Iambic Pentameter and the Bard's use of language is why so few actors and actresses can actually manage to do Shakespearean acting any justice at all. I started watching these films to prepare my A Midsummer Night's Dream interactive reading journal for my middle school ESL students and now I watch because it fascinates me. I've always known that only a select few actors can manage Shakespeare with any form of skill, however, this shows the nuances and intensity that is needed for the actual role one plays. Bravo to the coaches and the actors and actresses in these videos. Bravo, indeed! Very well done!
The scansion on the line from Romeo & Juliet is off. "Gallop" is a trochee, not an iamb. And the line starts with a strong stress. Yes, the line overall is predominantly iambic. But it's not the best representation of a line of perfect iambic pentameter. Unless it can be demonstrated that "gallop" might have been pronounced with the strong stress on "op" in the early modern period...(but I don't think that's the case).
Yes, "gallop" is a trochee! And I've never heard any rendition of Elizabethan/Jacobean English that pronounces it with an emphasis anywhere but on the "ga", unless you frame it as a deliberate choice by the actor (which could also be made today).
I never understood metre when studying sixth form lit - it always seemed like an overly contrived extravagance, and maybe it is - but this demonstration helped me reassess somewhat.
The aural division between verse and prose was much more pronounced and obvious in performance in the original context. If actors used a similar style today, people would think it silly.
It’s subtle but listen to Lear “Blow WINDS and CRACK your CHEEKS, rage, BLOW, you CATarACTS and HURriCANEos! SPOUT…” It’s there, subtly, when done right. Assuming I even got the rhythm right🥴
My entire grade depends on this video please answer these 1. Iambic pentameter is similar to what human function? 2. How many feet or in one line of iambic pentameter? 3. How can the verse help the actor understand the text?
Can you imagine Shakespeare living today and seeing people still doing this stuff with his work? “Why f*** has not thou come up with anything new?!?!?!?!?!?”
3:41 Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night, Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun.
