Much of any given Shakespeare play is poetry, mostly blank verse, unrhymed iambic pentameter (more on that here). Sometimes some of those poetic lines rhyme, but mostly not. And some of the play (just over a quarter by average; just over 16% in tragedies, though Othello has closer to 20%) isn’t even in verse; it’s …
Continue reading “Prose, verse, and rhyme: an Othello case-study”
In Twelfth Night, as with most of the plays in the Canon, Shakespeare uses multiple avenues to convey his content. In the past, we’ve spent time in this project on the differences between the uses of prose, poetry, and rhyming verse. And yes, we do get some of that nobility-speaks-in-verse/lower-class-in-prose stuff. But what I find …
Continue reading “Twelfth Night: prose, verse, and rhymes (oh my)”
So yesterday we discussed (fleetingly) the seemingly haphazard use of prose and poetry in As You Like It. Today, let’s look at the transitions between those uses.
At 88 percent, The Merry Wives of Windsor has more prose than any other play we’ve read thus far in the Canon. And it’s not even close: second place was just two months ago with The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, and that one had just over a half of its lines in prose. …
Shakespearean use of rhyme within verse serves a number of different purposes:
Yesterday, we asked why Shakespeare chose to rhyme over 20% of the total lines of The Comedy of Errors (over 23% of the poetic line count). wow, that’s an awful title… Today, why are roughly 235 lines of the play in prose?
Over the course of the next few days, I want to take a closer look, a deeper dive, into a couple of related speeches in Timon of Athens. Both are prayers of a sort. Let us begin with our cynic, Apemantus…
One set of identical twins, and their servants–another set of identical twins–are separated in their infancy. Over the course of an afternoon, the adult foursome are thrown together, a comedy of errors whirls, and much wackiness ensues… The COMEDY of Errors? (7/1/2009) Act One, and some quick thoughts… like “long lost, oh, brother” (7/2/2009) Act …
So we’ve spent the last week or so looking at textual technical matters (rhyme, prose, meter and the like), and using these cocepts to help drive acting and directing decisions. But what if the clues (what we find in the technical minutae) are of no help? What if the clues are… well, wrong?
