Understandıng Shakespeare’s language and thought through the use of Similes and Metaphors

ABSTRACT : After more than 450 years since Shakespeare’s birth, the present article seeks tobring its own contribution to the celebration and understanding of the Bard’s everlastingcultural and linguistic legacy. Looking at Shakespeare’s use of language, the article focuseson two major figures of speech, simile and metaphor, which richly reveal the playwright’slinguistic creativity and complexity. After a brief introduction to the subject, the paper firstpresents the two figures of speech from a theoretical perspective and then goes on to criticallyapproach a small number of examples from English literary texts that serve as a preamble tothe central section of the study. Thus, the article then narrows down its scope so as to focus ona given set of illustrations from Shakespeare’s plays, especially tragedies, with a view tofacilitating a better understanding of Shakespeare’s language and thought.