1. VERSE and PROSE in MAAN Friday, 16 November 2018
jonathan peel ucgs 2014
Friday, 16 November 2018

2. Exam format
develop understanding of how authors achieve their purpose through the use of appropriate literary effects
a close knowledge and understanding of prose, poetry and drama texts and their contexts
jonathan peel ucgs 2014

3. MAAN: an Advantage
Shakespeare alternates between Prose and Verse throughout the play to assist with characterisation and to create effect.
I want give a brief reminder….
jonathan peel ucgs 2014

4. Prose Block text The writing of novels and of letters/articles.
No defined rhythmic or structural patterns
Can still include all the literary devices you know and love, such as alliteration, assonance, triplets, Rhetorical Questions and so on….
jonathan peel ucgs 2014

5. Verse In Shakespeare this is almost always: IAMBIC PENTAMETER
Basic line = 10 syllables divided into 5 “feet” comprising 1 unstressed and 1 stressed syllable… “da DUM”
Unrhymed Iambic Pentameter is called:
BLANK VERSE
jonathan peel ucgs 2014

6. Devices in Prose: a quick quiz
BENEDICK: One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well...
(Act 2, Scene 3)
BEATRICE: A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours. 
(Act 1, Scene 1)
BENEDICK: I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabour and the pipe: I have known when he would have walked ten mile a-foot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake, carving the fashion of a new doublet.
(Act 2 Scene 3)  
LEONATO: There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her…
(Act 1, Scene 1) 
jonathan peel ucgs 2014

7. PROSE ¾ of the play is in prose
The Verse is the exception and stands out
PROSE convention: lower status, down to earth, clowning and wit, lacking in passion
Consider:
If audience expect the high status characters to speak in verse, what might Shakespeare be suggesting about these characters if the convention is broken?
jonathan peel ucgs 2014

8. Convention
Benedick very rarely uses verse, other than when trying to compose a sonnet – and failing.
Skirmishes of wit and monologues about marriage all in prose
Elizabethans expect marriage – Benedick is a rebel and maybe his prose delivery supports the idea of him being outside polite society in some way
There is a hint of the rhetoric of the law court in his early monolgues in 1:1 and 2:1. Is he giving evidence? Making a deliberate point about society which Shakespeare needs to be argued carefully?
jonathan peel ucgs 2014

9. Convention (Women)
Beatrice is equally prose-bound. She shares wit and debate with Benedick and the other men in prose.
Even at the height of her passion in 4.1, she persuades Benedick in prose…
Only verse in 3.1 when she has been gulled, at the end of an entirely verse scene… excited at love? A natural outpouring in contrast to the more reasoned thought shown elsewhere?
jonathan peel ucgs 2014

10. Ideas:
Ben and Bea seem down to earth and stand apart from the conventions of the day. They are older than the other pair of lovers and have “seen it all before”.
Claudio uses verse extensively, first when declaring his love in 1.1 and again when his passions overflow in the ball scene 2.1
In 4.1 he drives the scene in verse which is echoed by other establishment figures – Leonato and the Friar.
jonathan peel ucgs 2014

11. audience
Expect verse from high status characters and are surprised when it is not there. Listen more closely?
Verse is easier to follow –generally syntactically more simple and flows to lead the listener onward
Prose is complex, structurally as example…
The devices stand out clearly in prose and do not get subsumed into the flow of the poetry: legal speeches.
jonathan peel ucgs 2014

12. A message:
If poetry is “higher form” then Shakespeare presents a world in which the down to earth and practical view carries the day.
Play ends in prose – the subversion of social norms has not been overturned
Love is not all poetry and frippery, but is a much more fundamental and earthy emotion
DJ is prose-bound, as is Ben: no great difference between “good” and “evil”
jonathan peel ucgs 2014

13. For you:
No need for digression, but you should notice the shifts – especially the rare moments where verse takes over.
The use of prose or verse is part of the definition of character
Verse is often representative of high passion, but it is not always a truthful or fundamental emotion that is represented.
jonathan peel ucgs 2014