American Journal Of Philological Sciences
48
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VOLUME
Vol.05 Issue02 2025
PAGE NO.
48-51
10.37547/ajps/Volume05Issue02-14
Imperative Repetition as a Rhetorical Device in
Shakespeare’s Tragedies
Kseniya Aleksandrovna Chistyakova
MA student of Samarkand State Institute of Foreign Languages, Uzbekistan
Received:
11 December 2024;
Accepted:
13 January 2025;
Published:
15 February 2025
Abstract:
The article explores the use of imperative
repetition in Shakespeare’s tragedies as a rhetorical and
dramatic device that intensifies emotional, thematic, and character-driven elements. By examining instances
where characters repeat commands or exhortations, the study highlights how this technique conveys urgency,
desperation, and authority, often during moments of heightened tension. Repetition of imperatives also reveals
inner conflict, obsession, or loss of control, amplifying the psychological depth of characters like Hamlet and
Othello. Furthermore, this device creates rhythmic emphasis, enhancing the dramatic and poetic resonance of
the plays. Imperative repetition emerges as a critical tool for Shakespeare to underline themes such as power,
fate, madness, and human frailty, offering insights into the interplay between language and the tragic form.
Keywords:
Repetition, rhetorical device, imperative, exclamatory, tmesis, reiteration, locution, independent
sentence, emphatic, interjection.
Introduction:
Imperative repetition is a significant
rhetorical device in Shakespeare's tragedies, often
employed to heighten dramatic intensity, reveal
character motivations, and underscore themes of
power, desperation, or emotional turmoil.
The doubling of imperative is often an independent
sentence, complete in itself, and as the frequent use of
the exclamation mark after an imperative form shows,
it often has some of the exclamatory force of an
interjection. It is therefore very natural to find the
imperative repletion used in the same manner as the
exclamatory- to make excitement or emotion, as when
Horatio addresses the ghost! Stay! speak, speak! I
charge thee speak! I i 51. But it may also be used with
a more rhetorical purpose, to achieve greater emphasis
and ensure the listener’s attention, as in the ghost’s
List, list, O list! I i 22 or Laertes’ Fear it, Ophelia, fear it,
my dear sister. I iii 33: in both these cases the tmesis,
breaking the repetition in two, serves to slow down the
speed and give a more solemn air to the words in
perfect keeping with the emphatic tones of the
speaker. Horatio’s speech, though it apparently
contains a similar interruption of the reiteration has not
this slow, solemn ring. The difference lies in the
heaping of the monosyllables at the interruption: for
oddly enough, it is the single word, the interjection or
apostrophe, it is felt to be a real interruption, while the
repetition placed after a more lengthy interruption is
felt to be a resumption of the former strain, not a
repetition at all.
Hamlet’s repetitions in this group are emotional rather
than rhetorical; they seem to express great depth of
feeling and are spoke in circumstances of great stress:
O fie! Hold, hold, my heart! I 5 93, Rest, rest, perturbed
spirit! I 5, 182, Why, look you there! look, how it steals
away…Look! III 4 133. The last example in particular
with its variations, resulting in a series of complex
exclamatory phrases, strikes a note of extreme
excitement or wildness even, that is peculiar to Hamlet.
But the peculiarity lies in the greater force alone, not in
any characteristic pattern formed by the repetition.
The phrase come, come, though technically an
imperative form, belongs in a group apart, since it has
become more or less fossilized and hardly can be said
to convey an emotion at all. On the one hand, as in the
modern phrase, it has lost its imperative force
completely, and is used as an interjection of
remonstrance or encouragement in Hamlet’s Come,
come, deal justly with me: come, come, nay, speak. II ii
290 or the queen’s Come, come, you answer with an
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American Journal Of Philological Sciences (ISSN
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idle tongue III iv 11 with Hamlet’s answer Go, go you
question with a wicked tongue. Polonius’s Go to, go to.
I ii 112 is also of this type. It is a question whether these
phrases can be considered as repetitions at all, they are
rather a single exclamation. But they are of
considerable interest, especially the more usual come,
come, since for the Elizabethans they seem to have had
a strongly colloquial flavor and to have been a favorite
means of lending realism to scenes of low life, while the
more elegant authors like Beaumont and Fletcher, for
whom realism was a superseded ideal, avoid them in
tragedy. On the other hand, come, come can also be
used with its original imperative force; and, since that
is tantamount to an invitation, such forms are
frequently used with tmesis to soften the abruptness,
as in the king’s Come, Hamlet, come. V ii 239 and
Hamlet’s Come, bird, come. I V 116; but also with
simple repetition as in Hamlet’
s Come, come and sit
you down. III iv 18.
