Tips
on discussing Shakespeare
In Elizabethan times, people were very superstitious, and many people
believed in the supernatural. Ghosts and witches often figure prominently in
the action.
STYLE:
ASIDES are brief comments spoken
privately to another character or directly to the audience. They are not heard
or noticed by the rest of the characters onstage. It function is to let the
audience in on the character’s thoughts.
BLANK VERSE is unrhymed iambic pentameter (this is relatively close to the natural
form of spoken English) used especially by serious characters of high
stature and nobility when discussing important issues.
(Comic and lower class characters are
less likely to speak in blank verse—they usually speak in prose.)
INSULTS—name-calling was an art during
the Elizabethan Age. (In some of Shakespeare’s plays, it amounts to “verbal dueling” by hurling
creative slurs at one another, hoping to get the upper hand by delivering the
best insult!)
PUNS are word plays (a play on words).
RHYMED COUPLETS are two lines of poetry
that rhyme. They often signal the end of a scene or act for the audience.
SCENERY AND SETTINGS—most Elizabethan
drama was performed on a bare stage with no scenery and no sets. Therefore, to
let the audience know where and when the action was taking place, playwrights
would begin scenes with lines that establish place and time.
SOLILOQUY is a speech that narrates a
character’s thoughts—it tells the audience what is going on in a character’s
mind by allowing him/her to think aloud. Don’t confuse a soliloquy with a
MONOLOGUE! In a monologue, the character is actually speaking directly to the
audience as opposed to narrating his thoughts out loud. With a soliloquy, from
the character’s point of view, there is no one else present.
VIOLENCE—in most Elizabethan plays, the
violent acts occur offstage. These acts are then reported by a character who
narrates what happened for the audience and the others onstage. Also, horrific
acts of brutality that are difficult to execute onstage are often more
effective when described than when actually shown. The audience must use their
imaginations to visualize the carnage, often creating a scene in their mind,
much worse than ever could be created on the stage.
