Barbour- Payne| Acting Shakespeare Scansion Lesson

Name: Acting Shakespeare: Scansion 1:1 February 23,2023

Hook: What do we know about Shakespearean rhetoric scansion so far? What terms have we practiced identifying?

Today’s Objective: Students will be able to define and identify the elements of scansion.
Class Goal: 100% of students will be able to confidently interpret Shakespeare language (prose/ verse) for performance.

Introduction to New Material: Metric Feet

Metrical Foot My Example Yours(*Instapol)
Iamb (Iambic): Unstressed +
Stressed

Trochee (Trochaic): Stressed +

Unstressed

Spondee (Spondaic): Stressed

+ Stressed

Dactyl (Dactylic): Stressed +

Unstressed + Unstressed

Anapest (Anapestic):
Unstressed + Unstressed +
Stressed

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Pyrrhic (Pyrrhic): Unstressed +

Unstressed
Amphibrach (Amphibrachic):
Unstressed + Stressed +
Unstressed

Let’s practice! Determine the Metrical Foot in Boyet’s dialogue by first annotating/ scoring the stressed and unstressed syllables
BOYET
If my observation, which very seldom lies,
By the heart's still rhetoric disclosed with eyes,
Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.
(*Instapol: Is this an example of verse or prose?)

Review: What is the difference between verse and prose in Shakespeare? How do you know?

Visit this resource for more information of Feet and Meter in Shakespeare:
http://shakespearestudyguide.com/meter.html#:~:text=Shakespeare%20used%20iambic%20pentameter%20as%20the%20dominant
%20meter%20in%20his%20plays.&text=Some%20feet%20in%20verse%20and,followed%20by%20a%20stressed%20one.

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Introducing Lines of Verse in Shakespeare

Group Activity: Perform a Meter/ Foot Combo from the Worksheet.

Group 1: Iambic Pentameter “Om His Blindness”
Group 2: Mixed Meter with Iambic Feet “Intimations of Immortality
Group 3: Anapestic Tetrameter “The Destruction of Sennacherib”
Group 4: Trochaic Tetrameter “The Tyger: by William Blake

Visit this resource to locate your Group’s script!: http://shakespearestudyguide.com/meter.html#:~:text=Shakespeare%20used

%20iambic%20pentameter%20as%20the%20dominant%20meter%20in%20his%20plays.&text=Some%20feet%20in%20verse
%20and,followed%20by%20a%20stressed%20one.

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Introducing Rhyme in Shakespeare: Annotate Sonnet 121 for rhyme and stressed/unstressed

Let’s Practice with Love’s Labor’s Lost

BOYET
If my observation, which very seldom lies,
By the heart's still rhetoric disclosed with eyes,
Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.

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Independent Practice: Look at Biron’s Monologue from Act One, Scene One
BIRON
Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain,
Which with pain purchased doth inherit pain:
As, painfully to pore upon a book
To seek the light of truth; while truth the while
Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look:
Light seeking light doth light of light beguile:
So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,
Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.
Study me how to please the eye indeed
By fixing it upon a fairer eye,
Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed
And give him light that it was blinded by.
Study is like the heaven's glorious sun
That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks:
Small have continual plodders ever won
Save base authority from others' books
These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights
That give a name to every fixed star
Have no more profit of their shining nights
Than those that walk and wot not what they are.

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Too much to know is to know nought but fame;

And every godfather can give a name.

Criteria of Success
1. Identity if this is a verse or prose line- How do you know (Verse has ten syllables
2. Break the monologue lines into metrical feet/ Iambs ( Stressed and unstressed)
3. Identify the meter
4. Identify any imperfect lines
5. Score the rhyming scheme
6. Notate for irregular endings _ Here are just some:
o -feminine ending
o -trochee
o -monosyllabic
o -abutting consonants
After you identify any irregularities suggest potential options for what they might mean below: