CHAPTER 44

glossary of terms

These terms are defined as they apply to acting Shakespeare.

Alexandrine—a six-foot verse line, usually with twelve syllables, e.g., “A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich;” (MV, III, ii). Also called iambic hexameter.

alliteration—sequential words beginning with the same letter, e.g., Antony’s “For I have neither writ, nor words, nor worth,” (JC, III, ii).

ambiguity—uncertainty of meaning or intention; double meaning in a word or phrase; opposite of being clear or certain. The actor must play both the surface meaning and the second meaning, e.g., after being fatally wounded by Tybalt, Mercutio remarks, “Ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man.” (Rom, III, i), or Lady Macbeth’s comment about smearing Duncan’s servants with blood: “If he do bleed, I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal” (Mac, II, ii).

anapest—a foot containing three syllables, the first two unstressed, the third stressed. An anapestic foot. “To be THUS / is NOTH /ing; BUT / to be SAFE / ly THUS” (Mac, III, i). Common for words like “amputee” or “put it up.” See Delbert Spain’s Shakespeare Sounded Soundly for study.

anomaly—irregularity; a deviation from the common form; lines which depart from the regular blank verse line, such as those with four or six feet per line, rather than five, or a trochaic measure.

antithesis—opposing words or ideas set against each other, for example, “To be, or not to be—” (Ham, III, i), or “Give me liberty or give me death.”

blank verse—unrhymed verse, especially unrhymed iambic pentameter.

caesura—a sense break in a blank verse line. Nearly every line will take a caesura after the second or third foot. Also used to set up a single word.

dactyl—a foot containing three syllables, the first stressed followed by two unstressed. A dactylic foot. Common with words like “memory” or “frequently.”

elision—omitting a vowel, which results in a shortened word or words, for example, int’rest for interest, degen’rate for degenerate, virt’ous for virtuous, rev’rend for reverend. Also: “I had rather be a dog and bay the moon” (JC, IV, iii) (elide “I had” to “I’d”), or “Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments” (MND, I, i) (elide “Athenian” to “Athen’an”), or “An honest tale speeds best being plainly told” (R3, IV, iv) (elide “being” to “be’ng”).

feminine ending—the unstressed eleventh syllable in a blank verse line, e.g., “To be, /or not / to be—/ that is / the ques / tion:” (Ham, III, i).

iamb—a foot of two syllables, the first unstressed and the second stressed.

iambic pentameter—a verse line of five iambs, or ten syllables.

imagery—word pictures; mental images, e.g., “Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,” (Rom, III, ii).

irony—the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning (Webster), e.g., Mark Antony says to the crowd, “And Brutus is an honorable man.” (JC, III, ii) Because of its double meaning, irony is always ambiguous.

metaphor—a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance (Webster), e.g., “It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!” (Rom, II, i), or “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,” (Mac, V, v).

meter—the measured arrangement of words into a specific pattern, e.g., lines of five feet (each foot is a meter), where each foot has two syllables.

onomatopoeia—a word made by imitation of a sound, e.g., “bang,” “mock.”

oxymoron—a figure of speech that is an impossible statement, usually an adjective modifying a contradictory noun, e.g., Romeo’s “cold fire.” (Rom, I, i)

pyrrhic—a foot consisting of two unstressed syllables back to back. A pyrrhic foot.

rhythm—the recurring pattern of strong and weak accents within the meter, e.g., dee dum, dee dum, dee dum, dee dum, dee dum.

scansion—analyzing and marking the metrical stresses and caesuras in a verse line.

simile—a figure of speech in which dissimilar things are compared using “like” or “as,” e.g., “She would be as swift in motion as a ball;” (Rom, II, v), or “O sland’rous world! Kate like a hazel-twig/Is straight and slender, and as brown in hue/As hazel nuts and sweeter than the kernels.” (The previous two lines include two similes and a metaphor.) (Shr, II, i), or “The quality of mercy is not strained;/It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven” (MV, IV, i).

soliloquy—a solo speech, often delivered to the audience or camera.

spondee—a foot consisting of two equally stressed syllables. A spondaic foot. Example: “green light.”

trochaic foot or trochee—a two-syllable foot, like the iamb, but with the first syllable stressed and the second unstressed. Often the first foot in a line, e.g., “Let me not think on’t; frailty, thy name is woman—” (Ham, I, ii), or midline, e.g., “From ancient grudge break to new mutiny” (Rom, Pro).