A Study of Colour Words in Shakespeare's Works
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UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD FACULTY OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS A Study of Colour Words in Shakespeare's Works Thesis submitted in fulfilment for the requirement of the degree of PhD Supervised by Professor Norman F. Blake Submitted by Abdul-Majeed Janziz (July 1997) Contents Page Acknowledgements 3 ................................................. ......................................... ............... List of Abbreviations 4 ........................................... ............................................................ Abstract 7 ......................................................... ............................................................ Chapter Introduction 9 one: ........................... ............................................................ Chapter two: Methodology 29 ......................... .......................................................... Chapter three: White 35 ..................................... .......................................................... Chapter four: Black 93 ..................................... .......................................................... Chapter five: Red 141 ....................................... ........................................................ Chapter Green 173 six: ............................................................................................ Chapter Yellow 204 seven: .................................. ........................................................ Chapter Blue 221 eight: ...................................... ........................................................ Chapter nine: Brown & Tawny A. Brown 234 .............................. .......................................................... B. Tawny 247 ............................. .......................................................... Chapterten: Conclusion ..................................................................................... 253 Select Bibliography 264 ............................................ ......................................................... Appendices: Appendix A (White). ......................................... ......................................................... 281 AppendixB (Black) .................................................................................................... 289 Appendix C (Red) 299 ............................................. ......................................................... Appendix D (Green) ......................................... .......................................................... 304 Appendix E (Yellow) 310 ........................................ ......................................................... AppendixF (Blue) 312 ...................................................................................................... Appendix G (Brown & Tawny) G. 1 (Brown) 314 ...................................... ......................................................... G. 2 (Tawny) 316 ...................................... ......................................................... 2 Acknowledgements My thanks are due to my supervisor Professor Norman F. Blake for taking over the work for supervision till it is brought to conclusion. During the work, especially during the early stages, he gave me substantial amount of encouragement and spiritual support that were of great help to overcome all difficulties and obstacles. I am most grateful to him for his careful reading of the draft, and his pertinent suggestions for alterations, both at the time of writing and during several revisions, which no doubt have improved my thesis considerably. I would like also to thank Professor J. D. A. Widdowson for taking over my work for supervision for a short period, while Professor Blake was on a study leave, during which he drew my attention to valuable notes and suggested some commentary points. 3 List of Abbreviations A. Shakespeare's works : Ado Much Ado about Nothing Anl. Antony and ('leopalra A WW All's Well Mal Ends Well A YI, As You Like It ('or. ('oriolainus (jam. (ymheline F,rr. The Comedy (?f Errors Ham. Hamlet I HI T' The First Part (?f King Henry I6' 21111' The Second Part (?f King Henry I6, H[" King Henry V IH67 TheFirst Part of King Henry 67 2H17 The Second Part of king Henry 67 31117 Me Third Part of King Henry 67 HI711 King Henry' 1711 1(' Julius Caesar . KI King John KL King Lear I'LL Loves Labour's Lost L(»'. A Lover's Complaint Lu(c. The Rape of Lucrece Mac. Macbeth Merch. TheMerchant Of Venice MM Measure, for Measure MNI) A Midsummer Night's Dream MWW The Merry Wives (ff Windsor Uth. Othello Per. Pericles 4 I'oe. Lariolls poems RII King Richard 11 Rill King Richard III Rom. Romeo and Juliet Shrew the Taming of the Shrew Sir Sir ihoma. s More Soli,,. Sonnels Temp. The i empesi Me I º1'o Gentlemen of Verona Jim. Jimnn of Athens M. 7ilrr.s' Andronicus IN TwelfthNight INK The Two Noble Kinsmen roil. 7rnihrs and Cressida ell. Venus and Adonis W"1' The Winter's Rile B. Other Abbreviations: B.! Dictionaries: (LL) The Oxf rd English Dictionary SI. 01) Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation I)ictionaiy SOLI) The Shorter Oxford 1 tiglish 1)ictionaiy B. II Journals & Periodicals: 1)f' DevelopmentPsychology DIIJ Durham University Jourtnal EC 1',SA'avs in C'rilicism JI. Journal of Lirnguisllcv 5 Lg Language I, cS Language and Speech PMLA Publications of the Modern Language Association of America RES I he Review of English Studies RO Renaissance Quarterly SO Shakespeare Quarterly S'S/ Shakespeare Studies SS ShakespeareSurvey B. 111Others Add. Additional Passage Pro. Prologue Sei. Series . Scene .Sc. 6 ABSTRACT including Colour words have been studied through different perspectives, scientific, in has philosophical and anthropological. Although some linguistic research colour words literary figure been undertaken, an in-depth linguistic study of the colour words used by a be such as Shakespeare has not previously been attempted. A study such as this could divided into primary or basic colour words, on the one hand, or secondary colour words, on the other hand. This thesis follows the first option and studies the semantics of colour first words through their collocates in Shakespeare's works. The thesis considers the occurrence of colour words in history and culture, the nature of collocation and a review of works on collocation in Shakespeare. The major part of the thesis is devoted to the analysis of the seven basic colours that appear first in the hierarchy outlined by Berlin and Kay. Following Berlin and Kay, white and black are considered as colour words for the purposes of this thesis. The seven basic colour words used are white, black, red, green, yellow, blue and brown. An exception to this rule is that tawny is considered with brown to examine whether an extension of the consideration of colour words might be significant. The remaining basic colour words are not examined in my thesis because they do not occur frequently in Shakespeare's works. Naturally where other colour words, basic and secondary, occur in a collocation with one of the basic colour words examined in the thesis, they are given due attention. The thesis consists of ten chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the subject by including an introductory survey of the linguistic and literary problems of my work. Chapter 2 outlines the approach and methodology employed in dealing with the colour words. The collocates are collected from Spevack's concordance of Shakespeare's works. This chapter also indicates the organisation and categorisation of the colour words and the texts which have been employed. The Oxford Shakespeare: William Shake.sppeare: The ('omplete Works is used as the main source because it is the most up-to-date, complete and easily accessible one-volume modern spelling text. 7 Chapter 3 deals with the collocates of white. It includes 169 quotations whose collocates are grouped under six categories: (parts of the body, nature, cloth, emotional/ moral attitude, white with other colours and miscellaneous). Chapter 4 deals with the collocates of black. It includes 202 quotations to cover the following semantic fields (night, dress/mask, death/mourning and funeral, parts of the body/complexion, devil'-'v.il. disaster, black and other colours, ink/writing, emotional/moral attitude, miscellaneous). Chapter 5 deals with the collocates of red. It includes 107 quotations to cover the following semantic fields (parts of the body, blood, emotional/moral attitude, disease, red and other colours, nature and miscellaneous). Chapter 6 deals with the collocates of green. It includes 113 quotations with the following categories (sea, nature, immaturity, sickness, eye and miscellaneous). Chapter 7 deals with the collocates of yellow. It includes 35 quotations with the following categories (cloth, youth/immaturity, old age/decay, nature, disease/jealousy and yellow and other colours. Chapter 8 deals with the collocates of blue. It includes 35 quotations with the following categories (parts of the human body, dress, nature, blue and other colours and miscellaneous). And Chapter 9 deals with the collocates of brown & tawny. Brown includes 25 quotations with the following categories (hair/head, complexion, food/drink, brown and other colours and miscellaneous). Tawny includes 8 quotations with the following categories (complexion, lifelessness, cloth, tawny and other colours and miscellaneous). Chapter 10 summaries my research and pinpoints the openings for further investigation in this