How often do you unknowingly borrow from Shakespeare?
Every writer’s worst nightmare is unwittingly plagiarising another writer’s work. You read a novel or a poem and it settles in your mind – and then some time later, when you write, some semblance of the original work comes forth onto the paper, and you think they are your own words. For this reason, while writing many authors are careful what they read. So, for example, while writing a romance novel I may avoid reading in that genre.
Unknowingly quoting another’s work is much more common than many think. Take Shakespeare, as an example: the seventeenth-century bard whose prolific writings have far-reaching influence over culture the world over, not just in his native England. No doubt, were you to use the following in your writing or in conversation, you’d recognise only too well that they are quotations from Shakespeare:
A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse
A plague on both your houses
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio
All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks
Brevity is the soul of wit
Screw your courage to the sticking-place
Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn, and cauldron bubble
Et tu, Brute
Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears
Frailty, thy name is woman
If music be the food of love, play on
Neither a borrower nor a lender be
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more
The course of true love never did run smooth
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Though this be madness, yet there is method in it
To be or not to be, that is the question
But what of the Shakespearean phrases that are commonly used and understood in modern parlance? All of the following were penned by Shakespeare:
A dish fit for the gods
A fool’s paradise
A foregone conclusion
A sea change
A sorry sight
All corners of the world
All of a sudden
All that glitters is not gold
All’s well that ends well
As dead as a doornail
As good luck would have it
As pure as the driven snow
At one fell swoop
Come what come may
Discretion is the better part of valour
Eaten out of house and home
Fair play
Fancy free
Fight fire with fire
For ever and a day
Foul play
Good men and true
Good riddance
Green eyed monster
Heart’s content
High time
I have not slept one wink
In a pickle
In stitches
In the twinkling of an eye
Lay it on with a trowel
Lie low
Lily-livered
Love is blind
Make your hair stand on end
Milk of human kindness
More fool you
Night owl
Off with his head
Oh, that way madness lies
Out of the jaws of death
Pound of flesh
Rhyme nor reason
Short shrift
Shuffle off this mortal coil
The Devil incarnate
The game is afoot
The short and the long of it
Too much of a good thing
Truth will out
Up in arms
Vanish into thin air
We have seen better days
Wear your heart on your sleeve
Wild goose chase
Woe is me
How many of these do you use in your speech and writing? Did you know they were Shakespearean? Of course, using such words doesn’t constitute plagiarism – they are part of our language today. Still, I find the origin of phrases like these fascinating.
If you’d like to trace the Shakespearean context for any of these phrases, you can do so here: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/phrases-sayings-shakespeare.html.
