Diagramming Shakespeare 23

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Frank Antonson

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Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. (Hamlet)

That's a little tricky to diagram, but as far as the wisdom of it is concerned I'd like to say that I think Polonius us underrated in always being portrayed as a sort of nuisance who talks too much. Any Shakespearean scholars out there who (maybe can't diagram but) would like to comment on that?
I mean, he also said "Brevity is the soul of wit", and that is not foolish rambling.
 

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husbandry.gif
 

chester_100

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Hello Frank Antonson,

Are you also interested in other aspects of literature, apart from diagrammed representation? I mean old structures, grammar, words, and literary devices.
The following, for example, can be a paraphrase:

Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
Try not to be a person who borrows or [a person who] lends,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
Because, most of the time, what you borrow or lend may not be restituted, and you lose the friend from whom you borrowed or to whom you lent.
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
And borrowing will hurt your frugality.

“Husbandry”, with the sense used in the excerpt, is an archaic word meaning “conservation” or “correct use of the resources”.

As you know, the third line is a metaphor whose propositions may be:
1)Husbandry is like a blade or sword.
2)Borrowing is like something that blunts a sharp edge.
It can be categorized under a group of metaphors that may be entitled SHARPNESS-as-TENDENCY.

I agree; the character is very garrulous.
 
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Frank Antonson

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Yes, I am interested in all of that -- especially the literary devices.

About the character being garrulous, I would agree. However, I say there is concise wisdom in much of what he says -- and the words that Shakespeare gives him and most of his other characters are far from garrulous. Look, for example, how many words it takes to explain Polonius' one sentence.

I concluded, when I was quite young, that Shakespeare often put thoughts that many people have had into words better than anyone else.
 

chester_100

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Yes, I am interested in all of that -- especially the literary devices.

About the character being garrulous, I would agree. However, I say there is concise wisdom in much of what he says -- and the words that Shakespeare gives him and most of his other characters are far from garrulous. Look, for example, how many words it takes to explain Polonius' one sentence.

I concluded, when I was quite young, that Shakespeare often put thoughts that many people have had into words better than anyone else.


An air of conservation:

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment:

Oh yes; apart from the linguistic peculiarities of each character, there are usually philosophical revelations in their maxims that cannot be curtailed. The soliloquies are thought to be momentous in divulging the character’s personality and subconscious intentions.

Thank you,
 
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Frank Antonson

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Is that also Pollonius speaking?

I see your native language is Persian. Could you provide a Persian favorite sentence to diagram -- along with an English translation?
 

chester_100

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Is that also Pollonius speaking?

I see your native language is Persian. Could you provide a Persian favorite sentence to diagram -- along with an English translation?


Yes, that admonition is asserted by POLONIUS,just a couple of lines above the sentences you chose to diagram.

Ok, I don’t diagram, but I chose Dr.Bateni’s method of sentence analysis; note that modern Persian is a right-to-left language.

The transfusion is a literal rendering. The colored words are functional morphemes that show internal sentence relations; they have corresponding colors in both sentences. They are in two different files:

Persian:
 

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chester_100

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Persian-English (with improved quality)
 

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Frank Antonson

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I'll start a new thread with that. Thanks.
 
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