Why would Shakespeare want to use so many new and abstruse words and meanings?
It seems extraordinary that Shakespeare would even want to use so many words, and some so abstruse, since in Shakespeares time a good education was rare and language skills among the majority of the English population were very basic and often primitive, with the spoken language being a rough mixture of assorted dialects and jargon. Yet, instead of addressing the mass of people in language they could more easily understand, Shakespeare shows a distinct liking for unusual words, whilst at the same time he avoids using many of the more ordinary words which were in common use by the general public. • Why are the Shakespeare plays and sonnets filled with legal terminology, some of it abstruse and all of it appropriately used? The Shakespeare plays, and many of the sonnets, are filled with legal terminology, some of it most abstruse. Moreover, this legal knowledge is not just applied to one sonnet or play, but is to be found permeating all the authors works: so much so, that the only reason
