Download Shakespeare`s lanaguage

Shakespeare’s language
Rhymed verse- poetry form that uses end rhyme
o Most elevated form of Elizabethan language
o Upper class characters used it to discuss love and duty
o Problem: limits variety and sounds unnatural
Example:
“I do not like green eggs and ham.
I do not like them, Sam I am.”
Blank verse- Unrhymed form of poetry
o Used to make speech flow more naturally than rhymed
verse
o Upper class characters use it to advance plot
Example:
“If then true lovers have been ever crossed,
It stands as an edict in destiny:
Then let us teach our trial patience,
Because it is a customary cross . . .”
Prose- any writing style that is not poetry
o Used for conversational affect
o Used for low humor and low class characters
Iamb- an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable
Un dress
Be fore
Be gin
De test
Iambic Pentameter- 5 iambs together in a line
Example:
“The king doth keep his revels here tonight
Take heed the Queen come not within his sight”
Iambic Tetrameter- 4 iambs in a line together
“If we shadows have offended,
Think but this and all is mended:
That you all have slumbered here
While these visions did appear” (5.1.440-43).