Tactical Purpose
Authors would most commonly use this device to establish a time in which their story is taking place and to add a realistic element to their characters. When the characters use phrases or words including “thou” or “shalt”, it gives the piece a dramatic and mysterious tone, leaving the reader on the edge of their seat. Pieces of literature written heavily with archaic diction commonly are filled with humor, drama, and romance. Commonly, authors that use archaic diction wrote the works during a time when slang was used in everyday life, therefore, the diction was once more relevant and valuable than it is now. Analyzing the way authors use archaic diction is imperative to understanding their purpose with the literature.
Steps for analysis
Archaic diction is pretty difficult to understand, especially when so much of it is used at once. Here are some steps of how to interpret a word that you have never heard of:
Identify the word or phrase that is archaic diction. This can be found in most poetry by Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, or historical writings.
Really read the words and phrases around the archaic diction, and try to get a good understanding of the context of the piece and what is happening.
Some archaic words sound similar to current-day terms. Try to see if the word sounds familiar, this can help try to figure out what it actually means.
Punctuation is also super important for analyzing a piece of archaic diction. Are there exclamation points, question marks, commas, or parentheses, and what is going on in the sentence?
Hopefully, with a combination of these context clues, you will be able to identify the meaning and reason for the archaic diction’s use.
Nonfiction Prose Example
The United States Constitution
“Section. 4.
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.
The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.”
"The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription." National Archives, www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript. Accessed 6 Sept. 2022.
This is Section 4 of the first article of the United States Constitution, and there are a couple of instances of archaic diction in this historical writing. The first word is “thereof” and looking at the context of the first sentence, it is describing who will be organizing state elections and who will be in charge of them per state. This particular word does sound like the prepositions “there” and “of”, and we can infer that the word is clarifying who the phrase is referring to. We can rewrite the sentence like the following “shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature of it”. The word “thereof” is simply clarifying which legislature. Another, easier example of archaic diction in this historical writing is the word “chusing”. This word speaks for itself as it sounds similar to the current-day word “choose” and it is also used in the same way. In this case, “chusing” is simply an archaic spelling of the word “choosing”.The last example of archaic diction in this work is the word “shall”. This, being a more common archaic word, may also be easier to analyze. In its context, the last sentence discusses when Congress will hold meetings, and says they will be on the first Monday in December. Since they are discussing the date of meetings that will be held in the future and the word “shall” is being used in the same way the current-day word “will” is used, we can confirm that “shall” is an archaic version of the word “will”.
To understand the entire section of the constitution, we must read slowly and build upon previous phrases to understand it in its entirety. The first section “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof” basically means that the legislature of each state will determine where, when, and how their personal state elections will be conducted. The second part “but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators” means that Congress has the power and final say to alter those plans unless it involves choosing senators. The final section “The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.” means that the Constitution established a day when Congress can meet, and this is a requirement. The meeting is held on the first Monday in December, unless another day suffices better.