How To Change Macbeth Soliloquies With Punctuation

How To Read Shakespearean Scansion and Punctuation

Written by Rose Helsinger

August 16, 2017

As back to schoolhouse rolls around over again, in that location's no uncertainty yous'll be facing some Shakespeare play in grade where students halfheartedly read text aloud, pausing in the middle of every judgement. Whether y'all're facing it in course or in an upcoming production, here'south a consummate how to guide on the secret language of Shakespeare that makes reading the text less hard.

Shakespearean scansion

Scansion is built on the foundation that a perfect Shakespearean poesy line has x syllables. Those syllables are typically made up of iambs. An Iamb is an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable. Thus Shakespearean verse is referred to equally existence in iambic pentameter. A perfect line of text reads nearly similar a horse's gallop or a heartbeat as ta-Breadbasket, ta-Breadbasket, ta-TUM, ta-Stomach, ta-Tum. A line of text above can be broken down to "with Pilus up-STARing—THEN like REEDS non Pilus,—" This line scans perfectly as existence a complete 10 syllable line fabricated upwardly of iambs.

Well, what if y'all get an imperfect line? That's the signal of scansion. Finding the moments that are breaking the rules indicate a direction for the actor. A line with eleven syllables is called a feminine ending, indicating a character is so full of emotions they spill out over the 10 syllable line. A line with 12 syllables is called an Alexandrine line, a grapheme is overcome by emotions OR they're delivering information (common in messenger characters), OR they won't shut upwards and this a Shakespeare clue that your graphic symbol is rather abrasive (Polonius is a peachy example). A line with less than 10 syllables indicates that either a suspension is allowed in the script or the character has a shared line with another character. In the text above, Ariel's outset line is just three syllables. That's because the line that comes before her has seven syllables and together they create a perfect 10. This indicates that Ariel'southward line should come up right on the heels of the one earlier her without a pause. A scene that has many shared lines indicates that the footstep of it should be rapid burn as the characters almost talk over each other.

If the text doesn't have the singled-out verse mode, then information technology's written in prose which means scansion rules don't employ. Lower-class characters generally speak in prose, while upper-class and formal characters tend to speak in verse. Y'all can tell something is in prose because it appears without line break capitalization. Here's an case from Macbeth:

GENTLEWOMAN:
Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her cupboard, take along newspaper, fold it, write upon't, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep.

We analyze scansion because it tells an actor the emotional country of the graphic symbol as well every bit their formality or relaxation in a given state of affairs. Scansion also gives the speed at which actors should exist speaking to one another. The thought of a Shakespearian thespian e'er taking long, self-indulgent pauses is ridiculous because Shakespeare does everything he tin to make certain actors are sweaty and out of breath with his employ of scansion and punctuation.

The best thing about reading Shakespeare is that all the instructions are in the text for y'all. How fast yous should go, where you should breathe, what words y'all should emphasize are all within the four-hundred yr former lines. In analyzing Shakespeare, a level of text work is required that provides you with all the information yous'll always need. Text work is primarily breaking downward Shakespeare's choices and why he makes them. In that location are iii pillars of text work: scansion, punctuation, and paraphrase.

In example you're unfamiliar with the Bard, scansion is an analysis of poetry lines in Shakespeare. You can tell something is verse by the uppercase alphabetic character that starts every line interruption all down the left side. Here's an example from The Tempest:

ARIEL
Not a soul
But felt a fever of the mad and play'd
Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners
Plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel,
So all afire with me: the king'southward son, Ferdinand,
With hair up-staring,—then like reeds, non hair,—
Was the first man that leap'd; cried, 'Hell is empty
And all the devils are here.'

