Shakespeare at Work : I

This essay, broken into two parts, is the most recent in a series of articles devoted to demonstrating the vital role that metonyms play not only in giving rise to metaphors (metonymy\u27s rhetorical function, as it were) but also as a sign (a signifier of what is signified) which can only perform its (logical) function when the presuppositions and entailments which it carries have been worked out. The passages analysed come from the works of William Shakespeare. The first part of the essay studies the metonymic and metaphorical characteristics of Shakespeare\u27s Sonnet 18, one long dramatic speech from Richard II, and one short speech from Macbeth. The analyses are designed to show how the metonyms underpin both the metaphorical and logical structures of the texts in question. Part II of this work, a necessary follow-on, will look at Sonnet 73, and passages from The Taming of the Shrew and Henry IV, Part I