Shakespearean

phonology
 a subfield of linguistics that studies the systematic

Phonology - organization and patterns of sounds in human languages. It

deals with the sound structure of languages, focusing on the
way sounds function and interact within a system.

Segmental Phonology NON Segmental Phonology

HOW YOU SAY

WHAT YOU SAY PITCH
SPOKEN VOWELS LOUDNESS
AND CONSONANTS TEMPO
(MAKING RHYTHM
SYLLABLES) TONE OF VOICE

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

TRANSLATION ACT 2, SCENE 2
From the allusions to tone of voice in Shakespeare, we can sense that the way the language worked
then was pretty much the same as it works now. Human linguistic nature has not changed much over
the past 400 years. we can use our knowledge of how spoken language works today as a way in to
understanding how it must have worked in the past. We can use our modern phonological intuitions to
make some deductions about how it must have been, using as evidence the graphology of the texts, as
well as the observations of those sixteenth-century authors who wrote about the ‘art’ of poetry and
style. Much of the latter falls under the heading of what is today called prosody, the study of
versification. (the art or practice of composing verse, which is a form of language characterized by
metrical structure)

(P.102) SPEECH CAN VARY IN PITCH, BOTH IN THE SENSE OF BEING ‘HIGH/LOW PITCHED’:
CLEO. DIDST HEARE HER SPEAKE? IS SHE SHRILL TONGU’D OR LOW?’ MES. MADAM, I HEARD HER
SPEAKE, SHE IS LOW VOIC’D.
AND ‘SPEAKING AT A HIGH LEVEL’:
IN CLAMOURS OF ALL SIZE BOTH HIGH AND LOW
IT CAN VARY IN LOUDNESS, BEING EITHER SOFT, AS WITH CORDELIA:
HER VOICE WAS EUER SOFT, GENTLE, AND LOW,
OR LOUD, AS WITH THE COMMON PEOPLE:
CLAPPING THEIR HANDS, AND CRYING WITH LOUD VOYCE
OR VERY LOUD, AS WITH SOME ACTORS:
TO SPLIT THE EARES OF THE GROUNDLINGS
OR UNBELIEVABLY LOUD, AS WITH ANTONY: HE WAS AS RATLING THUNDER
 Rhythm - a fundamental property of phonology
RHYTHM IS AN OBLIGATORY FEATURE OF ALL NORMAL UTTERANCE, WHETHER VERSE OR PROSE,
ORATORY OR EVERYDAY SPEECH. THE PULSES OF STRESS-TIMED SPEECH ARE ALWAYS THERE,
REGARDLESS OF THE MELODY (INTONATION), LOUDNESS, SPEED, AND TONE OF VOICE OF THE
SPEAKER. IT IS POSSIBLE TO HAVE A GOOD RHYTHM WITHOUT ANY INTONATION AT ALL, AS WHEN WE
SPEAK IN A MONOTONE; BUT IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO HAVE GOOD INTONATION WITHOUT A GOOD
RHYTHM. RHYTHM IS THE ORGANIZING PRINCIPLE OF UTTERANCE.

WE BREAK OUR UTTERANCE UP INTO RHYTHM-UNITS. THESE UNITS ALSO DISPLAY A PATTERN OF
INTONATION – A SEQUENCE OF PITCHES (OR TONES) WHICH FALL, RISE, OR STAY LEVEL.

THE BASIS OF A WIDELY USED CLASSIFICATION OF MANY LANGUAGES INTO TWO BROAD TYPES:
STRESS-TIMED AND SYLLABLE-TIMED. ENGLISH IS A STRESS-TIMED LANGUAGE: THE BEATS OF
RHYTHM (STRESSES) FALL AT ROUGHLY REGULAR INTERVALS, PRODUCING AN AUDITORY EFFECT
‘TUM-TE-TUM-TE- TUM’. SOME PEOPLE HAVE CALLED IT THE ‘HEARTBEAT’ OF ENGLISH. BY CONTRAST,
FRENCH IS A SYLLABLE-TIMED LANGUAGE: EACH SYLLABLE CARRIES A STRESS, SO THAT THE
AUDITORY EFFECT IS MORE LIKE ‘RAT-A-TAT-A-TAT’.
What is the difference between ordinary speech (prose) and poetry or verse?

It lies in the way the rhythm is organized. In everyday speech, we do not notice the
rhythm, although it is there. In verse, rhythm is there to be noticed. That is what it is
for.

