people to be and their obligations are to generate envy and want for wealth from the common people. Through the restraints of wealth royalty must speak in a poised and dignified manner without any lightheartedness in the form of rhyme. Lastly, the iambic pentameter sequence of the unrhymed verse is to show a sophisticated ego that royalty supposedly have gained through wealth.

          Common folks are as their title states it, common. Even though these people are normal, regular, average, people Shakespeare mastery of literature enabled him to use a specific language for the common people which are, prose. Prose is anything not written in the form a poem. This kind of language reflect the common people because they are just normal, average people who have nothing to truly live up to and there are no true standards for them except being well…common. With this sort of freedom from burden the language of common people are natural and limitless for they can say just about whatever they want since they have no standards to live up to or anything that limits who they are as individuals. Common people fit right into society with no reputation or ego to maintain or anything truly glamorous that causes them to stand out and thus their language is as common and unburdened with certain requirements and principles as their lives.

       Characters are meant to exist merely in a story or fairy tale as simply symbolic perfect figures to create envy in the lives of real people to somewhat want to obtain this perfection. However, even though William Shakespeare created characters, he also created people, living people. Shakespeare did not create his characters to be these perfect symbolic figures. He did not create characters in a world of fantasy and perfection. He did not create characters that were incapable of people to relate to. He did not create characters to highlight the greatness of perfect figures compared to the flaws of humans nor did he try to appeal to people by taking them out of their own worlds and placing them in a world of unreal happiness and perfection, and thus ultimately appealing to their passions for happiness and contentment by removing them from the tortured worlds that they live everyday. No. Shakespeare did not do any of these things. Shakespeare’s characters were ultimately real individual people. His world-wide appeal did not come from these wonderful fairy tales but came from the fact that his characters revealed the imperfection and flaws of people. People reading his plays could actually picture themselves and relate to the stories at hand. These people not longer saw their flaws as imperfection but came to understand that these flaws ultimately make up who people are the good and the awful things included. These people came to learn and see the individuality of people in Shakespeare’s plays in which no two characters were exactly alike for their flaws and strengths greatly differed. The strength of one character may have been the weakness of another and in the same way had different talents. They were complete individuals. They were people. In this way Shakespeare was able to use the literary element, Odds and Ends effectively to communicate this individualism that people have within themselves. These Odds and Ends (character types) were able to efficiently portray characters as who they are without the reflection, imitation, or influence of another character. For example, specific nicknames or description of characters were given to that character meaningfully for these nickname, and adjectives used before their names served as insights as who the characters were as people.

        Moreover, these nicknames and adjectives used before names were effectively used by Shakespeare to give readers a thorough insight to his characters. Using these literary elements of nicknames and adjectives, Shakespeare was able to portray characters with more dimensions, instead of flat faced characters.  The use of nicknames and adjectives before names put an emphasis on the true existence of these characters for these characters did not merely live, they exist. The nicknames given to these characters as well as the adjectives used to describe these characters illustrated the fact that these characters did truly exist for the nicknames given to them were from the perspectives of others which ultimately were created from the impact of those characters on the lives of other people. Therefore with whatever impact that characters may have had on each others life ultimately determines how they are perceived by each other. Yet the essence of the nickname and adjective given to describe the character is of greater importance because these names were given sacredly and individually according to how these individuals were able to communicate the message of their individual existence. These nicknames created somewhat of a special bond between two characters and individualized a character with a given nickname from the rest of the world since that person impacted the life of another person in way so great that no one else would be able to give the same impact. For example, the quote “Fair love, you faint with wand’ ring in the wood,” (-Lysander 2.2.41) gives an insight as to the kind of impact that Hermia has had on Lysander’s life. Through this nickname readers are also able to see the essence of importance of Hermia because this nickname supports the fact of Hermia’s individuality. This is true because only Hermia has been given the nickname “fair love” no one else has this name for no one else has impacted Lysander’s life in this way which truly means that there is only one Hermia.

       Ultimately, the essence of Shakespeare’s style covers the creation of his characters. In this way the imprint of Shakespeare’s style was able to appeal to people. His ability to see the universal meaning of people allowed him to appeal not only to people of his time but that of this century also. The essence of his voice, spoken from his words were able to manifest a feeling of comfort in the hearts of people for they were able to see themselves, actual people, in his plays and understand human nature instead of constantly belittling themselves for their flaws. Through the creation of his characters Shakespeare in turn created actual people who struggled, sometimes successfully, and sometimes with tragic failure, after all they were just people. This understanding of human nature is ultimately the core of his style because with it, came the various literary elements of, wordplay, sentence structure, verses, and odds and ends, and thus his creation of characters who were remarkably actual, living, human beings.