‘A revelation to actors and readers of Shakespeare’ — John Bell Rhythm and Meaning in SHAKESPEARE A Guide for Readers and Actors Peter Groves | i Rhythm and Meaning in Shakespeare ii | Rhythm and Meaning in Shakespeare | iii Rhythm and Meaning in SHAKESPEARE A Guide for Readers and Actors Peter Groves iv | Rhythm and Meaning in Shakespeare © Copyright 2013 Peter Groves All rights reserved. Apart from any uses permitted by Australia’s Copyright Act 1968, no part of this book may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the copyright owners. Inquiries should be directed to the publisher. Monash University Publishing Building 4, Monash University Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia www.publishing.monash.edu Monash University Publishing brings to the world publications which advance the best traditions of humane and enlightened thought. Monash University Publishing titles pass through a rigorous process of independent peer review. www.publishing.monash.edu/books/rms-9781921867811.html Design: Les Thomas National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Author: Groves, Peter, author. Title: Rhythm and meaning in shakespeare : a guide for readers and actors / Peter Groves. ISBN: 9781921867811 (paperback) Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Subjects: Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Literary style. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Language. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Technique. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Dramatic production. Dewey Number: 822.33 Printed in Australia by Griffin Press an Accredited ISO AS/NZS 14001:2004 Environmental Management System printer. The paper this book is printed on is certified against the Forest Stewardship Council ® Standards. Griffin Press holds FSC chain of custody certification SGS-COC-005088. FSC promotes environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world’s forests. | v To the memory of “these gentle three”: Roy Groves (1922 – 2007) John Oliver (1942 – 2006) Nicholas Sabin (1949 – 2007) vi | Rhythm and Meaning in Shakespeare “Peter Groves’ book will come as a revelation to actors and readers of Shakespeare. With a shortage of formal training and a desperation to be ‘natural’, many actors today ignore or even resist the literary conventions and devices embedded in Shakespeare’s plays. “Dr Groves’ intensive and illuminating study demonstrates how an appreciation of Shakespeare’s use of metre, stress and rhythm, along with many attendant subtleties, will inform actors’ understanding of a text and allow them to soar beyond the bounds of mere ‘naturalism’, to delight the ear as well as the intellect of an audience.” —John Bell, Bell Shakespeare “It is beautifully written, rich with meaning, humorous and deeply knowledgeable, with a full feeling for the life of the stage. Groves analyses the way that Shakespeare uses speech to create and reinforce meaning: and in so doing he engages in an alive and alert way with many of the complexities this entails. He really understands that speaking verse provides the key to ‘living’ a part, and I love the colorful economy of his language – it is full of down-to-earth metaphor, which is really engaging and delightful … This is one of the most originally conceived and useful books I’ve read for a long while.” —Philippa Kelly, California Shakespeare Theatre | vii “I pray you, mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly.” (As You Like It 3.2.261-2) viii | Rhythm and Meaning in Shakespeare Acknowledgements I would like to thank John Bell and Philippa Kelly for their wise and generous remarks on an earlier draft, and my other friends and colleagues Alan Dilnot, Geoff Hiller and John Bigelow, my friends in the Melbourne Shakespeare Society and the Monash University Shakespeare Company, and my students at Monash University, for many enjoyable discussions of that inexhaustible writer. I would also like to thank Alice Watson and Joanne Mullins, whose scrupulous copy-editing has saved me from many an embarrassing blunder. Contents | ix Contents Introduction . xiii A Note on Jargon ..........................................xxiii 1. Prosody – The Music of Speech .................................1 §1.1: Syllables...............................................3 §1.1.1: Schwa and Half-syllables ..............................3 §1.1.2: Schwa and Elasticity..................................4 §1.1.3: Counting Syllables ...................................5 §1.1.4: Kinds of Contraction .................................6 §1.1.5: Restorables (expanded forms peculiar to Shakespeare’s English) . 