Shakespeare's Techniques

Shakespeare's Techniques

1. BLANK VERSE AND IAMBIC PENTAMETER

   • Blank verse: most common form of dramatic verse throughout English Renaissance
     • Unrhymed, uses IAMBIC PENTAMETER
   • Words in English usually stressed, unstressed
     • Found that by alternating stressed and unstressed, poetry was easy to remember and particularly effective when spoken
   • Each line: 5 'iambs' used
     • An iamb: two syllables, unstressed-stressed eg "be-long"
       • A line of blank verse: ten syllables, or five 'iambic feet'
   • Shakespeare used iambic pentameter in lyrical poetry (eg Sonnet 18) as well as blank verse drama.
   • Blank verse formed basis of Shakespeare's dramatic poetry
     • By time of King Lear, his use of had become less rigid: syllables inverted into trochees (stressed-unstressed), or a spondee (stressed-stressed)

2. SOLILOQUY

   • A dramatic convention in which a single character, alone on stage, speaks to himself (and the audience)
     • Allows the audience to witness the character's internalised thoughts
       • Audience is able to make judgements regarding the character's motivation and personality
         • Also makes the audience complicit in the planning and execution of the villain's schemes
   • King Lear: often the villainous characters eg Edmond, "Thou, nature, art my Goddess" (1.2.1)
     • Offers a glimpse into his real character
     • The audience sees Edmond's conscious decision to undermine his brother in order to gain his inheritance
       • "Well then, / Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land"
     • Indicates Edmond's obsessive preoccupation with the concept of legitimacy and bastardy
       • "Why brand they us / With base? With baseness? bastardy? base, base?"
   • Other minor soliloquys
     • KENT: tells the audience of his decision to serve Lear in disguise, Act 1 Scene 4
     • EDGAR: declares his intention to dress as a mad beggar, Act 2 Scene 3
       • "My face I'll grime with filth"
       • (Kent also on stage, so not technically a soliloquy)

3. ASIDES

   • Characters in conversation sometimes turn aside to address the audience, unheard by other characters on stage
     • Allows audience to see "first hand" thoughts of the characters
   • Unlike soliloquies, asides are generally short - a few words or lines - and are spoken in the presence of other characters
   • Sometimes used between characters who wish to have a private conversation
   • TWO SORTS OF ASIDES APPEAR IN KING LEAR:
     • PRIVATE ASIDE TO AUDIENCE- Cordelia, opening scene, shows the audience that she does not love Lear the least:
       • "What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent." - Cordelia, 1.1.56
       • PRIVATE ASIDE TO OTHER CHARACTERS - Edmond secretly tells Edgar to flee, whilst also calling for Gloucester and the guards
         • (Loudly) "Yield! Come before my father. Light, ho! Here!" (aside to Edgar) "Fly, brother, fly." (loudly) "Torches, torches!" (aside to Edgar) "So, farewell." - Edmond, 2.1.29-33

4. RHYMING COUPLETS

   • A couplet: two consecutive lines of iambic pentameter with rhyming endings
   • Used by Shakespeare for emphasis of a particularly important passage, or at the end of a scene to express finality
   • Act 1, Scene 1 - Cordelia parts from her sisters:
     • "Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides / Who cover faults, at last shame them derides." - Cordelia
       • Underscores Cordelia's misgivings about the goodness of her sisters, setting her apart
   • Final eight lines written in four sets of rhyming couplets - a poetic indication of the restoration of order in the kingdom

5. PATHETIC FALLACY

   • Technical term for a scene in literature in which the emotions of a character are reflected in the natural environment
   • STORM SCENES
     • Emphasises the confusion, anger, madness of the king, as well as the disorder in the Kingdom

6. SIMILE AND METAPHOR

   • Two different techniques of literary and poetic comparison
   • "Most serpent-like" - Lear, 2.4.350
   • "To wilful men / The injuries that they themselves procure / Must be their schoolmasters" - Regan, 2.4.300-302
     • ('Impetuous people must learn from their mistakes')

7. PROTAGONIST AND ANTAGONIST

   • Protagonist: main character of focus. In KIng Lear = Lear is the protagonist
   • Antagonist: opposes the protagonist. In King Lear = Edmond is the main antagonist, although Goneril and Regan could also be considered antagonists