Shakespeare Rhytme

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How does Shakespeare use verse and prose?

• nobility (higher status) speak in verse - iambic pentameter (unstressed - stressed syllable)
  
• comedic characters speak in prose
  
• supernatural characters speak in trochaic tetrameter (eight syllables per line; pattern: stressed - unstressed syllable)

Shakespeare's Use of  Rhythm

Both written and spoken language use rhythm or metre - a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. 

• blank verse   - iambic pentameter  
• rhymed verse
• prose

pentameter

Pentameter means there are five poetic feet. 

Blank verse: Iambic pentameter - the basis of Shakespeare's writing

The opening line of Twelve Night 

'If music be the food of love play on'

            

If muIsic beI the foodI of loveI play on 

Rhymed verse and trochaic tetrameter

to distinguish his characters 

While blank verse forms the basis of Shakespeare's writing, he often uses rhyme:

• Hamlet: The play's the thing

Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King

• Macbeth - witches ( a musical pattern for supernatural characters)

Double, double, toils and trouble    (trochaic tetrameter - 8 syllables per line)

Fire burn and cauldron bubble

It is always helpful to ask why Shakespeare is using rhyme at a particular point and what effect it has. 

Prose

The convention in Shakespeare's time was to write plays in verse. His extensive use of prose is yet another sign of his inventiveness to break with custom when it served his plan. 

• Often, lower class or comic characters speak prose while the more socially or morally elevated characters speak in verse.
• Why?  it can indicate the degeneration of a noble nature of the character.

a swift movement from prose to poetry or the reverse is always the indication of change. 

Prose

Brutus in Julius Caesar

Romans, countrymen, and lovers, hear me for my cause and be silent

that you may hear. Believe me for mine honour, and have respect to

mine honour, that you may believe. Censure me in your wisdom, and

awake your senses that you may the better judge. If there be any in

this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar's, to him I say that Brutus'

love to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why

Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: not that I loved Caesar

less, but that I loved Rome more…

In Julius Caesar, Brutus chooses prose over verse when he sets out to convince the citizens that the conspirators were right to murder Caesar. 

censure: strong criticism or disapproval