Shakespearean punctuation

Shakespearean punctuation is more than just ending a sentence. It's direction for the actor's breath. There's a reason Shakespeare is called "aerobic acting." I of the main reasons is the use of jiff, or lack thereof. Despite whatever lackluster productions you might have seen full of dramatic pauses, the actual text moves like wild fire. Hither'southward what each punctuation mark ways to an thespian:

Catamenia: This means you lot come up to a consummate stop in your monologue to do a full breath, not a long pause. I repeat a period is a place to breathe and switch between thoughts, not a identify to have a lengthy pause. If yous're doing Shakespeare, you should become one, peradventure ii, long pauses in the entire show.

SEMICOLON/COLON: This is a slightly shorter breath than a flow. You're not fully ending an thought. Your momentum is still going, but it's switched into another direction.

COMMA: This is the shortest breath, much similar a catch breath, you merely get your lungs filled plenty for the side by side line, using your momentum to propel into the next idea.

Never let breaths drain your free energy. A saying in Shakespeare work is "energy to the stop of the line!" Meaning that an actor'due south intensity should drive all the way through the line and hit the final give-and-take the strongest. A mutual practice is kicking the box or pillow in which an role player winds up their kick maxim their line and lands information technology on the last word. This propels their free energy onto the next line or onto some other graphic symbol. Usually, the nigh important word is the concluding one, and then don't drop your vocalisation!

An extreme case of punctuation is in The Taming of the Shrew:

BIONDELLO
Why, Petruchio is coming in a new chapeau and an one-time jerkin, a pair of old breeches thrice turned, a pair of boots that have been candle-cases, one buckled, another laced, an old rusty sword ta'en out of the boondocks-armory, with a broken hilt, and chapeless; with two cleaved points: his equus caballus hipped with an old mothy saddle and stirrups of no kindred; besides, possessed with the glanders and like to mose in the chine; troubled with the lampass, infected with the fashions, total of wingdalls, sped with spavins, rayed with yellows, past cure of the fives, stark spoiled with the staggers, begnawn with the bots, swayed in the dorsum and shoulder-shotten; near-legged before and with, a one-half-chequed bit and a caput-stall of sheeps leather which, being restrained to proceed him from stumbling, hath been ofttimes flare-up and now repaired with knots; one girth half-dozen time pieced and a woman'southward crupper of velure, which hath 2 messages for her name fairly set downwardly in studs, and here and in that location pieced with packthread.

Yes, yous read that correct. In that location is only one period in that entire monologue and it'south when Biondello stops talking. There's enough of grab-breaths with commas, colons, and semicolons that bespeak a list and changes in thought, simply only one actual suspension. Much of this monologue is one long-winded list, which brings up an of import point about Shakespearean (and really all theatrical) lists: e'er escalate or descalate your lists. This a fairly lengthy monologue, if Biondello talked at one or two intensities without edifice at all, it would be torturously boring. The comedy comes from the fact that he just keeps going and going, getting either bigger and bigger in intensity as he gets wrapped up in his story or smaller and smaller as he loses his breath. The choice is upwards to the player, merely both are total of one-act gold. Nevertheless if Biondello didn't escalate/descalate his list and paused all throughout information technology, I guarantee you that audience would exist asleep.

Paraphrasing is taking the Shakespearean text and putting information technology into your ain words. Information technology'due south one of the most important parts of text work as you understand what Shakespeare is saying and form your ain connectedness to the piece. If you want a more complete clarification of paraphrasing and why it'due south necessary likewise as why No-Fear Shakespeare isn't a good resources, here's a link to that article.

It'southward easy to view Shakespeare as long, slow scenes and monologues that are equally dead equally the playwright himself. That couldn't be farther from the truth. The reason Shakespeare is yet being performed today, iv hundred years later, is considering Shakespearean text is alive. The corporeality of dedicated work that goes into dissecting and connecting to the text, the fashion it moves back and forth between actors similar a game of hot potato, the style of barely allowing its actors a gamble to breathe is invigorating to an audience equally they watch performers run a verbal marathon and push their bodies, minds, and souls in a mode merely Shakespeare play tin.