You don’t need to be a Shakespeare scholar to enjoy William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Mean Girls. But if you’ve come to this book with more knowledge about Plastics than playwrights, this reader’s guide may help deepen your understanding of the language and structure of the book, all of which is inspired by Shakespeare’s work.
Iambic Pentameter
Shakespeare wrote his plays in a specific syllabic pattern known as iambic pentameter. An iamb is a unit of meter, sometimes called a foot, consisting of two syllables, the first of which is unstressed, or soft, and the second of which is stressed, or emphasized. Together the two syllables of an iamb sound like “da-DUM,” as in beyond (“be-YOND”), across (“a-CROSS”), and Duvall (“du-VALL”). Pentameter is a line of verse containing five feet. So iambic pentameter consists of five iambs, or ten syllables alternating in emphasis. A famous example of this meter, with the stressed half of each iamb in bold, is:
I’d rather be a hammer than a nail.
However, Shakespeare broke the rule almost as much as he observed it. The most famous Shakespearean line of all has eleven syllables, not ten: “To be or not to be, that is the question.” That last -ion is known as a weak ending, or an unstressed syllable. Shakespeare often used weak endings, added two unstressed syllables where there should be one, and left out syllables.
Let’s see iambic pentameter in action with this speech from Act I, scene 2 (see this page).
JANIS What fire is in mine ears? What scene was this?
No glory lives behind the back of such.
The Plastics say thou dost deserve, and I
Believe it better than reportingly.
Thou hast been claim’d and thou shalt take thy claim!
Thou shalt wear pink upon the morrow, yea,
And make report of all Regina sayeth,
No matter how horrendous, rank, and vile.
If you read this speech aloud, you may notice that the dialogue sounds unnatural if spoken according to how the individual lines are broken. Rather, punctuation should guide how lines of iambic pentameter are spoken, as if the speech were written as prose. Consider lines 256–257: “The Plastics say thou dost deserve, and I / Believe it better than reportingly.” This sentence—which contains language borrowed from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing—is split across two lines. When read, the lines should naturally flow into the next. (By the way, line 260 in this speech contains an example of a weak ending.)
What about words with more than two syllables? The trick with multisyllabic words is to figure out which syllable in the word has the primary emphasis. Let’s consider the word calamity (as in P. J. Calamity’s): The primary emphasis is normally on the second syllable, calamity. In iambic pentameter, it makes sense to pronounce it as two iambs, “cala-” and “-mity.” The final syllable -ty provides a secondary stress that fits the meter nicely.
Other Shakespearean Hallmarks
The following features of a Shakespearean play are all found in William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Mean Girls.
Five acts. Plays in Shakespeare’s time were structured in five parts, drawing on the tradition of ancient Roman plays. Acts can contain any number of scenes.
Minimal stage directions. Shakespeare left it to the performers to determine who should do what on stage. I tried to do the same when writing William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Mean Girls, but this play has far more stage directions than one of Shakespeare’s would, to ensure that sequences are clear. Shakespeare never had his characters dance to a skipping CD player, after all.
Rhyming couplets at the end of scenes. A rhyming couplet is a pair of consecutive lines ending with a similar sound. For example, Act II, scene 1, lines 99–100 (see this page): “Anon I’ll tell my friends what I have seen— / This Burn Book tactless, fill’d with spirit mean.” Shakespeare ended his scenes this way to indicate a narrative shift to the audience, similar to a final cadence in music.
Asides. An aside is dialogue that the audience can hear but that the characters other than the speaker do not. These speeches often explain a character’s motivations or inner thoughts or reveal background information to the audience. We might also describe this as a character “breaking the fourth wall,” that is, crossing the imaginary divide between stage and audience to address the spectators directly.
Soliloquies. These monologues are similar to asides in that often they explain a character’s behavior or motivation. But they occur when the character is alone on stage and tend to be longer than asides.
Anaphora. Anaphora is the repetition of a word or phrase at the start of successive lines, used for rhetorical effect. Damian employs anaphora in Act I, scene 2, lines 296–299 (see this page), where he starts several lines with the phrase “Pink is.” (A similar speech appears in Shakespeare’s Henry the Sixth, Part 1, Act II, scene 4, lines 11–15.)
Stichomythia. In stichomythia, characters exchange lines of dialogue back and forth, echoing and repeating one another. An example of stichomythia appears in the final reconciliation scene among Cady, Janis, and Damian in Act V, scene 3, lines 108–114 (see this page). A similar exchange appears in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act III, scene 4, lines 9–12.
Extended metaphors. Shakespeare often draws out a metaphor in order to squeeze as much life from it as possible. One example is when Romeo and Juliet first meet and kiss in Act I, scene 5, of Romeo and Juliet; they make references to religion as an extended religious metaphor for their divine, nearly sacred love. Similarly, I used war as a metaphor in Act III, scene 5, lines 238–245 (see this page), when Cady discusses her schemes.
Songs. Shakespeare’s plays are full of songs! Sometimes playful, sometimes mystical, sometimes sorrowful, songs appear at unexpected moments and often break the rhythm of iambic pentameter. William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Mean Girls includes multiple songs adapted from the film’s soundtrack. An excerpt of my Shakespearean version of “Jingle Bell Rock” appears on this page.