1. Shakespeare and the Theater [IN 63]
What concerns do you have about reading Shakespearean texts? What strategies could you use to be a successful reader of Shakespeare’s works?

2. Add to your interactive notebook…
Table of Contents
65-66 Iambic Pentameter
Words Worth Knowing
Inversion: reversal of the normal word order of a sentence – used for emphasis, variety, rhyme, and meter
Meter: generally regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry

3. Inversion in Romeo and Juliet
“Black and portentous must his humor prove” (I.i)
“Such comfort as do lusty young men feel shall you this night” (I.ii)
“There art thou happy” (III.iii)
“Never was seen so black a day as this” (IV.v)
“Away from light steals home my heavy son” (I.vii)
“Me they shall feel” (I.i)
“Hence from Verona art thou banished” (III.iii)
“This kindness will I show” (Merchant of Venice I.iii)

4. Why Shakespeare Loved Iambic Pentameter
David T. Freeman and Gregory Taylor

5. Why do Shakespeare’s words have such staying power?

6. Review 1. What is the stress pattern of an iamb? Stressed, unstressed
Unstressed, stressed
Stressed, stressed
Unstressed, unstressed

7. Review
2. Iambic pentameter contains _____ feet, each of which contains _____ syllables.
Two, five
Five, five
Five, two
Three, two

8. Review 3. Which of these is NOT a type of metrical foot? Ptero Dactyl
Iamb
Trochee

9. Review 4. Which of these lines is NOT in iambic pentameter?
“But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?”
“A little more than kin and less than kind.”
“So foul and fair a day I have not seen.”

10. Review
5. Shakespeare’s characters often speak in iambic pentameter when they are feeling ___.
Heightened emotions
Introspective
Passionate
All of the above

11. Discuss
Think about how you speak when you are feeling a strong emotion: anger, happiness, sadness, and disappointment. In trying to express yourself, do you use specific kinds of words? Do you use short sentences or long sentences? And does your language change depending on the kind of emotion you’re feeling?

12. Discuss
Review the definitions of “trochee” and “dactyl.” To which kinds of moods or tones might these types of feet be suited, based on the way they sound in verse?

13. Shakespearean Sonnets

14. Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade, When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.