Finally, not only can a verbal imperative be used in this
way, but, as with the exclamations, an adverb or noun
can be made to perform the same function, and the
repetition again serves for greater insistence,
excitement or emotional stress. Polonius hurrying his
son on- Abroad, abroad, for shame. I iii 55, or self-
importantly preparing his trip for the prince- Away! I do
beseech you, both away. II ii 169, the actor, declaiming
his set speech- Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! II ii
524, Hamlet, disturbed in his meditation- But soft, but
soft! aside. V I 239, the courtiers, as the King rises
hurriedly from his seat- Lights, lights, lights! III iii 286-
all make use of such forms.
In none of these cases does Hamlet’
s usage differ in any
way from that of the remaining characters, not even by
the greater frequency, if we bear in mind the length of
his part. But there are some special cases, in which
Hamlet’s personality does actually seem to shine
through. Here the repetition, is delayed; not merely
interrupted by tmesis as in Come, bird, come, but
postponed so long that one is made to think of
anaphora: Prithee, say on: he’s for a lig or a tale of
bawdry, or he sleeps. Say on. II ii 530 Come, give us a
taste of your quality, come, a passionate speech. II ii
461, Come some music! Come, the recorders!..Come,
some music! III ii 308 (in a passage of high hysterical
excitement), But come, for England!.....Come, for
England! IV iii 52-56. Here one may, perhaps recognize
a per
sonal trait, an idiosyncrasy of Hamlet’s of which
more will have to be said with regard to some later
examples, a tendency of his to brood on a subject, to
revolve it in his mind, returning to it again and again, as
with the reccuring theme of get thee to a nunnery in his
conversation with Ophelia. In the above cases the
tendency is by no means so plain, nor is there, as in
those to be mentioned later, any obvious reason for his
harping on the particular words, especially in the
second example, where the twice repeated come has
only the queen, on the contrary, when she makes use
of a similar figure is in extreme mental distress: O
Hamlet! speak no more…O! speak to me no more….No
more, sweet Hamlet. III iv 88-95, and Polonius in his
excitement at having discovered a reason, as he
supposes, for the prince’s madness makes use of a
cadence similar to those of Hamlet: Come, go we to the
king…Come. II I 117
-120. The peculiarity of these
repetitions of Hamlet’s is, then, that they are produced
more frequently and without the objective stimulus
that is otherwise a necessary condition for them. They
show an impatience, an almost petulant urgency that
again find their roots in the prince’s nervous
excitability.
The repetition of the imperative is not naturally
pathetic, unless the pathos is imparted by the situation,
but even here Shakespeare, by an elaboration of the
form, conveys a pathetic note in the very music of the
speech. The addition of an O, somewhat rhetorical
though it sounds, lends a feeling of helplessness and
sentimentality, as in Albany’s Run, run! O run! V iii 249
and O! See, see! V iii 305, or the gentleman’s Help,
help! O help! V iii 224. The ghost’s List, list, O list! in
Hamlet has, apparently, an exactly similar cadence, but,
coming in the middle of a long speech, the effect is slow
and solemn, not hurried and pathetic. For the position
is quite as important for the effect of a repetition as the
form. Still more pathetic in effect is the brokenness of
Lear’s dying words Look on her, look, her lips, l
ook
there, look there! V iii 212. The heavy repetitions of
Then, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill! V vi 192 and Howl, howl,
howl, howl! V iii 259 can be made to sound wild and
terrifying, or weak and exhausted, as the actor
determines, but they certainly lack the sharp insistence
or urgency of a single repetition. In his farce of
Pyramus. This be Shakespeare had poked fun at this
very device, letting the suicide Pyramus expire with the
words Now die, die, die, die, die, on his lips, and
altogether making much play with heavy, pathetic
repetitions. Here he is ready to use the effect himself
in all seriousness. Yet another effect, solemn and
terrific this time, far more terrific than any of the
ghost’s repetitions, is achieved in Lear’s adjurations in
the opening act: Hear me, recreant! On thine
allegiance, hear me! I i 169 and Hear, Nature, hear! Lear
goddess, hear!, where the heavy tmesis the variations
of the phrase, and, in at the one case, the treble
repetition, give the utmost weight to the language,
lending that elevation and those titanic proportions to
the character on which the whole tragedy is built. The
variety of forms and nuances of mood are considerable
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American Journal Of Philological Sciences (ISSN
–
2771-2273)
as compared with Hamlet, and again they tend, on the
whole, to increase the pathetic effect. And these
elaborate forms represent one half of the verbal
imperatives in the play.
The elliptic imperative sound naturally more hurried
and urgent than the correct verbal forms, and
elaborations of the repetition, which mostly tend to
slow down the motion, would be in conflict with this
effect. The combination of the two tendencies has a
definitely comic ring in the fool’s Down, wantons,
Down. II, iv 126. Otherwise, where a tmesis occurs in
such locutions, it is used either in calling to a distance,
as i
n dear’s unruly Dinner, ho! Dinner! I iv 45 and
Edmund’s A herald, ho! A herald! V iii 102, or else the
forms are so far apart that they cease practically to be
repetitions, as in Away, old man, give me thy hand:
away! V ii 5. Only Gloucester’s Away, get t
hee away,
good friend, be gone. IV I 15 represents with its
reversion to the fuller type, a definite weakening of the
tension, quite in consonance with his weak ineffectual
character. Mostly, however the elliptic imperatives
follow the simple type, as in Hamlet, and express hurry,
excitement, urgency, as in Lear’s Stop her there! Arms,
arms, sword, fire! III vi 58 and Off, off, you lendings! III
iv 111, Regan’s Hard, hard. O filthy traitor! III vii 52 and
several other such forms.
