What writing methods did Shakespeare use to create his masterpieces? How did Shakespeare write so many plays and poems while maintaining such remarkable quality?
In Shakespeare, Bill Bryson reveals fascinating details about the Bard’s creative process. Shakespeare’s quick writing style and use of source materials helped him produce an impressive collection of work. His ability to transform borrowed stories into timeless classics demonstrated his extraordinary talent.
Read on to discover the secrets behind Shakespeare’s remarkable writing process and his lasting influence on literature.
How Shakespeare Wrote
How did Shakespeare write? Bryson discusses the Bard’s writing methods and production style. Shakespeare’s career was marked by an extensive collection, including over thirty plays and various poems. While he was known for his rapid and skillful writing abilities, scholars acknowledge that his plays varied in their level of polish and precision.
Bryson emphasizes the impressive range in Shakespeare’s repertoire, noting his skill in creating comedies, histories, and moving tragedies. He also examines the scholarly debate surrounding the chronological order of Shakespeare’s works, discussing the various methods used to determine when each play was written and how they can be analyzed.
Though Shakespeare was prolific and could write quickly, Bryson notes that some plays show evidence of hasty composition and inconsistencies. He suggests that, in his later career, Shakespeare may have collaborated with other playwrights on certain works.
While Shakespeare relied heavily on existing source material, he transformed these borrowed elements into literary masterpieces. He frequently incorporated stories, dialogue, and substantial passages from other authors, skillfully weaving them into his original works.
Bryson describes how Shakespeare drew from diverse sources, integrating plots, characters, and significant portions of text as if they were his own. He points out that this practice was common during the era, with Shakespeare’s contemporaries, including Marlowe, following similar conventions.
According to Bryson, Shakespeare’s genius lay in his ability to transform ordinary stories and everyday dialogue into enduring works of art. He cites several examples, including Shakespeare’s adaptation of an Italian tale for Othello and his use of Plutarch’s writings for his plays about Julius Caesar and the story of Antony and Cleopatra.
| Shortform Note The debate over Shakespeare’s originality often centers on his use of source material, with some critics arguing that true originality lies in creating entirely new stories and characters rather than adapting existing ones. However, the word “borrowed” may not adequately capture the creative process involved in taking inspiration from various sources, as all artists are influenced by the work of others to some degree. This is evidenced by Shakespeare’s own approach, as his works often include direct references and allusions to their sources, suggesting he expected his audience to recognize these connections rather than attempting to hide them. The argument that Shakespeare masterfully blended borrowed elements, while widely accepted, could be viewed as subjective since assessments of artistic merit vary among critics and audiences. However, several factors support his creative originality: the language, iambic pentameter, and dramatic structure used in plays such as Othello are his own innovations, distinct from their source material. Similarly, while his Roman plays drew from Plutarch’s works, Shakespeare’s deep characterizations and poetic innovations represent significant original contributions. It’s worth noting that working within prevailing theatrical norms of his time did not preclude originality; like his contemporary Marlowe, Shakespeare was able to push boundaries and explore new thematic and stylistic territory while operating within these conventions. |
Shakespeare’s Contributions to the Language
Shakespeare’s profound influence on the English language through his innovative and expressive additions remains universally celebrated. His linguistic legacy includes numerous distinctive words and expressions that continue to serve as a rich source of memorable and symbolic language.
Bill Bryson highlights Shakespeare’s exceptional impact on the evolution of English, noting his remarkable talent for word invention and his willingness to experiment with new linguistic forms and sentence structures. During the sixteenth century, the English vocabulary underwent considerable expansion, with Shakespeare playing a vital role in enriching the language’s diversity.
Bryson emphasizes how Shakespeare’s contributions to modern English have become essential elements of the language. Shakespeare achieved this by incorporating regional dialects, inventively modifying traditional sentence structures, and masterfully employing rhetorical devices. According to Bryson, Shakespeare’s genius manifests not just in his storytelling abilities, but in his lasting influence on the English language itself.
Activities for Reflection and Application
- Use the concept of variability in quality and precision to improve your problem-solving skills. When faced with a problem, brainstorm multiple solutions and rate them in terms of quality (how effective they are likely to be) and precision (how well they target the specific problem). By doing this, you’ll train yourself to think more critically about the solutions you propose and choose the best course of action more effectively.
- Use social media to start a genre-switch challenge, where you post a short story and invite others to rewrite it in a different genre. This interactive approach can enhance your adaptability and creativity as a writer. You could post a simple story and see how others turn it into a comedy, a historical retelling, or a tragedy, learning from the community’s diverse interpretations and styles.
- Create a timeline of your own life’s “works” to reflect on personal growth and change. Just as scholars debate the order of Shakespeare’s plays to understand his development as a writer, you can chronologically arrange significant events, projects, or phases in your life. This can help you analyze your own evolution over time, identify patterns, and possibly predict future growth areas.
- Engage with the structure of a play by reordering scenes to see how it affects the narrative. Print out the scenes or write brief summaries on index cards, then shuffle them and attempt to piece the story back together in a way that still makes sense. This can highlight the importance of pacing and sequence in storytelling and may lead to insights about the play’s structure and thematic development.
- Analyze the imperfections in everyday items around you to appreciate the beauty of flaws. Take a walk through your home or a local market and look for items that are not perfectly made. Observe how these imperfections do not necessarily detract from the item’s function or aesthetic, drawing a parallel to the irregularities in Shakespeare’s plays and recognizing that rushed results can still hold value.
- Start a book or film club with a twist by focusing on co-authored works. Each member can bring a different book or movie that was created by multiple authors or directors. Discuss how the collaboration might have influenced the final product, what elements you think came from different creators, and how the pieces work together as a whole. This activity will help you understand the dynamics of collaboration in storytelling.
- Engage with friends in a game of “Shakespearian Pictionary,” where you draw scenes or characters and the others must guess them using only creatively invented words or phrases. This encourages you to think outside the box and communicate in unconventional ways, much like Shakespeare did. If someone draws a picture of a person sleeping peacefully, instead of saying “sleeping,” you might invent the word “slumbernestle” to describe the action.
- Create a Shakespeare-inspired word-a-day calendar to enrich your vocabulary. Choose words that were either coined by Shakespeare or popularized during his era, and use them in your daily conversations or writing. For example, you might learn “bedazzled” one day and then find a way to use it in a work email or social media post.
- Create a short story or narrative using non-standard grammar and sentence structures to challenge traditional writing norms and express creativity. You could start sentences with conjunctions, use run-on sentences for effect, or play with punctuation to convey emotion or rhythm, much like how poetry breaks conventional rules to create impact.
- Create a game for family game night that involves identifying rhetorical strategies in everyday conversations or media. For example, watch a movie and point out examples of pathos, ethos, or logos used by characters. This can sharpen your awareness of these strategies in real-life scenarios and improve your critical thinking skills.
