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Part of
Voices Past and Present - Studies of Involved, Speech-related and Spoken Texts: In honor of Merja Kytö
Edited by Ewa Jonsson and Tove Larsson
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 97] 2020
► pp. 31–46

Chapter 3
Keywords that characterise Shakespeare’s (anti)heroes and villains

| Manchester Metropolitan University
| Lancaster University

This chapter undertakes a keyword analysis of seven Shakespearean characters: Titus, Tamora, Aaron, Lear, Edmund, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. The chapter discusses how, once contextualised, these keywords provide useful insights into their feelings/thoughts towards others, events, motivations to act, etc. In terms of findings, only Aaron denotes his “villainy” directly. Tamora, in contrast, draws upon a keyword that is denotatively positive; in context, though, “sweet” reveals her womanly wiles. “Weep”, for Lear, and “legitimate” and “base”, for Edmund, problematize their status as (one-dimensional) villains. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth draw upon grammatical keywords, “if” and “would” in ways that signal something about their (deteriorating) emotional and social positions as much as their villainous intentions.

Keywords: context, keywords, log ratio, Shakespeare and villainy
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
  • 3.Resource drawn upon
  • 4.Keyword approach adopted
  • 5.Keyword results for the seven characters
  • 6.Discussion of the Titus Andronicus characters
    • 6.1Aaron
    • 6.2Tamora
    • 6.3Titus
  • 7.Discussion of the King Lear characters
    • 7.1Lear
    • 7.2Edmund
  • 8.Discussion of the Macbeth characters
    • 8.1Macbeth
    • 8.2Lady Macbeth
  • 9.The seven Shakespearean characters: Hero, anti-hero or villain?
  • References
Published online: 5 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.97.03arc
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