It marked contrast with this extension of the
exclamatory forms is the rarity of imperative types, of
which no more than four occur in Othello’s part. And of
these two might better be reckoned to the dependent
types, since they consist of considerably more than the
simple imperative. Villain, be sure, thou prove my love
a whore, be sure of it. III iii 360, and Sweet soul, take
heed of perjury,V ii 50. The two simple types are both
of them elliptic, the one, as he turns Emilia out of the
room, sharp and urgent- Your mystery, your mystery,
nay, dispatch. IV ii 29, the other with a retarding
apostrophe placed before, and expressing grief and
despair rather than urgency-Ah! Desdemona, away,
away, away! IV ii 40. Compared with Hamlet’s 11
imperatives and Lear’s 14 these of Othello strike
one as
remarkably few. One would say that he was too
accustomed to command, too sure of his authority, to
feel the need for urging his subordinates on with
reiteration.
Such an explanation, it is true, comes dangerously near
to a type of criticism that we would wish to avoid at all
costs- the criticism that fixes on a character, the
creation of a poet’s mind, and treats it as an objective,
living personality, with an existence of its own, apart
from the play or story of which it is an element. Yet this
attitude, dangerous and foolish as it often is, is not
altogether impermissible once we think of the author
imagining himself into the circumstances of his
characters and writing as though he were actually
speaking at that moment, assuming, in fact, the
personality of the character. That is, to a certain extent,
what every author does, and his power of delineating
character will largely depend on his ability to imagine
himself successfully and completely into the largest
variety of personalities. In so far too his creations may
be said to have a real existence, independent of their
function in the play. But while such semi- automatic
writing is probably the rule for any truly creative artist
as regards the speeches, the manner in which a given
character talks, especially when the characters are so
subtly differentiated in the tones of their speech as
Shakespeare’s it is highly improbable that any author
does his plotting, the adaptation of character to action,
automatically. Intuition, the power of imaging another
person’s actions and reactions, will play their part here
too, but this part will mostly be too much under the
control of the critical faculty to be regarded in any way
as automatic. The broader outlines of a character’s
personality will nearly always be drawn consciously and
with a definite purpose in mind, they will bear a definite
relation to the work of art as a whole. But slighter, more
elusive traits are, especially with a writer of high
imaginative powers, not infrequently produced
unconsciously, by intuition alone, they are, so to speak,
the spirit writing dictated by the disembodied
inhabitants of the poet’s imaginary world, who, for the
moment, assume control of his pen.
Saying that Othello is too sure of his authority to
reiterate his commands does not mean therefore that
Shakespeare was consciously trying to bring out a facet
of the Moor’s personality. It is more than probable that
he himself never became aware of this peculiarity of his
creation. It means rather that, in writing Othello’s part
,
Shakespeare assumed that calm authority with which
he had consciously endowed him in his imagination,
and that frame of mind effectually prevented him from
introducing such signs of what, for a man like Othello,
would be weakness. It is, of course, possible, though
hardly probable, that this effect is actually due to a
conscious effort on Shakespeare’s part. There is no real
means of differentiating between conscious and
unconscious effects in a work of art. Nor can the one
claim to be an essentially higher form of art than the
other. But the imaginative effort involved by a
conscious differentiation of such separate characters’
manner of speaking, carried out with such an eye to the
minutest and subtlest details; would be too huge for
any human mind, even
Shakespeare’s, to support.
When used for more complex characters, characters
demanding a variety of emotional interplay, the effort
involved would almost inevitably betray itself in a
labored and heavy style. A purely, or preponderantly,
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American Journal Of Philological Sciences (ISSN
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2771-2273)
intellectual attitude on the part of an author towards
his characters does not necessary exclude a great deal
of very subtle and convincing character-drawing, but
mostly, as for instance in the novels of Meredith, it
results in a certain fundamental sameness that seems
to underlie all the characters, in spite of the more
obvious differences. With Shakespeare the marvel is
how each character has a language of his own, how the
varying moods and emotions out of which the
characters are built are brought out and underlined in
the rhythms and melodies of their speeches. And this
differentiation is seen to go down to the smallest and
subtlest details, that surely neither writer nor reader
notice consciously, though it is ultimately on the sum of
such details that the total effect depends.
Repetition of commands often aligns with the tragic
flaws of characters. Repeated imperatives can highlight
the tension between a character’s agency and the
inescapable forces of fate. Characters descending into
madness or consumed by obsession frequently repeat
commands, reflecting their fractured mental states.
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