READ the following notes on how to read Shakespearean Language….
The Language of Shakespeare: Reading a Sonnet
As you read Romeo and Juliet, you’ll be reading both prose and poetry.
Prose is the ordinary form of speaking or writing. It has no metrical structure, or rhythm, to it.
Example:
The common people—and sometimes Mercutio when he is joking—speak in prose.
However, most characters speak in poetry, which is different from prose because it has a specific meter, or rhythm, to the lines.
The meter of a line of poetry is determined by the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables, or beats, in the line.In iambic meter, each unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed syllable.Unstressed syllables are marked with ˘, and stressed syllables are marked with ′.
Iambic pentameter is the meter of most of the poetry in Romeo and Juliet.The prefix penta- means five; there are five iambic units in each line of iambic pentameter.
Poetry made of unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter is called blank verse.Much of the poetry in Romeo and Juliet is blank verse, meaning there are no rhymes at the ends of lines.
Though much of the play is in blank verse, Shakespeare does use some rhymes.When rhyming, he generally uses couplets, two consecutive lines that rhyme.
Shakespeare often uses couplets to highlight a character’s exit or to show the end of a scene. You can see this technique in Juliet’s exit lines from Act II, scene 2, known as the balcony scene.
When you read poetry, pay attention to the punctuation at the end of each line.If you stop at the end of each line, you may miss out on some of the excitement of the play.
An end-stopped line has punctuation at the end. The punctuation signals the actor to pause at the end of the line.Listen for the pauses in these end-stopped lines that Juliet speaks in Act II, scene 2.
A run-on line has no punctuation at the end. The meaning is completed in the following line or lines.Listen to these run-on lines. Where does Romeo pause?
Read the following sonnets by Shakespeare.
The Prologue of “Romeo and Juliet”
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
Sonnet 16
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Answer the following questions:
- How many lines do both poems have?
- What is the rhyme scheme of both poems?
- In the Prologue, what line tells us where the play is set? How much does the prologue tell you about the plot of the play?
- What do you think is the purpose of the Prologue in the text of the play?
- Pick 5 lines from the prologue and put them in your own words.
- What does Sonnet 16 say about LOVE?
- What does the couplet reveal about the poet?
- Pick 5 lines from Sonnet 16 and put them in your own words.