9 §1.1.6: Transitions between Syllables..........................10 §1.2: Lexical Stress: Major, Minor and Weak.....................11 §1.2.1: Word Classes ......................................11 §1.2.2: Major or ‘A’ Stress ..................................12 §1.2.3: Minor or ‘B’ Stress..................................12 §1.2.4: Weak or ‘O’ Stress . .13 §1.3: Accent: High and Low Syllables ..........................14 §1.3.1: Normal or ‘Default’ Accent ...........................14 §1.3.2: The Tone-unit: Breaks, Cuts, Cracks and Flaws ...........15 §1.3.3: Plonking..........................................18 §1.3.4: Contrastive and Focal Accent .........................20 §1.4: Syntactic Stress ........................................25 §1.4.1: Subordinate or ‘a’ Stress ..............................25 §1.4.2: Inhibited or ‘Ō’ Stress ...............................26 x | Rhythm and Meaning in Shakespeare §1.5: Beats: The Timing of Syllables ............................26 §1.5.1: Stress, Accent and Beats..............................27 §1.5.2: Unstressed Beats ...................................27 §1.5.3 Silent Beats .......................................28 2. Pentameter and its Common Variations .......................30 §2.1: The Prototype: Verse and Line ............................30 §2.2: Changing the Pattern (Metrical Variation) ..................34 §2.2.1: The Reversal.......................................35 §2.2.2: Performing Medial Reversals . .38 §2.2.3: The Swap .........................................42 §2.2.4: Performing Swaps ..................................45 §2.2.5: The 28 Templates and the Tail, or ‘Feminine’ Ending ........48 §2.3: Changing the Representation of the Pattern (Prosodic Variation). 50 §2.3.1: Weak Beats (beats realised by weak syllables) .............51 §2.3.2: Performing Weak Beats..............................52 §2.3.3: Strong Offbeats (offbeats realised by stressed syllables) . .53 §2.3.4: Harsh Mapping (beat realised by subordinate stress) .......54 §2.3.5: Awkward Mapping (beat realised by influenced syllable) . 56 §2.3.6: Contraction and Expansion of Words in Performance ......58 §2.4: Other Variations in Rhythm .............................60 §2.4.1: Phrasing ..........................................61 §2.4.2: Syllabification .....................................61 §2.4.3: Prosodic Figures: The Golden Line: o A o O o A o O o A ....62 §2.4.4: Prosodic Figures: The Balanced Line: o A o A o O o A o A...63 3. Pauses, Breaks and Transitions ................................64 §3.1: Pauses and Short Lines..................................64 §3.1.1: Mid-line Break (‘Caesura’)............................69 §3.1.2: Final Pause: Endstopping and Running On ..............71 §3.2: Transitions Between Speakers . 76 §3.2.1: Shared or Divided Lines (Part-lines)....................76 §3.2.2: Stichomythia ......................................80 Contents | xi 4. The Short Pentameter 1: Silent Offbeats .......................82 §4.1: The ‘Jolt’ .............................................84 §4.1.1: The Initial Jolt (‘Headless Line’) .......................84 §4.1.2: The Medial Jolt ....................................87 §4.1.3: The Transitional Jolt.................................94 §4.2: The ‘Drag’............................................99 5. The Short Pentameter 2: Silent Beats .........................103 §5.1: Rests that Cue Stage Business ...........................104 §5.2: Rests that Cue Expressive Gestures .......................109 §5.3: The Deictic Rest ......................................116 §5.4: Multiple Lacunae .....................................123 6. Other Kinds of Verse in the Plays .............................126 §6.1: Short and Long Lines in Blank Verse .....................126 §6.1.1: Short Lines.......................................126 §6.1.2: Long Lines (Alexandrines) ..........................127 §6.2: Rhymed Verse .......................................128 §6.2.1: The Pentameter Couplet ............................129 §6.2.2: The Pentameter Stanza .............................132 §6.2.3: Rhymed Alexandrines..............................133 §6.2.4: The Septenary or ‘Fourteener’ (‘Iambic Heptameter’) ......133 §6.2.5: The Iambic Tetrameter Couplet.......................135 §6.2.6: The Four-beat Heptasyllabic Couplet ..................135 §6.2.7: Doggerel ........................................138 7. Taking it Further: Metrical Analysis .......................... 140 §7.1: What is Scansion (and Why is it Useful)?...................140 §7.2: Prosodic Politics: Independence, Domination and Liberation ...140 §7.2.1: Inhibition ........................................142 §7.2.2: Table of Prosodic Politics............................142 §7.2.3: Liberation........................................143 §7.3: Scanning Elastic Words ................................144 xii | Rhythm and Meaning in Shakespeare §7.4: Context and Accent