Rhythm in Shakespeare’s Plays
Shakespeare’s work is poetry in action! Rhythm is perhaps the most basic element of sound in a poem, and
meter the most basic element of rhythm.
Meter: a term used to describe the underlying rhythm of a poem, based on the number and the placement of
stressed syllables in each line.
Stressed or Unstressed Syllables: Stress basically applies to the word, or the syllable involved in a word that is
given greater emphasis by our voice.
i.e. human = hU-man OR hu-mAne
i.e. Is SHE walking? OR IS she walking?
The number of stresses in a line of poetry, therefore, is based on the number of syllables in a line on which our
voice naturally tends to put a stronger emphasis.
The lines of Shakespeare’s plays are unrhymed and most are all ten syllables long. The syllables have alternating
stresses (an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one).
U / = iamb
U / U / U / U
/ U
/
i.e. “But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine (1.4.47)
There are five feet (groups) of iambs.
This pattern is technically called iambic pentameter.
Various Patterns
Lengths
iamb =
phyrric =
spondee =
trochee =
anapest =
caesura =
Line
U/
UU
//
/U
UU/
|| (a pause)
dimeter – two feet per line
trimeter – three feet per line
tetrameter – four feet per line
pentameter – five feet per line
hexameter – six feet per line
Sonnet 18 - William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Hey, brother, there’s an endless road to re-discover.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
Hey, sister, know the water's sweet but blood is thicker.
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Oh, if the sky comes falling down for you
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.
There’s nothing in this world I wouldn't do.