Rome and Juliet

Introduction to Shakespeare

• The average person today has a vocabulary of 5000 to 15000 words.

• Shakespeare’s vocabulary is almost 30000 words.

• Shakespeare often used BAWDY “ which is making naughty jokes”

Shakespeare Vocabulary

• Shakespeare uses “play on words” to emphasize drama, and create comedic relief.

• For example:• After Mercutio is fatally stabbed by

Tybalt he says…”ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a (grave) man.”

Shakespeare and Puns

• It is often a misconception that Shakespeare writes in old English.

• Old English was composed around the 18 century AD.

• Here is an example from an epic poem “Beowulf”

Lo, praise of the prowess of people kings,Of spear armed Danes, in days long sped,We have heard, and what honor the athelings won!

Old English vs. New English

• Shakespeare did away with the Middle English where many words ended with “e” and “th”

• “Has” was always “hath”

• Shakespeare was the beginning of early modern English.

• He started to use “you” singular.

Early Modern English

• Shakespeare writes his plays in blank verse.

• Blank verse is unrhymed iambic pentameter.

Blank Verse

• Iambs are the natural rhythm of English.

• We naturally speak in Iambs.

• An iamb has the rhythm of a heart beat the first syllable unstressed, the second stressed.

Da DA

Iambic Pentameter

But soft what light through yonder window breaks.

But soft/ what light/ through yon/ der win/ dow breaks?

EXAMPLE

Iamb stressed

unstressed

• Shakespeare uses rhyme schemes once and awhile.

• Shakespeare will use a “sonnet”

• A “sonnet” is 14 lines.• 3 quatrains (4 lines)• 1 couplet (2 lines)• Rhyme scheme of…

ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

Rhyming In Shakespeare