VERSE (Oedipus Rex and Othello)
When quoting lines of verse in a paper, you MUST pay attention to how the words and lines are formatted
in the text itself. You must preserve the integrity of the lines and line breaks. You do this by inserting a
forward slash between lines, when quoting verse in a prose paragraph.
Quote of less than 4 lines:
Lady Macbeth displays her evil clearly when she says, “But Screw your courage to the
sticking-place, / And we’ll not fail” (I.vii.62-63).
Quote of 4 lines or more:
Macbeth shows the lengths to which his evil goes when he decides to kill Macduff’s
family:
The castle of Macduff I will surprise;
Seize upon Fife; give to th’ edge o’ th’ sword
His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls
That trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool;
This deed I’ll do before this purpose cool (IV.i.165-170).
NOTE: The deciding factor in the case of quoting verse as to whether a quote is “4 lines or more” is the
number of lines IN THE TEXT. In other words, if you quote 4 or more lines from the text, then the lines
appear in your paper in block quote format, regardless of how many “lines” the quoted material would
occupy if typed in prose format.
Also note that, unlike in the previous paper, the parenthetical citation format is NOT the
standard MLA format. Rather, you include the act number, scene number, and line
numbers, in that order, and set off by periods between each. Further note that the act and
scene numbers are in Roman numerals, and the line numbers are in Arabic numerals.