PROPER NAMES IN WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS: SEMANTICS, GENDER MARKERS AND TRANSLATION
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31861/gph2025.855-856.17-30Keywords:
anthroponymy, Shakespeare, proper name, literary onomastics, semiotics, semantics, translation, cultural symbolismAbstract
The article examines the anthroponymic system of William Shakespeare’s plays as a complex and multidimensional phenomenon that reflects the author’s linguistic creativity, cultural worldview, and artistic intent. The study focuses on the semantic, etymological, stylistic, and cultural functions of proper names (anthroponyms) used by Shakespeare to construct and characterize his dramatic personae. Drawing upon both Ukrainian and international scholarship in onomastics, literary linguistics, and translation studies, the research aims to determine how Shakespeare’s choice of names operates within the cognitive, social, and aesthetic dimensions of his works. The analysis is based on a corpus of tragedies, comedies, including Hamlet, Macbeth, Merry Wives of Windsor and Twelfth Night, or What You Will.
Particular attention is paid to the symbolic and associative meanings of names, the relationship between the name and the identity of a character, and the strategies used by translators to render Shakespeare’s anthroponyms into Ukrainian. The article explores how the interplay between linguistic form and cultural content creates deeper layers of interpretation, linking Shakespeare’s naming practices to Elizabethan beliefs, humor, and social hierarchy. The findings demonstrate that Shakespeare’s anthroponymy is deeply rooted in the linguistic consciousness of the English Renaissance and serves as a tool of characterization, irony, cultural allusion, and social commentary. It is concluded that Shakespeare’s use of proper names not only enhances dramatic realism but also embodies a broader anthropocentric paradigm of language and literature, revealing how names become vehicles of meaning, emotion, and cultural memory across linguistic and temporal boundaries.
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