This next sentence lasts two full lines over the course of three verse lines: It’s as if Claudius has too much he wants to say to Hamlet to fit in a typical iambic pentameter line, but he also needs to pause before launching into his next sentence, because his tone shifts here from being supportive (Hamlet is “sweet and commendable” in the first line of the speech) to being more accusatory (Hamlet’s about to be called “obstinate” ). What’s created here is not only a long line (it’s really six feet long, as are two of the five lines that precede it), but one with a feminine ending, an extra unstressed syllable at its end. So what we have here is a caesura or pause between the sentences. The first sentence ends with three iambic feet (the third unstressed syllable of which is the elided “quis”, followed by what would seem to be the first syllable of the next (fourth) iambic foot, with the second syllable of “sorrow.” We would expect the next syllable to be stressed, to complete that iambic foot, and the next syllable (“But”) is stressed… but it’s not the second half of an iamb but rather the first syllable of a trochee foot (“But to”). The first sentence of his 30+ line speech lasts five and a half lines, ending with “To do obsequious sorrow” and beginning the second sentence with “But to persever” (I.ii.92). The next speech of metric interest for me is when in Act One, Scene Two, Claudius turns his attention to Hamlet and his mourning. This start-stop rhythm helps to set the tone of unease that kick-starts the play. By my rough count, there are eight such pauses in the first scene alone. Does Barnardo expect a response from Horatio? Does Horatio expect more reportage from Barnardo? Regardless, it’s another stilted moment, in a scene full of them. When Horatio asks if the Ghost has appeared, Barnardo answers, “I have seen nothing” (I.i.22). Is Barnardo waiting for Francisco to explain himself and lacking that explanation goes on himself? Does Francisco get distracted (or afraid)? Less than two dozen lines after that, we get another shortened verse line. Barnardo’s response begins its own verse line, so the clue is for there to be a pause between the two speeches. The second of the two lines ends abruptly, after just three of the five expected iambic feet. ‘Tis bitter cold, // And I am sick at heart” (I.i.8-9). For example, within the first dozen lines of the play, Francisco, one of the sentries, says, “For this relief much thanks. And so we go with Hamlet.Īs I read the play, what I noticed immediately was a large number of short verse lines, ones that would necessitate long pauses. Later writers tended to experiment with caesurae falling closer to the beginnings and ends of their lines, disrupting the sense of classical balance that Pope's verse creates.With every play, just as I like to take a look at the stage directions hidden in the dialogue, I think it’s also a good idea to take a look at how verse can give an actor some performance clues. (As I read the line, at least, there is a spondee substituted for the second iamb.) We would scan the caesura above with two vertical lines, like this:įor this / plain rea /son, || -man / is not / a fly./ Such a break is typical of Pope's carefully balanced heroic couplets, which generally place caesurae after the fourth, fifth, or sixth syllables of their ten-syllable lines. The first line has no caesura the second has one after the fifth syllable. For example, take Alexander Pope's couplet from Essay on Man:įor this plain reason,-man is not a fly. Sometimes poets signal caesurae with marks of strong punctuation such as periods, colons, semicolons, or dashes. The lines from Gray on the previous page have no caesurae they run more or less without interruption from beginning to end. "Caesurae" is the plural of caesura, which is the word for a pause in the rhythm of a line, usually signaled by a mark of punctuation.
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