Shakespeare's Metrical ArtThis is a wide-ranging, poetic analysis of the great English poetic line, iambic pentameter, as used by Chaucer, Sidney, Milton, and particularly by Shakespeare. George T. Wright offers a detailed survey of Shakespeare's brilliantly varied metrical keyboard and shows how it augments the expressiveness of his characters' stage language. |
From inside the book
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Page 1
... blank verse form . Whether it is true because English is a naturally iambic language is a more questionable claim . A language that insistently pushes the stresses on words to the front , to the first syllable , as all Germanic ...
... blank verse form . Whether it is true because English is a naturally iambic language is a more questionable claim . A language that insistently pushes the stresses on words to the front , to the first syllable , as all Germanic ...
Page 6
... blank verse , usually con- veys a sense of complex understanding , as if the speakers of such lines were aware of more than they ever quite say , or as if there were more in their speeches than even they were aware of . If the language ...
... blank verse , usually con- veys a sense of complex understanding , as if the speakers of such lines were aware of more than they ever quite say , or as if there were more in their speeches than even they were aware of . If the language ...
Page 13
... blank verse as a significant union of lines that flow into one another and compose a rhythmical unit larger than the isolated line . The Renaissance English poet habitually composed long poems in stanzas , which required a skill in ...
... blank verse as a significant union of lines that flow into one another and compose a rhythmical unit larger than the isolated line . The Renaissance English poet habitually composed long poems in stanzas , which required a skill in ...
Page 15
... blank verse . It also depends on the degree to which it and its surrounding lines are end- stopped or enjambed — that is , on how much and how frequently the sense of a line runs over into the next line without punctuation or notable ...
... blank verse . It also depends on the degree to which it and its surrounding lines are end- stopped or enjambed — that is , on how much and how frequently the sense of a line runs over into the next line without punctuation or notable ...
Page 17
... blank verse tells little about that poet's work . Iambic pentameter itself , as the most prominent English meter for ... blank or rhymed pentameter . Audiences are always diverse and usually include some members who listen intently to ...
... blank verse tells little about that poet's work . Iambic pentameter itself , as the most prominent English meter for ... blank or rhymed pentameter . Audiences are always diverse and usually include some members who listen intently to ...
Contents
1 | |
20 | |
Pattern and Variation | 38 |
4 Flexibility and Ease in Four Older Poets | 57 |
Shakespeares Sonnets | 75 |
6 The Verse of Shakespeares Theater | 91 |
7 Prose and Other Diversions | 108 |
8 Short and Shared Lines | 116 |
14 The Play of Phrase and Line | 207 |
15 Shakespeares Metrical Technique in Dramatic Passages | 229 |
16 What Else Shakespeares Meter Reveals | 249 |
17 Some Metrically Expressive Features in Donne and Milton | 264 |
Verse as Speech Theater Text Tradition Illusion | 281 |
Percentage Distribution of Prose in Shakespeares Plays | 291 |
Main Types of Deviant Lines in Shakespeares Plays | 292 |
Short and Shared Lines | 294 |
9 Long Lines | 143 |
More Than Meets the Ear | 149 |
11 Lines with Extra Syllables | 160 |
12 Lines with Omitted Syllables | 174 |
13 Trochees | 185 |
Notes | 297 |
Main Works Cited or Consulted | 325 |
Index | 339 |
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Common terms and phrases
accentual actors anapests appear beat blank verse broken-backed line caesura Chapter characters Chaucer combinations Coriolanus couplets Cressida Donne Donne's dramatic verse effect elision Elizabethan enjambment epic caesura example expressive extra syllable feeling feet feminine endings foot Gascoigne half-line Hamlet headless hear Henry hexameter iambic line iambic pentameter iambic pentameter line iambs Julius Caesar King Lear language later plays later poets line-types line's Macbeth meter metrical pattern metrical variations metrists midline break minor words monosyllabic normal Othello passage pause phrasal playwrights poems poetic poetry prose punctuation pyrrhic readers regular rhetorical rhyme rhythm rhythmic Richard II scene seems segments sense sentence Shake Shakespeare shared lines short lines Sidney's sonnets sound speak speaker speare's speech speechlike Spenser spoken spondaic spondee stanza stressed position strong structure style syllables syntactical syntax theater thee thou tion trochaic trochee Troilus unstressed syllables usually verb verse lines voice vowels Wyatt