Shakespeare :)

Greetings, earthlings,

I would like to  introduce you to my idol. His name is William Shakespeare.

He may have composed many truly amazing plays. I say "may have" because there is some dispute over whether he actually existed! I think he did. I don't know why, I just do.

Anyway.

As I learned in camp the past few days, he is even more amazing and geniustic (I think that should be a word) and talented than I thought, because he can direct from the dead.

Some of you may know about iambic pentameter. It is when each line of text has ten syllables, and they have a stress/unstressed pattern: stressed, unstressed, stressed, unstressed, et cetera. For instance, the line "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?" would be:

"But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?" and then the next line would be:

"It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.", with the second half of the word "Juliet" being one syllable.

So.

Sometimes, one might read Shakespeare's text and find that there aren't ten syllables in one line! Did he make a mistake? Couldn't he count?

No, he didn't, and yes, he could.

This is just how he directs from the dead.

Let me explain.

In the text,

"O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! 

Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wann'd,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing!" (--Act 2, Scene 2)

If you count the number of syllables, the first line has ten.

The second, eleven.

The third, eleven.
The fourth, ten.
The fifth, ten.
The sixth, eleven.
The seventh, eleven.
The eighth, eleven.


Now, if you were to chose the most exciting, passionate, important lines, they would be the second, third, sixth, seventh, and eighth.


The ones that have more than ten syllables.


Coincidence? I think not!
Shakespeare knew that a human heart and body could get out ten syllables of text comfortably within one line.


Back to what I was saying. The most important, passionate, and exciting lines had more.


See?


When Shakespeare wanted to show his actors (then and now) that a line was particularly important, he gave it more syllables, because the actor's body would be feeling more stress as they said that line, and their heart rate would increase, and they could comfortably say more syllables than normal.


Sometimes, when a line had fewer that ten syllables, that meant something was happening.


Take Mercutio's famous:


"A plague on both your houses!" scene. (Act 3, Scene 1) The last lines Mercutio says before he dies are:
"They have made worms' meat of me: I have it,
And soundly too: your houses!"


Notice, if you will, that the last line obviously has less then ten syllables, in fact it has seven.


Essentially, what Shakespeare did was to write in Mercutio's death. The fact that he only has seven syllables in the last line implies that he uses the final three to die.


Same with kisses!


When Shakespeare wanted to write in a kiss, he would (again) leave out a number of syllables in a romantic scene.








Well. That was a long and *hopefully* helpful post about my idol. Have fun decoding!



Methinks that that beith all. :)