Read Shakespeare on Toast: Getting a Taste for the Bard Online
Authors: Ben Crystal
He took me by the wrist and held me hard
.
Run-on lines
A line of verse in which it would be unnatural to pause at the end of a line because the thought continues into the next line:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
…
Stanza
A division of a poem consisting of a series of lines separated from the rest of the poem by lines of white space above and below. In the Shakespearian narrative poems, the stanzas all have the same number of lines and a recurrent pattern of metre and rhyme. In
Venus and Adonis
, for example, each stanza consists of six lines, each in iambic pentameter, with rhymes linking lines 1 / 3, 2 / 4, and 5 / 6. Repeated letters are commonly used to show the rhyming pattern – in this case,
ababcc
. In everyday usage, the term
verse
is loosely used instead of stanza, but this conflicts with the more general meaning of
verse
given above.
Stanza lengths
Stanzas typically run from two to eight lines:
couplet | 2 lines |
tercet | 3 lines |
quatrain | 4 lines |
quintet | 5 lines |
sestet | 6 lines |
septet | 7 lines |
octave | 8 lines |
Sonnet
A verse form consisting of fourteen lines of iambic pentameter. In the sonnet form that developed in England, the lines are grouped in three quatrains with six alternating rhymes, followed by a final rhymed couplet:
abab cdcd efef gg
.
Supporting Artists (Recommended Reading)
Playing Shakespeare
, by John Barton (Methuen, 1984)
The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works
, edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)
Soul of the Age: The Life, Mind and World of William Shakespeare
, by Jonathan Bate (Viking 2008)
Think On My Words
, by David Crystal (Cambridge University Press, 2008)
Shakespeare’s Words
, by David Crystal and Ben Crystal (Penguin, 2002)
The Shakespeare Miscellany
, by David Crystal and Ben Crystal (Penguin, 2005)
Will and Me
, by Dominic Dromgoole (Penguin, 2006)
Shakespeare’s Advice to the Players
, by Peter Hall (Oberon, 2003)
Speaking Shakespeare
, by Patsy Rodenburg (Methuen Drama, 2002)
Secrets of Acting Shakespeare
, by Patrick Tucker (Routledge, 2002)
Websites
Online glossary, language companion, and concordance:
www.shakespeareswords.com
Online edition of the First Folio:
http://etext.virginia.edu/shakespeare/folio/
Stage Management (Acknowledgements)
Dedicated, to:
Mum and Dad, for constantly giving their all
My sister Lucy, for always having time to proof-read
Jim Alexander, for keeping me sane in times of metrical madness, and whose notes and suggestions were utterly invaluable
Will Sutton, for talking all this out with me in several bars and cafes around the world
And for Charlotte, who showed me there was more than one way to climb a mountain, and write a book
My deepest thanks to:
My agent Julia Churchill, who hit the bullseye every time
My editor Duncan Heath, for his wise pointers; Andrew Furlow, Najma Finlay, and all at Icon Books, for their tireless work in bringing this book into existence
Adam Russ, for his work on the TV series
Patrick Tucker, for teaching me what it’s all
really
about
Patrick Spottiswoode, the Head of Education at Shakespeare’s Globe, and his team, the
experts
in bringing down the walls around Shakespeare
Judi Dench, Kenneth Branagh, Richard Eyre, Dominic Dromgoole, Greg Doran, Thelma Holt, Michael Maloney, Sam West, Giles Block, Glynn MacDonald, Annabel Arden, Stanley Wells, Paul Edmondson, Gerald Hewitson, Stan Pretty and Jonathan Milton, and Myrrha Stanford-Smith who have all played such an influential part in getting me to this point
And mes amis: they know who they are, and they know why
Index
accents
(i)
actors
acting tradition
(i)
at the Globe
(i)
confused with real people
(i)
,
(ii)
in Elizabethan times
(i)
acts and scenes
(i)
Akala
(i)
Armin, Robert
(i)
Artificial Intelligence
(i)
authorship of the plays
(i)
Bacon, Sir Francis
(i)
Beatles, The
(i)
Benedick in prose or poetry
(i)
Berry, Cicely
(i)
Big Brother Live
(i)
Black Death, The
(i)
blank verse
(i)
Boyd, Michael
(i)
brain lighting up
(i)
Braveheart
(1995)
(i)
Brown, June (Dot Cotton)
(i)
capital letters in the First Folio
(i)
Caxton, William
(i)
characters, Shakespearian
(i)
checklist
(i)
Cher
(i)
Chettle, Henry
(i)
chronology (of plays)
(i)
Comedy of Errors
at the Globe
(i)
commandments of Shakespeare
(i)
Conan Doyle, Arthur
(i)
contractions
(i)
copyright of plays
(i)
costumes
(i)
Cotton, Dot (June Brown)
(i)
Crucible, The
(i)