In the Middle Ages, poets aimed for precise stress-timing in their verse, following
rules within specific verse lines and emphasizing certain stress patterns. This
disciplined approach, known as meter, involved introducing variations to achieve
specific effects. Meter refers to the rhythmic organization of verse lines, evaluated
based on Classical rules governing the number of rhythmical units and types of
strong and weak syllable combinations.That kind of rhythmical censorship is out of
fashion now (vers libre, ‘free verse’ meant essentially: ‘verse in which the traditional
metrical rules were disregarded’); but in Elizabethan times the Classical model held
sway, and poets were scrupulous about paying attention to it. To break away from it
was a feat of poetic daring.
George Puttenham’s Art of English Poesie (1589)

It is said by such as professe the Mathematicall sciences, that all things stand by
proportion, and that without it nothing could stand to be good or beautiful.

HE KNOWS THAT ENGLISH IS A VERY DIFFERENT LANGUAGE FROM LATIN AND

GREEK, AND HAS DIFFERENT ‘NATURALL’ RHYTHMS BUT HE THINKS ENGLISH
POETS COULD NOT DO BETTER THAN FOLLOW THE CLASSICAL MODEL. (P.109)

SHAKESPEARE WAS WELL ABLE TO FOLLOW THE PATTERN OF ‘ANCIENT FEET’

WHEN HE WANTED TO. AND WELL ABLE TO DEPART FROM IT WHEN HE DIDN’T.

THE SIGNIFICANCE LIES NOT JUST IN THE PRESENCE OF RHYTHM IN

POETRY BUT IN THE CONTRASTS BETWEEN DIFFERENT RHYTHMS. IF
EVERY LINE HAD THE SAME RHYTHM, IT WOULD LOSE ITS IMPACT. THE
POWER EMERGES WHEN A SENSE OF AUDITORY FAMILIARITY IS
DISRUPTED BY A SHIFT TO A DIFFERENT RHYTHM, CREATING A
HEIGHTENED AWARENESS AND IMPACT.
 Phonetic purpose Phonological purpose

Ban’ ban’ Cacalyban The purpose is to draw attention to particular

Has a new Master, get a new Man. (The words or phrases, so that the relationship
between their meaning is highlited
Tempest)

I am your wife, if you will marrie me;

When Jasper Britton played Caliban in the
If not, Ile die your maid: to be your fellow
Globe’s production in 2000, he chanted
You may denie me, but Ile be your seruant
these lines to the audience, who
Whether you will or no. (The Tempest)
enthusiastically took up the rhythm, shouting
and clapping along with him at top volume The speech ends with a string of sense
for over a minute. This was a purely relationships: wife and marry, marry and maid,
phonetic use of rhythm. It added nothing to wife and maid, marry and fellow, fellow and
the meaning of the words in the line. It just servant. It is not difficult to understand what is
provided an enjoyable auditory experience. being said, but it is only possible to understand it
if the nouns and verbs are brought into a dynamic
relationship through the use of rhythm.
 Pentameter -
a verse line consisting of five rhythmical units
THE FAVOURITE PATTERN OF THE ELIZABETHAN ERA IS
THE IAMBIC PENTAMETER (A SEQUENCE OF FIVE FEET,
EACH FOOT CONSISTING OF A ‘TE-TUM’ UNIT OF STRESS-
TIMING).
THE MOST NOTICEABLE FEATURE OF THIS KIND OF
WRITING IS THE WAY EACH LINE CONSISTS OF THE SAME
RHYTHMICAL PATTERN FOLLOWED BY A PAUSE.

IN SHAKESPEARE’S EARLY WORK, THERE ARE SPEECHES

WHICH CONSIST OF NOTHING ELSE, AS IN THIS ONE FROM
THE DUKE OF BEDFORD (P.113)

WE MIGHT CONTRAST AT THIS POINT THE EXTRACT FROM

‘THE TEMPEST’ ABOVE, WHICH COMES FROM THE OTHER
END OF SHAKESPEARE’S WRITING CAREER.
 APART FROM THE (NONSEGMENTAL)
RELATIONSHIPS WE PERCEIVE THROUGH RHYTHM,
THERE ARE ALSO (SEGMENTAL) PATTERNS
RELATING SOME OF THE WORDS. THE MOST
NOTICEABLE EFFECT COMES FROM THE REPEATED
INITIAL CONSONANTS OF STRESSED WORDS
(ALLITERATION) IN DARE, DESIRE, AND DIE,
BIGGER, BULKE AND BASHFUL, PROMPT AND
PLAINE, MARRIE AND MAID, AND THEN AGAIN DIE
AND DENY. IT IS AN IMPORTANT FEATURE OF
ENGLISH POETRY BECAUSE ENGLISH IS NOT A
LANGUAGE THAT NATURALLY ALLITERATES IN
EVERYDAY SPEECH.

