The phrase iambic pentameter is simply the name given to the rhythm that Shakespeare
and many other writers of his time used in their plays, just like the rhythm a musician
might use when writing a song.
The rhythm of iambic pentameter is a heartbeat de-dum, so a iambic pentameter is simply five
heartbeats, de-dum, de-dum, de-dum, de-dum, de-dum.
So, let's have a little look at this in terms of the iambic, I always feel that I need to
experience it somehow, to physicalise the rhythm for me is just a way of it gives me
an experience of what the meter is doing on the page.
So, if you take you hand and just place it on to your chest and just do a little, up,
down so we're just going to make that one little beat the most musical beat we've done
today. So, we're just going to be a up, down, up, down, very nice.
So, let's see where Juliet is, she might be in iambic pentameter, she might not, who knows,
so let's see. Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds.
Is that in? Yes
Yeah, it is good. Cause there are some of these lines that feel
so satisfying when they land in that rhythm and similarly when they don't, it's like hum,
what's going on? Iambic pentameter is a really useful tool
for actors, because the rhythm helps give structure to the language.
When we are excited, angry or in love, our heat beat changes, in the same way changes
how characters use the iambic pentameter can give us an insight to the emotional and mental
state. Let's just do that again, come, night.
Come, night, come, Romeo; come, thou day in night.
So, Could shorten the name?
You could condense Romeo to rather than Ro-me-o to Ro-meo
Ro-meo Come, night, come, Ro-meo; come, thou day
in night. That makes it fit but again there's something
about the fact that Romeo's name in the middle as well.
Yeah It feels like, if you kept it Romeo then the
night becomes much stronger, it's like the yearning is pushing beyond the iambic pentameter.
Yeah, the yearning to push beyond the meter, that's very nice.
It does feel though that because we have had such a long, sort of time in rhythm and the
fact that her first line is gallop apace, it feels like there is something actually
if we can keep it in the rhythm of that, it sorts of feels like it's start to take on
its own momentum and that you of course, get use to saying someone’s name, you might
not say Ro-me-o you'd say Ro-meo, so it comes more spoken in that way.
It's like what you say there, gallop apace you can hear the horses galloping and it feels
like that in the rhythm. Yes
The fiery-footed steeds, she kind of speaking as the fiery-footed steeds.
Yes, it feels like it gets faster somehow. Yeah
Can we just go from the top of the second page
Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night and do it all together to see how much
momentum we can get through that last little bit, and
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.
Very nice, it is a real drive to it, isn't there?
It is actually easier the faster you go. Yes
You don't have time to think about the rhythm, it just happens naturally, it just flows out.
Yes, I think that's definite the case with this speech and definitely the case, I mean
the fact that you are feeling that, might reflect something of what Juliet feels in
this moment, you know that the fact that she's saying, come, there so many
Yes Breathless, she feels breathless.
Yeah Particularly when we're speeding up, there
is a lack of breath in it. Yeah
You know in some verse speeches and some moments there feels like actually real weight to the
down beats, but this does feel like, sort of trips along and they are all clues that
we find, and they help you figure out how one might read this speech.