Days 7 & 8 -- Thoughts Units & Verse vs Prose

Shakespeare has been translated into many languages. Investigate how many languages enjoy the bard

Thought Units

A monologue, a group of lines, a poem -- often contains more than one thought or feeling!

• Divide lines into thought units. (But it is often helpful to memorize by line not by thought!) A thought unit is what you want to say to make a thought. It has a certain tone. You know when you are coming to the end of it. Look

• In all speaking, we speak to push for the argument. Which is the word in the thought unit will advance my argument?

Verse

Iambic pentameter -- the beat, beat -- the sound of consciousness within our mother's womb; the first rhythm we all heard before we were born. It is a secret rhythm because the audience is not aware of it.

Marlowe and Kidd -- the first to used iambic pentameter. This rhythm was thought to be dangerous in Shakespeare's time; like today rap or heavy metal music might be considered dangerous for youth.

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  Breathe at the beginning of the lines, not at the end


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  Usually the last word of the line is what we are pushing to


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  Think of the sounds in the verse


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  Second half of the lines is always stronger than the first -- it's the point that you are going to


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  Usually "not" after the verb is not stressed -- exception: Iago - "I am not"


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  Half lines of verse usually mean something -- an action?

Note: early plays were written to end of line punctuation and end rhyme; in later plays there was enjambment, i.e. breathing in the middle of the line and punctuation in mid-line. It's about emphasis.

Prose

The starkness of prose does not capture the stuff of life! We might react to the rhythm of verse even if we had not words.

Prose is like a brainstorm -- the character must come up with something to change the situation on stage.

Typical characteristics of prose: self-centered way of speaking; lists; a front is being presented; language of wit; language of comedy; in prose a surprise is revealed.

• We are usually taught that verse = truth and prose = lies. This is too simply put! RATHER: verse = emotion (vulnerability) and prose = watchfullness (guaraded). In the prose something is hidden. Prose is more full of artifice. Prose is harder to play. Verse has a rhythm that satisfies us.
• As You Like It has more prose than verse. Most of the love scenes are in prose! Touchstone speaks in prose all the time. Investigate Audrey and Charles. Do they ever speak in verse?
• Loves Labours Lost is almost entirely prose.
• Twelfth Night is 60% prose
• Much Ado About Nothing is 75% prose

Investigate The merry Wives of Windsor -- what percentage of that play is prose?

Verse vs Prose in Shakespeare

• Seventy-five percent of the plays are in verse (10% of that is rhymed and 90% is blank verse); twenty-five percent are in prose.
• In prose characters are attempting to suppress an emotion. In prose we are invited to look behind what they are saying.
• Prose runs faster - more unrhymed syllables
• Prose comes from the head; iambic pentameter verse is the beat of the heart
• Verse is like being; prose is like acting
• Rhymed verse and prose have more in common than blank verse; rhymed verse softens the thought but there is a cleverness or self-awareness in the rhyme.