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Chapter 3. Keywords that characterise Shakespeare’s (anti)heroes and villains

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Abstract

This chapter undertakes a keyword analysis of seven Shakespearean characters: Titus, Tamora, Aaron, Lear, Edmund, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. The chapter discusses how, once contextualised, these keywords provide useful insights into their feelings/thoughts towards others, events, motivations to act, etc. In terms of findings, only Aaron denotes his “villainy” directly. Tamora, in contrast, draws upon a keyword that is denotatively positive; in context, though, “sweet” reveals her womanly wiles. “Weep”, for Lear, and “legitimate” and “base”, for Edmund, problematize their status as (one-dimensional) villains. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth draw upon grammatical keywords, “if” and “would” in ways that signal something about their (deteriorating) emotional and social positions as much as their villainous intentions.

Abstract

This chapter undertakes a keyword analysis of seven Shakespearean characters: Titus, Tamora, Aaron, Lear, Edmund, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. The chapter discusses how, once contextualised, these keywords provide useful insights into their feelings/thoughts towards others, events, motivations to act, etc. In terms of findings, only Aaron denotes his “villainy” directly. Tamora, in contrast, draws upon a keyword that is denotatively positive; in context, though, “sweet” reveals her womanly wiles. “Weep”, for Lear, and “legitimate” and “base”, for Edmund, problematize their status as (one-dimensional) villains. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth draw upon grammatical keywords, “if” and “would” in ways that signal something about their (deteriorating) emotional and social positions as much as their villainous intentions.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. List of contributors ix
  4. Foreword xi
  5. Chapter 1. Voices of English 1
  6. Part I. Early Modern English
  7. Chapter 2. Pragmatic noise in Shakespeare’s plays 11
  8. Chapter 3. Keywords that characterise Shakespeare’s (anti)heroes and villains 31
  9. Chapter 4. Revealing speech 47
  10. Chapter 5. Saying, crying, replying, and continuing 63
  11. Chapter 6. Interjections in early popular literature 79
  12. Chapter 7. Godly vocabulary in Early Modern English religious debate 95
  13. Chapter 8. Patterns of reader involvement on sixteenth-century English title pages, with special reference to second-person pronouns 113
  14. Part II. Late Modern English
  15. Chapter 9. Epistemic adverbs in the Old Bailey Corpus 133
  16. Chapter 10. Question strategies in the Old Bailey Corpus 153
  17. Chapter 11. Sure in Irish English 173
  18. Chapter 12. American English gotten 187
  19. Part III. Present-day English
  20. Chapter 13. Explaining explanatory so 207
  21. Chapter 14. Return to the future 227
  22. Chapter 15. Sort of and kind of from an English-Swedish perspective 247
  23. Chapter 16. From yes to innit 265
  24. Chapter 17. “If anyone would have told me, I would have not believed it” 283
  25. Chapter 18. Intensification in dialogue vs. narrative in a corpus of present-day English fiction 301
  26. Chapter 19. Orality on the searchable web 317
  27. Select list of publications by Merja Kytö 337
  28. Index 347
Voices Past and Present - Studies of Involved, Speech-related and Spoken Texts
This chapter is in the book Voices Past and Present - Studies of Involved, Speech-related and Spoken Texts
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.97.03arc

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. List of contributors ix
  4. Foreword xi
  5. Chapter 1. Voices of English 1
  6. Part I. Early Modern English
  7. Chapter 2. Pragmatic noise in Shakespeare’s plays 11
  8. Chapter 3. Keywords that characterise Shakespeare’s (anti)heroes and villains 31
  9. Chapter 4. Revealing speech 47
  10. Chapter 5. Saying, crying, replying, and continuing 63
  11. Chapter 6. Interjections in early popular literature 79
  12. Chapter 7. Godly vocabulary in Early Modern English religious debate 95
  13. Chapter 8. Patterns of reader involvement on sixteenth-century English title pages, with special reference to second-person pronouns 113
  14. Part II. Late Modern English
  15. Chapter 9. Epistemic adverbs in the Old Bailey Corpus 133
  16. Chapter 10. Question strategies in the Old Bailey Corpus 153
  17. Chapter 11. Sure in Irish English 173
  18. Chapter 12. American English gotten 187
  19. Part III. Present-day English
  20. Chapter 13. Explaining explanatory so 207
  21. Chapter 14. Return to the future 227
  22. Chapter 15. Sort of and kind of from an English-Swedish perspective 247
  23. Chapter 16. From yes to innit 265
  24. Chapter 17. “If anyone would have told me, I would have not believed it” 283
  25. Chapter 18. Intensification in dialogue vs. narrative in a corpus of present-day English fiction 301
  26. Chapter 19. Orality on the searchable web 317
  27. Select list of publications by Merja Kytö 337
  28. Index 347
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