Impact of his work:

Shakespeare used roughly 30.000 words throughout his works, of which an

approximate of 1500 to 3000 were coined by him. Most people today use 7,500 to
10.000 words, the Old Testament is made up of 5,642, and the unschooled agricultural
worker of his time would have used less than 300.

His influence is not only visible in everyday speech, but also in the fact that his work
has survived over four hundred years and is still popular all over the world.

He contributed to the standardization of the english grammar, spelling and

vocabulary: his words where used by Samuel Johnson when he wrote the “Dictionary
of the English Language”, which was the most well-researched dictionary of it’s time
(17th Century), and helped the standarization of english. He, in turn, had a part in
helping Shakespeare’s words to become ingrained in the language.

He enriched the language, making it more colorful and expressive.

He not only invented stand-alone words, he also invented a lot of today’s common
phrases.

He used a revolutionary way to create words; going from one wordform to another
(creating a verb from a noung, for example).

His impact on poetry and literature has lasted centuries.

Writers like William Faulkner, Lord Alfred Tennnyson, and Charles Dickens were
heavily influenced by him.

Shakespeares influence is evident in both popular and high culture; Hamlet yielded
the title of Agatha Christie’s The mousetrap, Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest,
and David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.

As we can see, he has influenced a lot of writers at far-flung ends of the literary
spectrum.

He has also been a huge influence in the music scene: Mumford & Sons album “Sigh no
more” comes from Much Ado about Nothing, and Iron Maiden’s song “Where the
eagles dare” from Richard III.

Iambic pentameter

He offered a reflection of the english language through his use of iambic pentamenter,
which captures the underlying rhythm in english speech.
His sonnets are written predominantly in this meter, in which each sonnet line
consists of 10 syllables, divided into five pairs called iambs.

An Iamb is a metrical unit made up of one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed

one, which would flow like this:

baBOOM/baBOOM/baBOOM/baBOOM/baBOOM

shall I / comPARE/ thee TO/ a SUM/ mer’s DAY?

If you pay attention to the flow of his speech, you will notice that iambic pentamenter
is the natural flow of the english language.

Blank Verse

Most of his plays are also written in iambic pentameter, but the lines are unrhymed,
this is called blank verse, it can be any verse comprised of unrhymed lines all in the
same meter, and it’s the preeminent verse form in english, italian and german.

He perfected blank verse so that thanks to him, it became a standard in poetry, even
though it was developed in Italy.

Debate on wether or not he coined new words:

The ongoing debate is not so much about the possibility that he coined new words as
it is about the number of words he invented; Some scholars claim Shakespeare was
merely the first to write them down.

In the last few years, quantitative analysis and digital databases have allowed
computers to simultaneously search thousands of texts, leading them to believe that
his contribution to the language might have been overestimated.

They think the words were over-counted, since in the 1950’s the tally stood at around
3,200 and today it’s at 2.000.

How did he coin the new words?

-Anglicizing words from foreign languages.

-Changing nouns into verbs, verbs into adjectives.
-Connecting words never before used together.
-Adding prefixes and suffixes, like un- or arch- (He created “uncomfortable” and
“Archenemy”).
-Devising completely made-up words.
He was able to do this because the English language was changing at the time:
inflectional endings (or the suffixes that indicate a word’s grammatical function) were
disappearing, so the language was greatly flexible.

Conclusion:

By creating expressions, words, perfecting blank verse and using iambic pentameter,
shakespeare has affected the language in a way that no person since has.

Because of the great impact he had on language and culture, learning about his works
and about himself is an indispesable part of cultural education.

His impact endures not only in the way we express ourselves, but also in the way we
experience and process the world around us.