curse of
Macbeth
(i)
Dallas
(i)
Davis, Miles
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)
Days of Our Lives
(i)
dialects
(i)
Dickens, Charles
(i)
difficulty (supposed) of
Shakespearian English
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)
Dromgoole, Dominic
(i)
Dr Who
(i)
compared to the First Folio
(i)
,
(ii)
Elizabeth I
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)
,
(v)
,
(vi)
death of
(i)
Elizabethan
period
(i)
religions
(i)
speech
(i)
European Witch Craze
(i)
false friends
(i)
Falstaff
(i)
Fawkes, Guy
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)
feminine endings
(i)
Fiennes, Joseph
(i)
films of the plays
(i)
O
(i)
Romeo + Juliet
(i)
compared to modern editions
(i)
,
(ii)
typesetters
(i)
use of capital letters
(i)
folio vs. quarto
(i)
Follett, Ken
(i)
foot/feet in verse
(i)
Friends
(i)
geography, Shakespeare’s
(i)
Gibson, Mel
(i)
Glass, Philip
(i)
Globe Theatre
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)
,
(v)
Goth, Second (in
Titus Andronicus
)
(i)
Gothic Nightmares
(i)
Greek, Shakespeare’s knowledge of
(i)
Hamlet
acting in
(i)
difficult words in
(i)
plot of
(i)
Schwarzenegger as
(i)
thou
and
you
in
(i)
versions of
(i)
Harwood, Kate
(i)
hearing (vs. seeing) a play
(i)
heckling at the Globe
(i)
Heywood, Thomas
(i)
hip-hop poetry
(i)
hierarchy of speech
(i)
iambic foot/feet
(i)
iambic pentameter
(i)
explanation of
(i)
in
Macbeth
(i)
in the Sonnets
(i)
like everyday speech
(i)
maintaining the rhythm of
(i)
popularity of
(i)
variations in
(i)
idioms from Shakespeare
(i)
,
(ii)
imagination
for places
(i)
in Elizabethan England
(i)
insults
(i)
JFK
(i)
James
interest in witches
(i)
jazz
improvising
(i)
understanding
(i)
jigs
(i)
Johnson, Robert
(i)
Kate (in
The Taming of the Shrew
)
(i)
Kemp, William
(i)
Kent (in
King Lear
)
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)
,
(v)
Kepler, Johannes
(i)
King Lear
1899 film
(i)
acting in
(i)
never
in
(i)
spear-carriers in
(i)
Klingon
(i)
Knight, Edward
(i)
Kyd, Thomas
(i)
language
change
(i)
choices
(i)
Latin, Shakespeare’s knowledge of
(i)
loaves of bread
(i)
Lord Chamberlain’s Men, The
(i)
,
(ii)
Lynch, David
(i)
Macbeth
curse
(i)
editions
(i)
metre
(i)
scene analysis
(i)
thou
and
you
(i)
Manga
novels
(i)
Marlowe, Christopher
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
Master of the Revels
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)
metre
(i)
affecting words
(i)
as a character-note
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)
,
(v)
breaking the rules of
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)
changing over time
(i)
directing an actor
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)
,
(v)
in the Sonnets
(i)
Middle Temple
(i)
Miller, Arthur
(i)
compared to the First Folio
(i)
,
(ii)
monarch as God
(i)
money, Shakespeare’s need for
(i)
More, Thomas
(i)
Mos Def
(i)
Nelson, Tim Blake
(i)
O
(2001 film)
(i)
O
(letter used to express character)
(i)
OC, The
(i)
original pronunciation
(i)
Othello
film adaptation
(i)
murder of a cast member
(i)
Oxford, Earl of
(i)
pentameter
(i)
Pinter, Harold
(i)
platt
(i)
plays
as books
(i)
as manuals
(i)
as performance
(i)
chronology
(i)
in verse or prose
(i)
poetical terms and concepts
(i)
poetry
and jazz
(i)
and prose
(i)
and verse
(i)
popularity
(i)
translations
(i)
Princess Diana
(i)
printing the plays
(i)
productions of the plays
(i)
prose vs. poetry
(i)
Pullman, Philip
(i)
punctuation in the plays
(i)
,
(ii)
quarto vs. folio
(i)
quatrains
(i)
quotations, famous
(i)
Rape of Lucrece, The
(i)
rapping
(i)
sonnets
(i)
Ravenhill, Mark
(i)
revenge tragedies
(i)
rewriting stories
(i)
rhyme-schemes
(i)
rhymes not working
(i)
rhythm
(i)
Rialto, The
(i)
Richard III
character of
(i)
Society
(i)
Romeo and Juliet
, versions of
(i)
scenes and acts
(i)
Schwarzenegger, Arnold
(i)
scroll
(i)
Second Goth (in
Titus Andronicus
)
(i)
seeing (vs. hearing) a play
(i)
sentences and thoughts
(i)
sets at the Globe
(i)
Shakespeare
the director
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)
,
(v)
Shakespeare in Love
(i)
soaps/soap operas
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)
,
(v)
songs
(i)
sources of the plays
(i)
speech hierarchy
(i)
stanzas
(i)
Star Trek
(i)
Star Wars
(1977)
(i)
suspension of disbelief
(i)
Sutton, William
(i)
Sylvian Fissure
(i)
Tate Britain exhibition
(i)
Thai king
(i)
cost of visiting
(i)
etiquette
(i)
writing for
(i)
thou
and
you
(i)
thoughts
and metre
(i)
and sentences
(i)
Titanic
(1997)
(i)
Titus Andronicus
capital letters in
(i)