Verse & Prose

Meter: a recognizable rhythm in a line of verse consisting of a pattern of regularly recurring stressed and unstressed syllables

Foot/feet: a metric “foot” refers to the combination of a strong and a weak syllable

Iamb: type of metric foot. 2 syllables – 1^st unstressed followed by a stressed syllable

Troche: opposite of Iamb strong then weak syllables

Iambic pentameter – 10 syllable line consisting of 5 iambs

Prose – ordinary speech no regular pattern or recognizable rhythm (clues: looks like a paragraph and standard capitalization rules are followed)

Couplet – two successive lines of verse.

Rhymed verse:

Rhymed couplets, two successive lines of verse of which the final words rhyme with one another. (aa,bb,cc)

Capping couplet: A single rhymed couplet can occasionally occur at the end of a speech

Heroic couplet: a rhymed couplet that is in iambic pentameter.

Blank Verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter. (can be irregularities)

Prose is used whenever verse would seem bizarre

Rhyme is used for ritualistic or choral effects or highly lyrical passages.

Blank verse is used most often because is comes close to the natural speaking rhythms of English but raises it above the ordinary.

Use these definitions to analyze the following:

    Over hill, over dale,
    Thorough bush, thorough brier,
    Over park, over pale,
    Thorough flood, thorough fire,
    I do wander everywhere,
    Swifter than the moon's sphere;
    And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
    The cowslips tall her pensioners be:
    In their gold coats spots you see;
    Those be rubies, fairy favours,
    In those freckles live their savours:
    I must go seek some dewdrops here
    And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
    Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone:
    Our queen and all our elves come here anon.

    The king doth keep his revels here to-night:
    Take heed the queen come not within his sight;
    For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
    Because that she as her attendant hath
    A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king;
    She never had so sweet a changeling;
    And jealous Oberon would have the child
    Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;
    But she perforce withholds the loved boy,
    Crowns him with flowers and makes him all her joy:
    And now they never meet in grove or green,
    By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,
    But, they do square, that all their elves for fear
    Creep into acorn-cups and hide them there.


    These are the forgeries of jealousy:
    And never, since the middle summer's spring,
    Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,
    By paved fountain or by rushy brook,
    Or in the beached margent of the sea,
    To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
    But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.
    Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
    As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
    Contagious fogs; which falling in the land
    Have every pelting river made so proud
    That they have overborne their continents:
    The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
    The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
    Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard;
    The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
    And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;
    The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,
    And the quaint mazes in the wanton green
    For lack of tread are undistinguishable:
    The human mortals want their winter here;
    No night is now with hymn or carol blest:
    Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
    Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
    That rheumatic diseases do abound:
    And thorough this distemperature we see
    The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
    Far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
    And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown
    An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
    Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer,
    The childing autumn, angry winter, change
    Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,
    By their increase, now knows not which is which:
    And this same progeny of evils comes
    From our debate, from our dissension;
    We are their parents and original.

    Set your heart at rest:
    The fairy land buys not the child of me.
    His mother was a votaress of my order:
    And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,
    Full often hath she gossip'd by my side,
    And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,
    Marking the embarked traders on the flood,
    When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive
    And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;
    Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait
    Following,--her womb then rich with my young squire,--
    Would imitate, and sail upon the land,
    To fetch me trifles, and return again,
    As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.
    But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;
And for her sake do I rear up her boy,
    And for her sake I will not part with him.

That will ask some tears in the true performing of
    it: if I do it, let the audience look to their
    eyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some
    measure. To the rest: yet my chief humour is for a
    tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to
    tear a cat in, to make all split.
    The raging rocks
And shivering shocks
    Shall break the locks
    Of prison gates;
    And Phibbus' car
    Shall shine from far
    And make and mar
    The foolish Fates.
    This was lofty! Now name the rest of the players.
    This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein; a lover is
    more condoling.


    Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and
    then you will play bare-faced. But, masters, here
    are your parts: and I am to entreat you, request
    you and desire you, to con them by to-morrow night;
    and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the
    town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse, for if
    we meet in the city, we shall be dogged with
    company, and our devices known. In the meantime I
    will draw a bill of properties, such as our play
    wants. I pray you, fail me not.

    What thou seest when thou dost wake,
    Do it for thy true-love take,
    Love and languish for his sake:
    Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,
Pard, or boar with bristled hair,
In thy eye that shall appear
    When thou wakest, it is thy dear:
    Wake when some vile thing is near.

  Lysander riddles very prettily:
    Now much beshrew my manners and my pride,
    If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied.
    But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy
    Lie further off; in human modesty,
    Such separation as may well be said
    Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,
    So far be distant; and, good night, sweet friend:
    Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end!

L    O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!
    The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.
    Happy is Hermia, wheresoe'er she lies;
    For she hath blessed and attractive eyes.
    How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears:
    If so, my eyes are oftener wash'd than hers.
    No, no, I am as ugly as a bear;
For beasts that meet me run away for fear:
    Therefore no marvel though Demetrius
    Do, as a monster fly my presence thus.
    What wicked and dissembling glass of mine
Made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne?
    But who is here? Lysander! on the ground!
Dead? or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.
    Lysander if you live, good sir, awake.