John Pendergast

Abstract for "Language Acquisition and Shakespeare's Early Comedies"

John Pendergast

It is a commonly held opinion that the text Shakespeare learned Latin from, and subsequently used in his own plays, was the Lily-Colet grammar, Short Introduction of Grammar, originally published in the first decade of the sixteenth century. Throughout the remainder of the sixteenth, and well into the seventeenth century, the Lily-Colet grammar remained the most popular pedagogical text in England. This paper explores the thematic as well as linguistic influence of this text on Shakespeare's early comedies.

The utilization of Latin pedagogy in the early comedies, Love's Labor's Lost most specifically, contradicts the "official" move toward standardization of Latin learning. The move toward a regularized grammar culminated about 1540 when a new text, based on the Lily-Colet grammar, was put forth with the following preface:

Henry the VIII . . . to all schoolemaisters and teachers of grammar within this his realm greetynge. . . to the intent that herafter they [English children] may the more readily and easily attein the rudymentes of the latyne toung, without the greate hynderaunce, which heretofore hath been, through the diuersitie of grammers and teachynges: we will and commounde, and streightly charge al you schoolmaisters and teachers of grammar within this our realm, and other our dominions, as ye intend to auoyde our displeasure, and haue our favour, to teache and learne your scholars this englysshe introduction here ensuing, and the latyne grammar annexed to the same, and none other, which we have caused for your ease, and your scholars spedy preferment bryefely and playnely to be compyled and set forth. Fayle not to apply your scholars in lernynge and godly education. [Italics mine] The two references to "this our realm" suggests the extent to which the study of Latin had become a matter of national interest and limited to political boundaries. The stated purpose of an official grammar was to avoid confusion as students moved from one school to the next, or as one schoolmaster took over from another. However, another purpose seems to be suggested in the following from the printer's preface: "And as his maiesty purposeth to establyshe his people in one consent and harmony of pure and tru relygion: so his tender goodnes toward the youth and chyldhode of his realm, entendeth to haue it brought vp vnder one absolute and vniform sorte of lernynge." The equation of uniform learning and "harmony of pure and tru relygion" suggests the mutual "normalization" of both reading skills and religious belief. Although there is nothing in the actual text of the Colet-Lily grammar which would suggest specific Protestant doctrine, the approach taken to teaching Latin reflects Protestant paradigms of textual manifestation of meaning, as well as reflects the complex relationship of vernaculars and classical languages in the context of the Reformation. More specifically, this approach suggests an attempt to control the teaching of Latin, with the stated goal of homogeneity in pedagogical matters. The comedies utilize this movement by emphasizing individuality (wit) and destabilization (puns) while noting the continued importance of Latin to English society. My study analyzes several passages, mostly from Love's Labor's Lost, which reflect the use of Latin to create puns across linguistic boundaries, suggesting that Latin was conceptualized as both a classical/literary language and a vernacular/utilitarian language. Such a conceptualization is a direct result of Lily's grammar and the corresponding changes in philological understanding attributable to the Reformation.

Lily's grammar reflected many of the dominant issues of the Reformation. With the Reformation a new question arouse: how does language reflect meaning or, to use a perilous metaphor, contain meaning. The manner in which language could reflect or "contain" meaning was questioned as a direct result of three aspects of the Reformation: first, the role the vernacular plays in transmission of the Word; second, the role education plays in disseminating the Word of God; finally, how the Word of God was to be read and understood. The first stage in the linguistic revolution came with the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into the vernacular in 1534. With this translation Luther had forever wrestled control of the Word of God from "medieval" domination and the domain of Hebrew, Greek and Latin. As we shall see, the study and dissemination of these three classical languages served as a case study for examining the union of theology and pedagogy.

The thematic use of language education and acquisition were not only thematically important to Shakespeare's comic intentions, but served as philological exemplars of a new way of understanding language and manifestation. Specifically, the inherent tensions between power and individuality, and between upper class homogeneity and lower class heterogeneity, were played out in Shakespeare's early comedies.