The language of shakespeare’s plays

1. The language of shakespeare’s plays • Written primarily using blank verse and prose: • Blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter • Prose: written or spoken language in its ordinary form, without metrical structure • Iambic Pentameter: a rhyme scheme in which each line consists of ten syllables • Syllables are divided into five pairs called iambs or iambic feet • An iamb is a metrical unit made up of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable • Meter: the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse

2. Iambic Pentameter • An example of an iamb would be good BYE. A line of iambic pentameter flows like this: • da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM • This is 10 syllables, with an unstressed and then stressed pattern (grouped into five units) When I / do COUNT / the CLOCK / that TELLS / the TIME (Sonnet 12) Shall I / com PARE / thee TO / a SUM / mer’s DAY? Thou ART/ more LOVE / ly AND / more TEM / per ATE (Sonnet 18)

3. Sonnet Structure • Total of fourteen lines • First twelve are divided into three quatrains with four lines each • In the three quatrains, • the poet establishes a theme or problem and then • Resolves it in the final two lines, called the couplet • Heroic couplet: Two consecutive lines that rhyme in iambic pentameter

4. Sonnetpattern • Rhyme scheme of the quatrains: • abab cdcd efef • Couplet has the rhyme scheme: • gg Let’s look at the prologue once more for this pattern