Aim: How do we analyze Shakespearean Verse?

D

o Now: What do you know about reading

Shakespeare?

Lecture Topic: Verse and Staging

How do we read Shakespeare?

Verse

F

ree verse

Poetry without a regular pattern of meter or rhyme. The verse is "free" in not being

bound by earlier poetic conventions requiring poems to adhere to an explicit and

identifiable meter and rhyme scheme in a form such as the sonnet or ballad. Modern

and contemporary poets of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries often employ free

verse. Williams's "This Is Just to Say" is one of many examples.

B

lank verse

A line of poetry or prose in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Shakespeare's sonnets,

Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, and Robert Frost's meditative poems such as

"Birches" include many lines of blank verse. Here are the opening blank verse lines of

"Birches": When I see birches bend to left and right / Across the lines of straighter

darker trees, / I like to think some boy's been swinging them.

RHYME

T

he matching of final vowel or consonant sounds in two or more words.

The following stanza of "Richard Cory" employs alternate rhyme, with

the third line rhyming with the first and the fourth with the second:

W

henever Richard Cory went down town,

We people on the pavement looked at him;

He was a gentleman from sole to crown

Clean favored and imperially slim.

RHYTHM

R

hythm

The recurrence of accent or stress in lines of verse. In the

following lines from "Same in Blues" by Langston Hughes, the

accented words and syllables are underlined:

I

 said to my baby,

Baby take it slow....

Lulu said to Leonard

I want a diamond ring

METER, Foot, IAMB

M

eter

The measured pattern of rhythmic accents in poems.

F

oot

A metrical unit composed of stressed and unstressed syllables. For example,

an iamb or iambic foot is represented by ˘', that is, an unaccented syllable

followed by an accented one. Frost's line "Whose woods these are I think I

know" contains four iambs, and is thus an iambic foot.

I

amb

An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one, as in to-DAY. 

IaMBic PENTAMETERU

nstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

E

ach pattern is referred to as a foot.

S

hakespeare uses five feet to a line.

T

his is called iambic pentameter

d

a DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM.

L

et's try it out on this line:

t

o CUT the HEAD off AND then HACK the LIMBS

.

IAMBIC PENTAMETER IN JULIUS CAESAR

R

omans speak in unrhymed iambic pentameter

C

ommoners speak in prose.

E

xamples:

R

omans –

C

ommoners - [...] but withal I am indeed, sir, a surgeon to old

shoes; when they are in great danger, I recover them. (1.1.5)

Activity

I

ambic Pentameter• “You WON’T GO till I NET up a FISH for YOU.”

(unmetered verse)• “you GO not TILL i NET you UP a FISH.” • “Neither a borrower nor a lender be.”

Activity: Create 2 metered lines of iambic

pentameter on your own.

HOW TO READ

Two basic methods to explore the

texts: scansion and close reading. The point is

that by starting with the basic text on a line-by-

line basis, you can work through Shakespeare's

meaning and understand how verse and meaning

come together.

SCANSION

Scansion is the process of analyzing poetry's rhythm by

looking at meter and feet. A foot is a two- or three-syllable

division of stresses. Meter is the predominant rhythm of a

poem based on the type and number of feet per line.

S

yllables are marked either as stressed (/) or unstressed (-)

depending upon the pronunciation of a given word within the

line. For instance, the word "example" would scan as:

COMMON METRICAL FEET IN ENGLISH

F

oot Syllables Stress Pattern Example

I

amb 2 - / pretend

T

rochee 2 / - season

S

pondee 2 / / 

P

yrrhic 2 - - 

A

napest 3 - - / unabridged

D

actyl 3 / - - dangerous

METER

A

s stated before, meter is defined by the predominant type of foot

and the number of feet within the lines of a poem. For instance,

much of English dramatic verse was written in iambic

pentameter, or lines of five iambs, because the rhythm most

closely approximated natural speech patterns. In fact, unrhymed

iambic pentameter was so popular, it had a term of its own: blank

verse.

A

lthough these speeches are all written in blank verse, there are

other meters as well:

TYPES OF METERm

onometer—lines consisting of 1 foot

d

imeter—lines consisting of 2 feet

t

rimeter—lines consisting of 3 feet

t

etrameter—lines consisting of 4 feet

p

entameter—lines consisting of 5 feet (blank verse)

h

exameter—lines consisting of 6 feet (alexandrine)

L

ines of more than six feet are rare in English poetry.

OTHER HELPFUL POETRY TERMS

assonance—repetition or a

pattern of similar sounds, especially vowel sounds

caesura—a natural pause or

break in a line of poetry, usually near the middle of the line

consonance—repetition of similar

consonant sounds, especially at the ends of words

couplet—a pair of lines of the

same length that usually rhyme and form a complete thought

enjambment—the running on of

the thought from one line, couplet, or stanza to the next without a syntactical break

feminine ending—an extra

unstressed syllable at the end of a line

masculine ending—an extra

stressed syllable at the end of a line

versification—the system of

rhyme and meter in a poem

CLOSE READING

C

lose reading is the foundation for studying literature. In the case of

these readings, we're looking at the basic definitions of individual

words, their literal and figurative uses, fundamental grammar and

syntax, and the context in which words or phrases are used. In

addition, these readings are all dramatic works; unlike novelists,

playwrights are basically limited to dialogue and stage directions to

tell their stories. That means the text is more subject to

interpretation. We're looking for clues to meaning within the

speeches. First, we make our observations. Then, we make inferences

based on patterns that we see.