What Can We Learn from Shakespeare?

This year is the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. The fact that his works are still being performed, read and taught so long after the man himself ‘shuffled off this mortal coil’ (as he put it) is testament to the extraordinary power of his writing, both on the page and in performance.

This prompts the thought: is there anything we can learn from him in order to make our own writing and, perhaps more particularly, our presentations more memorable? It seems rather probable… Ten things come to mind.

1. The rule of three

The rule of three is the idea that a combination of three of anything is more rhetorically effective than any other combination of things. Common examples include The Three Billy Goats Gruff; Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité; and The good, the bad and the ugly.

Shakespeare’s writing contains many examples of this. In Julius Caesar, Mark Antony famously addresses the crowd with the words ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears’. In Macbeth, there are three witches in the opening scene, Macduff cries Horror, horror, horror on discovering the body of the King murdered by Macbeth, and Macbeth utters the words Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace in his last significant speech.

Key point: make your points memorable by wrapping them up in the rule of three.

2. Repetition is powerful

The rule of three is one form of repetition of course, but Shakespeare’s use of repeated words and phrases is a powerful means of driving points home:

Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor / Shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more. (Macbeth)

More subtly, Shakespeare uses such repetition as a form of ironic echo. For instance, in Julius Caesar, Mark Antony’s repetition of the phrase for Brutus is an honourable man in his speech to the crowd after the murder of Caesar is initially used with apparent sincerity but gradually becomes mocking as he skilfully turns the crowd against Brutus.

Key points: drive home your points through repetition, or use repetition for ironic contrast.

3. Ask big questions

Shakespeare does not shy away from asking big questions. Probably his most famous line is Hamlet’s To be or not to be - that is the question. A recent production of the play in the UK actually opened with these lines, despite the fact that they normally appear in Act III. While this was controversial, there is clear logic behind it: these words crystallise the underlying theme of the play.

Key point: identify your main argument and put it as forcefully, memorably and early as possible.

4. ... Then elucidate graphically and concretely

Your main argument is nothing much unless you can follow it up. Hamlet’s speech continues:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles / And by opposing end them. […]

What makes this passage memorable is the fact that it combines a subtle argument about death and attitudes towards it with unforced but graphic imagery that drives the ideas into the listener’s mind. Imagine it rendered in modern business English:

Whether in terms of one’s personal philosophy it would be preferable simply to accept the various difficulties posed by adverse circumstances or to take a proactive approach towards them with a view to achieving a satisfactory resolution. […]

This modern rendition relies on limp abstractions and isn’t memorable – but it is pretty typical. What Shakespeare’s use of language teaches us is that it is possible to write or speak concretely and memorably even when dealing with abstract issues.

Key point: memorable language is usually concrete, specific and graphic language.

5. Use ordinary language to do extraordinary things

It is tempting to use long words to make what you are saying seem more authoritative. The problem is that this temptation generally arises when what you are saying isn’t very original, or needs covering up (e.g. when politicians refer to civilian deaths as collateral damage) or when you are not quite sure what you are trying to say. The net effect is often counter-productive (see point 4 above).

While Shakespeare’s writing is sometimes complex, this generally comes from the quality of thought behind his words and not from the obscurity of the words themselves. In fact, the most remarkable feature of his writing is that he uses ordinary language to do extraordinary things.

For instance, in Henry IV, Part Two, the newly-crowned King’s words I know thee not, old man do not simply imply a rejection of Falstaff but a rejection of his whole previous mode of life.

And Lady Macbeth’s line all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand is not only an acknowledgement of her guilt and complicity in the murders committed by Macbeth, but also reminds the audience both of an earlier scene in the play where she glibly says a little water clears us of this deed (i.e. murder). And it is not too much of a stretch to link it with Pontius Pilate’s washing his hands of the fate of Jesus in the Bible.

Key points: using long words is counter-productive. Quality of thought and organisation of material count more.

6. Shift your tone

Shakespeare used shifts in tone to create different dramatic effects. Such shifts may be subtle and gradual, as in Mark Antony’s speech discussed above, or abrupt and dramatic. This speech in Hamlet is an example of the latter:

What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form, in moving, how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

The last sentence brings the whole pompous edifice crashing down, revealing Hamlet’s despair and the artificiality of what he has said before.

Key point: build and then destroy your edifice to make a rhetorical point and keep the audience on its toes.

7. Humour as counterpoint

Shakespeare used humour throughout his plays. Sometimes it provides light relief, but often it actually serves to increase the tension and power of the drama.

For instance, in Macbeth, while the body of the murdered King lies undiscovered – which the audience knows but most of the key characters do not – we are treated to the Porter’s musings on the dangers of alcohol for the would-be lover: it provokes the desire but takes away the performance (etc). This is funny in itself but it also counterpoints the fact that the tragedy is about to unfold, while ordinary life goes on outside absolutely unaffected by it.

A modern equivalent of this technique can be found in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, where the two gangsters discuss french fries at length on their way to a killing. It’s a very funny scene, but the humour comes mainly from the contrast between the triviality of the subject and the horror of what we know they are about to do.

Key point: humour is not just a thing in itself. It can be used to build tension or act as a counterpoint.

8. Use creative insults and euphemisms

Shakespeare’s insults are memorably creative, so much so that they have been made into books in their own right. Examples include:

More of your conversation would infect my brain (Corialanus)

There is no more mercy in him than there is milk in a male tiger (Corialanus)

Methink’st thou art a general offence and every man should beat thee (All’s Well That Ends Well)

And consider this marathon from King Lear, in which Kent insults Oswald at length, calling him:

A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition.

Shakespeare also used a large number of euphemisms for sex, including country matters (Hamlet), which was later appropriated for a Fast Show sketch, and the rather more cryptic groping for trouts in a peculiar river (Measure for Measure).

The point about most of Shakespeare’s insults and euphemisms is that they are more funny and creative than they are offensive. And they are specific. These are the ingredients of an effective put-down.

Key point: make your insults funny, creative and specific. Or borrow Shakespeare’s.

9. Have you got rhythm?

Shakespeare naturally wrote a great deal in verse, which is possibly not the most convenient medium for a business presentation or document. However, even his prose exhibits certain features that make it memorable. For instance, in the passage from Hamlet quoted at point 6 above, an incantatory effect is created by repeating how:

How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form, in moving, how express and admirable!

Shakespeare also tends to avoid over-complex sentence structures. Even his longer sentence usually place one idea after another instead of using subordinate clauses. Where he does use subordinate clauses, these tend to be simple and mirror rather than contrast with the main point being made:

For God doth know, so shall the world perceive, / That I have turned away my former self. (Henry IV, Part Two)

Key point: use simple sentence structures. Avoid subordinate clauses. If used, keep them simple.

10. Organisation of material

Hamlet’s ‘to be or not to be’ speech offers an elegant five-point masterclass in how to organise material in a presentation:

1. Start with an attention-grabbing question: To be or not to be

2. Then give a clear outline of the nature of the issue at hand: Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind […]

3. Follow this with a comprehensive discussion of the practical ramifications of the issue at hand: For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come […]

4. Summarise of the upshot of this discussion: And makes us rather bear those ills we have […]

5. End with a conclusion explaining how the issues discussed relate to the situation at hand: And thus the native hue of resolution / Is sicklied o'er, with the pale cast of thought

Key point: the rhetorical effectiveness of Shakespeare’s key speeches comes from organisation of the material as much as from brilliance of wordplay. They repay study from this perspective.