![]() It's often helpful to use an annotated edition with plenty of editorial material about the works to help with basic context for the material. The Bevington edition or the Riverside Shakespeare will do nicely. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.The following materials will help immensely when doing a close reading of Shakespeare: It gets much easier the more you are exposed to it. With Shakespeare, it's helpful to combine close reading with scansion because the verse itself can often help you understand the salient words within a speech. Then, we make inferences based on patterns that we see. We're looking for clues to meaning within the speeches. ![]() ![]() That means the text is more subject to interpretation. In addition, these readings are all dramatic works unlike novelists, playwrights are basically limited to dialogue and stage directions to tell their stories. In the case of these readings, we're looking at the basic definitions of individual words, their literal and figurative uses, fundamental grammar and syntax, and the context in which words or phrases are used. versification-the system of rhyme and meter in a poemĬlose reading is the foundation for studying literature.masculine ending-an extra stressed syllable at the end of a line.feminine ending-an extra unstressed syllable at the end of a line.enjambment-the running on of the thought from one line, couplet, or stanza to the next without a syntactical break.couplet-a pair of lines of the same length that usually rhyme and form a complete thought.consonance-repetition of similar consonant sounds, especially at the ends of words.caesura-a natural pause or break in a line of poetry, usually near the middle of the line.assonance-repetition or a pattern of similar sounds, especially vowel sounds.Lines of more than six feet are rare in English poetry. hexameter-lines consisting of 6 feet (alexandrine).pentameter-lines consisting of 5 feet (blank verse).In fact, unrhymed iambic pentameter was so popular, it had a term of its own: blank verse.Īlthough these speeches are all written in blank verse, there are other meters as well: For instance, much of English dramatic verse was written in iambic pentameter, or lines of five iambs, because the rhythm most closely approximated natural speech patterns. For instance, the word "example" would scan as: - / -Īs stated before, meter is defined by the predominant type of foot and the number of feet within the lines of a poem. Syllables are marked either as stressed (/) or unstressed (-) depending upon the pronunciation of a given word within the line. Meter is the predominant rhythm of a poem based on the type and number of feet per line. A foot is a two- or three-syllable division of stresses. Scansion is the process of analyzing poetry's rhythm by looking at meter and feet. The point is that by starting with the basic text on a line-by-line basis, you can work through Shakespeare's meaning and understand how verse and meaning come together. I've used two basic methods to explore the texts: scansion and close reading. The toolkit for analyzing these ten passages is not terribly extensive, nor does it require a Ph.D.
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