Dear Readers:
When Dr. Ink reads or hears the overused expression “sea change,” he can’t help but think of those old guys working their metal detectors along the shores of St. Pete Beach. Get it? Sea change: quarters, dimes, pennies…
The Doc is a faithful member of Writer-L, a list that serves folks interested in narrative journalism. Sometimes the talk turns to language use and abuse, and one subscriber wondered about the origin of the phrase “sea change,” meaning both a literal physical change brought about by exposure to the sea, and, by extension, any “marked transformation.”
The Oxford English Dictionary, original and supplements, does not define “sea change,” probably because it’s deemed a phrase rather than a word. Webster’s Third does define it, and quotes Shakespeare for an early usage. An alert Writer-L member also cited this passage from one of the Bard’s last plays, “The Tempest”: “of his bones are coral made, those are pearls that were his eyes; nothing of him that doth fade but doth suffer a sea change.”
While this may well be the first use of the phrase in written English, Shakespeare introduced the idea behind it years earlier in “Hamlet.” Dr. Ink had not read the play since college, but a recent re-reading reminded him of its almost transcendent greatness. In the last act, Shakespeare dramatizes the essential meaning of a “sea change.”
After Hamlet kills Polonius and antagonizes his Uncle/King, he is sent by ship to England, where a secret letter will lead to his execution. The plot is foiled, and Hamlet returns from his sea voyage a changed man.
The great critic Harold Bloom says that the Danish prince is so changed that between Acts IV and V he appears to have aged 10 years, from a young university student to a mature intellectual. With his new sense of readiness, he shuffles off his paralyzing melancholy, and replaces it with a steadfast readiness of action, which leads to the fulfillment of his tragic destiny.
Dr. Ink does not know who first articulated the virtues of showing, not telling. But before Shakespeare told us about metaphorical sea changes in “The Tempest,” he showed us one in “Hamlet.”
Harold Bloom’s book is titled “Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human.” Its controversial thesis is that the Bard created in literature the first and best insights into what constitutes the human conscience and consciousness. Dr. Ink recommends it to any journalist who uses words to depict characters in stories.
