The works of shakespeare would be considered Standard English today?

Answer 1

Shakespeare did write in Modern English the same as is used all the time nowadays. Some of his usages are now considered rare or old-fashioned, and he uses words with meanings which are now secondary or even forgotten. And of course he made up a lot of new words, not all of which made it into the dictionary. What many people mistake for archaic English is in fact poetic English, such as the use of peculiar sentence structure in order to get it to conform to a specific rhyme or rhythm scheme. Let's look at an example of non-poetic dialogue from the play Twelfth Night to see how Standard or Non-Standard it is.

Olivia: What's a drunken man like, fool?

Fool: Like a drowned man, a fool and a madman: one draft above heat makes him a fool, the second mads him and the third drowns him.

Olivia: Go thou and seek the crowner (modern coroner) and let him sit on my coz (short for cousin, not because). For he's in the third degree of drink: he's drowned. Go, look after him.

Fool: He is but mad yet, Madonna, and the fool shall look to the madman.

What is non-standard about this? The only thing the spellchecker doesn't like is the use of "mad" as a verb, which may not be standard, but is a typical transition from an adjective. The expression "above heat" is peculiar, and alludes to the custom of drinking heated alcohol drinks. I have noted the unusual words "crowner" and "coz". "Go thou" is archaic but not forgotten (it shows up in modern hymn writing). Olivia is using "sit on" in a secondary sense in which a judge sits on a case, rather than the primary and more physical one. The least standard expression in the passage is "He is but mad yet", as very few English speakers would use the word "but" rather than "only" to express this idea.

All this adds up to the fact that Shakespeare's writing is not Standard in the sense that it conforms to the BBC style book, but then it never was--his contemporaries remarked on his Warwickshire accent and idioms. As a dialectical form of English it is closer to BBC Standard than the English dialects found in the Southern United States, Newfoundland, Jamaica and parts of Australia.

Answer 2

It is not clear whether you are asking about a) the language used in Shakespeare's works, or b) the literary canon.

The language Shakespeare used would not be considered standard usage today, although nearly all of the unusual features of his language are obsolescent rather than obsolete. For example, the use of the pronouns "thou", "thee" and "thy", while not common, is far from dead, as they are often used in prayers, poetry, devotional songs (e.g. "How Great Thou Art") and generally to indicate reverence.

Are Shakespeare's Works part of the standard English literary canon? Absolutely.

Answer 3

yes