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biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist

nervous system? it sure is!

burtoo

The Wellspring - Brendon Burton

fxlthyangxl-deactivated20240122

unfortunately i want to make purchases :(

everythingfox

Real love

(via)

expressions-of-nature

Padley Gorge Bridge by Fade To Black

kairenn-n

must a villain be redeemed? isn't it enough that they're bitter, evil, and most importantly, hot?

theeclectickoalastudent

But what can you redeem them for? Cool prizes?

kairenn-n

how does it feel to be the funniest person on my notes

grapefruitmimosa

i can’t believe i used to think people my age were adults

97luftballons-deactivated201712

the older you are reading this post the funnier it is

precalamity

can someone who knows about you/thou divide in shakespeare help me out bc I just skimmed through all of horatio and hamlet’s interactions to find that hamlet consistently refers to horatio as “you” in act one, but starting with his very heartfelt speech in act 3 scene 2 praising horatio, he consistently uses “thou” until the end of the play (which does, sadly, imply that “o, I could tell you— but let it be.” is not actually directed at horatio…) more interesting to me is that horatio only ever uses “you” to refer to hamlet until after hamlet has died, when we get “goodnight sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.” does this have to do hamlet with hamlet being dead? or?? what are the general connotations of you/thou at this time (bc I know it has changed over time). why did the changes happen as they did or does literally none of this matter ?

vienna-is-waiting

OMG this is actually such a fun literary quirk of Early Modern English, and it adds a LOT of subtext to those interactions!

So, in Early Modern English (the dialect of the time period— it is NOT “old English”, that’s an earlier form of language so different from our current way of speaking you would not be able to interpret it) “you” is a FORMAL address, “thou” is INFORMAL.

Using the “formal you” is a sign of respect and deference, but also an indication of distance. It’s a way of being polite. So when Hamlet is is using the formal “you” in act one it is a politeness, but as the plot goes on he switches to thou to illustrate the depth of that relationship, as “thou” (the “informal you”) is the form of address used between people who are CLOSE with each other— family, good friends, lovers. It is clear that they are close enough for hamelt to address him that way, and the switch can also be viewed as an appeal to their closeness as Hortaio becomes further and further involved in hamlet’s plot.

Now Horatio’s side of this is actually the more interesting one.

You are absolutely right, hortaio uses the formal “you” the entire time hamlet is alive on stage. This is appropriate, given their differing statuses, hamelt is a prince, and using “you” formally is basically like calling someone “sir”. “You” is how you address your boss, people with high social standing than you, and just people you don’t know very well. It’s slightly at odds with hamlet’s very easy way of addressing Horatio, but as hamelt is the one with higher social standing it makes more sense for him to be the one pushing the informal address while horatio continues to speak semi formally.

The part that makes it so much more interesting though is the switch after hamlet’s death, because that really adds to a heartbreaking moment. Basically what that’s meant to tell the audience is that hortaio is mourning hamlet as a friend, and a person he was close with, not as a prince. It’s kinda a break in the more distant, appropriate way of speaking we’ve seen from this cautious scholarly character so far, he’s breaking down, and he’s lost his FRIEND, he’s just watched someone very important to him die, and the switch in formality emphasizes that. It’s no longer about hamlet’s social standing, it’s about what hamlet meant to him

delphinidin4

Two other notes on thee vs you:

God is addressed in the King James Bible as “thou” because there is a special relationship between God and every human being: God is closer to you than any person ever can be. This is mirrored in some other languages that have a formal and an informal “you”: in Spanish, God is addressed as tú rather than the more formal usted.

“Thou” can also be used, not only to show familiarity, but to show disrespect. It indicates that you aren’t WORTHY of the respect of being called “you”. During Sir Walter Raleigh’s treason trial, the prosecutor snarled at him, “I thou thee, thou traitor!”, pointing out that he was using the term thou to indicate that Raleigh wasn’t worthy of respect. (I actually do this in my medieval fantasy novel when one of my characters is accusing another of treason: it’s the only place in the novel where I used “thou”. Tolkien uses it, too: the Mouth of Sauron uses thou/thee when talking to the people who come to parley with him, as a sign of disrespect.)