Shakespeare's sea changes : the reworked patterns of creativity

This study presents a view of Shakespeare's plays as a reworking of each other in order to highlight changes in their linguistic texture and in the attitudes to language portrayed within them. Each chapter presents two plays which have common features of style, and as the thesis progresses, I consider some of the ways in which later plays transmute the ideas and situations of the earlier ones. My first chapter examines A Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet. A playful spirit is evident in these plays through experimentation with conventional verse forms and through imagery which is used extensively as much for its own beauty as for the creation of atmosphere.