Holofernes
Holofernes style of talking is fancy, and he also talks haughtily. Basically, he thinks he's really smart and great. In short, he's conceited. Though he does talk fancily, he's actually a bit plainer spoken than some others in this play. He makes a lot of comparisons. He also mocks Dull because he thinks he's uneducated and not that smart. Example:
"The deer was, as you know, sanguis, in blood; ripe
as the pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in
the ear of caelo, the sky, the welkin, the heaven;
and anon falleth like a crab on the face of terra,
the soil, the land, the earth."
"And, to humour the
ignorant, call I the deer the princess killed a pricket."
Nathaniel
Nathaniel, like Holofernes, is more plainly spoken. So you know, i mean they are plainly spoken in the sense that you can actually tell what they're talking about. That being said, he does speak a bit haughtily. He's also rather condescending to Dull. He also thinks he's very smart (conceited). Example:
"Truly, Master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly
varied, like a scholar at the least: but, sir, I
assure ye, it was a buck of the first head."
"Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred
in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he
hath not drunk ink: his intellect is not
replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in
the duller parts:"
Dull
Dull is a less well educated character than the others, so i suppose as a result he's less concerned with following the latest fashion of talking as they do. He is also more plain soken than the others. Though Nathaniel and Holofernes are as well, he is still more plain spoken than them. Even so, he is still smart and witty. He's simply less obvious about it and doesn't feel the need to prove it by speaking in complex and meaningless words. Example:
"And I say, the pollusion holds in the exchange; for
the moon is never but a month old: and I say beside
that, 'twas a pricket that the princess killed."
Don Armado
Armado is a conceited, arrogant, show-off. He puts so many round about words in when he talks or writes that it becomes ridiculous. He can't have a straight-forward conversation to save his life. Example:
"Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent and
sole dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's god,
and body's fostering patron."
Jaquenetta
She is the most plain spoken character in the play thus far. She's not as educated (can't read), and doesn't try so hard to be witty. Example:
"Good master Parson, be so good as read me this
letter: it was given me by Costard, and sent me
from Don Armado: I beseech you read it."
Moth
Moth is witty and somewhat disrespectful. He is intelligent, though. The predominant feature of his language style is his mocking and sarcastic ways. Example:
"As swift as lead, sir."
"You are too swift, sir, to say so:
Is that lead slow which is fired from a gun?"
Vocabulary
Pricket- a buck in his second year.
Coppice- a thicket or dense growth of small trees or bushes, especially one regularly trimmed back to stumps so that a continual supply of small poles and firewood is obtained.
Commonwealth- the people of a state or nation viewed politically; body politic.
Pia mater- the fine vascular membrane that closely envelops the brain and spinal cord under the arachnoid and the dura mater.
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