Style of Shakespeare in Language


Shakespeare's plays are written in verse. This is poetry. Most of it doesn't rhyme. But why bother? If you are dealing with massive events or serious emotions, you need a structure that allows you to sound serious. For instance, in the film 'Gladiator', at the beginning they are preparing for a massive battle. The hero is talking to his soldiers and says:

"What you do in life echoes through eternity!"

That is inspirational, heroic and poetic. If he had said ...

"Okay, lads I want you to be very brave and fight well, because then you'll be famous heroes one day!"

... it doesn't have quite the same ring to it. Not inspirational, not heroic and definitely not poetic. Shakespeare uses poetry to inspire us, not put us off, and to make his characters almost larger than life. Bigger heroes, greater lovers, yet still human.

So, how does it work? Usually it obeys the basic rules of poetry. Look at the first line of a Limerick as an example:

There was an old woman from Rhyl

We all know Limericks and that is a standard first line. On the other hand, if you wrote

There was an old woman from a small town in Outer Mongolia
This is not a good first line because it doesn't fit. It ruins the rhythm of a standard Limerick. The rhythm is ruined because there are too many syllables in the line.

There was an old woman from Rhyl
This line has eight syllables; the alternative line has sixteen!

Shakespeare decided to keep his lines to a nice, round ten syllables. In poetry they have given technical names to the lines with different numbers of syllables. To make life easier for themselves, they pair the syllables.

So Shakespeare wrote lines with five pairs of syllables. They call this PENTAMETER. 'Pent' means five - as in pentagon, pentagram, pentacle - which are all shapes with five sides or points. The 'meter' part of the word is the rhythm.

Now there is a big problem with writing poetry. Nobody really talks like that. You couldn't imagine a whole play written as a Limerick; that would be silly. Nobody really talks like that, it would be a nightmare for actors.

So Shakespeare listened to how people really spoke and incorporated this into his poetry. The way we speak has a particular rhythm. This is all down to how we stress words. For example:

GARAGE
When you break this word up into its two syllables and say it, the stress is on the first syllable:

GA-RAGE (sounding: GA-ridge)
In America they have the opposite stress to us. They would say

GA-RAGE (sounding: G'RARDGE)
Look at the first line of our Limerick again

There was an old woman from Rhyl
This is the way we would naturally stress the words. As you can see a regular rhythm has one un-stressed followed by a stressed syllable. That is the way we speak. That is called IAMBIC - another technical term!

Shakespeare adopted this, to make life easier for all concerned. He used IAMBIC PENTAMETER. Here is a regular example of this. It's the first line of Henry V.

"Oh for a muse of fire that would ascend"
It is quite difficult to write each line so it contains ten syllables. That is why Shakespeare would cheat. There are times when a line may have more or less syllables than he wanted. If the line had more syllables he would trim words to fit. For example, an imaginary line:

"Is it possible?"
would become:

"Is't possible?"
So instead of having two syllables is it you have one syllable is't. A complete cheat! But it sounds quite good and it fits. If the line didn't have enough syllables? Simple - he would add an extra one:

"He jumped out of the window."
Normally, the way you would say "jumped" is you ignore the "e", so it sounds "jump'd". Not if Shakespeare needed an extra syllable. Then the word would be "jump-ed".

It sounds a bit like French, adds a certain je ne sais quoi! But it can become quite confusing if some lines have a word like "jumped" that don't need an extra syllable. That is why in some copies of the plays they put a French accent over the ¨¦ when you sound it fully, and no accent when it is normal.

In others they write "jump'd" when it is to be said normally, and "jumped" when he needs an extra syllable.

So that is the basic rule. It sounds good, and it is easy to speak. But it can be quite restrictive. If you have a scene where there is an argument and people are getting really angry, or if someone has died and a relative is very sad, these characters would not speak in this even, regular way. So, Shakespeare had a cunning plan: he broke his own rule!

At times throughout his plays there are irregular lines. Lines with eleven or more syllables, or stresses the wrong way round. This usually means the character is emotional in one way or another. For example, the most famous line from Shakespeare:

"To be or not to be, that is the question"
This has eleven syllables. Here is a man wondering whether to live or die. He's not asking if anyone would like a cup of tea. He is going through hell. He is not feeling regular, so his line is not regular.

This style is very important for actors. Remember that this is a play to be performed. He gives the actor these clues to help them deliver the lines, and to establish the emotional state of the character.

There are some lines that do rhyme. Prospero in The Tempest rhymes quite a lot. This is to add a magical quality to what he is saying. The same is true for other characters. It adds a specific quality that is right for that person speaking. Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream rhymes, particularly at the end of the play:

"If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding, but a dream"
This is right at the end of the play (Act 5 Scene 1) and rounds it off really well.

Most commonly the rhyming comes at the end of a scene. Normally it is two lines that rhyme, called a rhyming couplet. In MacBeth

"The bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell"
This ends the scene, and MacBeth goes off and murders the king. It's very dramatic, and the rhyming couplet emphasises the drama. It also serves a functional purpose. In the theatre there wasn't a curtain. There was no way the audience would know that the scene had ended, and the actor would just walk off. If you end the scene with an ordinary line:

"Now I shall go and kill King Duncan!"
Even if the actor said it really seriously, which would be difficult, and then walked off; it is more funny than dramatic. Whereas if you say:

"The bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell!"
the actor can probably leave the stage almost unnoticed because of the dramatic impact the rhyming couplet has.

The effect of the verse is to help create drama and deal with fundamental, big issues. Like anything else, if you are going to play around with the form of the work (change the rhythm or add rhymes) you have to be very skilful or it won't work. Shakespeare knew when and how to bend the rules.