Stylistic features of dialogue in Elizabethan and modern English drama: a comparative analysis

Abstract

This article examines the stylistic features of dramatic dialogue in two key periods of English theatrical history: the Elizabethan era (c. 1558-1642) and the Modern period (1880-present). Drawing on linguistic stylistics, Speech Act Theory, and Grice's Cooperative Principle, the study analyses dialogue at prosodic, lexical, syntactic, and pragmatic levels. The article demonstrates that Elizabethan dialogue is marked by metrical regularity, rhetorical elaboration, lexical density, and direct audience address, while modern dialogue tends toward prosaic simplicity, syntactic fragmentation, subtext, and expressive use of silence. These contrasting styles reflect fundamentally different philosophies of dramatic communication. As well as, the Elizabethan stage trusted language to represent reality and move its audience, whereas modern drama treats language with suspicion, exploiting its failures and silences as expressive resources. The comparative framework reveals how stylistic change encodes deeper shifts in cultural assumptions about truth, representation, and the theatrical contract between performers and spectators.