THESE LINES ARE FULL OF VARIATIONS AND

SURPRISES. FOUR LINES HAVE NO END
PUNCTUATION, THE SENSE RUNNING ON INTO THE
NEXT LINE, THERE WE FIND AN ASSOCIATED MID-
LINE BREAK – WHAT IS CALLED THE ‘CESURE’
(MODERN CAESURA, A LATIN WORD MEANING
‘CUTTING’) – MARKED VARIOUSLY BY A COMMA,
SEMI-COLON, COLON, OR PERIOD, SUGGESTING
DIFFERENT DEGREES OF PAUSE.
One of the most important signs of Shakespeare’s development as a poet is the way
he manipulates the rhythmical properties of lines.

Sometimes three or more people share a line with each assigned a single short
utterance. In King John (3.3.64) a single metrical line is broken up four times. The
contrast between the leisurely rhythm of the longer lines before and after this
exchange is striking. Sharing the lines gives a clear indication to the actors to
increase the tempo of the interaction, which in turn conveys an increased sense of
dramatic momentum. There is a noticeable trend to use them more frequently over
time – an interesting index of Shakespeare’s maturing control over the dramatic
representation of a conversation. In the early plays, few characters swop part-lines
in this way; but the proportion steadily increases. (p.116)
 IN OLD ENGLISH POETRY, THE CHIEF RULE THAT MADE ORAL PERFORMANCE SPECIAL INVOLVED A
MIXTURE OF RHYTHM AND ALLITERATION: THE RHYTHM/TONE-UNITS WERE TYPICALLY ORGANIZED
INTO PAIRS, EACH LINKED BY TWO STRONG STRESSES AND REPEATED INITIAL SOUNDS.

IN MIDDLE ENGLISH, THE FASHION CHANGED, ESPECIALLY UNDER FRENCH INFLUENCE, AND RHYME
BECAME THE NORMAL INDEX OF POETIC EXPRESSION – THE REPETITION OF A SYLLABLE (SOMETIMES
MORE THAN ONE SYLLABLE) AT THE END OF LINES.

RHYMING IS ITSELF A DEPARTURE FROM THE RULES OF ENGLISH SPEECH, WHERE WORDS DO NOT
NORMALLY RHYME. RHYME, THEN, IS AN EXCELLENT WAY OF TELLING LISTENERS THAT SOMETHING
LINGUISTICALLY SPECIAL IS GOING ON. IT WORKS BY DRAWING ATTENTION TO THE ENDS OF
RHYTHM/TONE-UNITS – TYPICALLY AT THE ENDS OF LINES, AS THEY WOULD APPEAR IN WRITING.

SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS AND NARRATIVE POEMS FALL FIRMLY WITHIN THE RHYMING TRADITION.
USING THE CONVENTION OF IDENTIFYING LINES WHICH RHYME BY THE SAME LETTER OF THE
ALPHABET, WE FIND SUCH RHYME-SCHEMES AS:
THE SIX-LINE STANZA (СТРОФА), AS USED IN VENUS AND ADONIS AND THE RAPE OF LUCRECE:
ABABCC
THE SEVEN-LINE STANZA, AS USED IN A LOVER’S COMPLAINT: ABABBCC
􏰁 THE FOURTEEN-LINE SONNET: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
 RHYME STAYED POPULAR IN A GREAT DEAL OF POETRY, BUT FROM THE MID-SIXTEENTH CENTURY IT
FELL OUT OF FASHION AS A TECHNIQUE IN POETIC DRAMA. IT WAS REPLACED BY BLANK VERSE – A
TERM WHICH MEANS SIMPLY ‘VERSE THAT DOES NOT RHYME’

RHYME DID NOT DISAPPEAR FROM PLAYS ENTIRELY. IT IS A PROMINENT FEATURE IN THE DIALOGUE
BETWEEN LOVERS AND FAIRIES IN A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, FOR EXAMPLE, AND IT TURNS UP
FROM TIME TO TIME IN SOME OF SHAKESPEARE’S OTHER PLAYS, SUCH AS ROMEO AND JULIET. BUT
THE GENERAL IMPRESSION IS THAT IT IS USED SPARINGLY AND FOR SPECIAL EFFECTS
IT IS ALSO FREQUENTLY USED TO SIGNAL THE END OF A SCENE, WHERE THE AUDIENCE IS GIVEN
NOTICE, AS IT WERE, THAT AN END IS APPROACHING BY BEING PRESENTED WITH A RHYMING COUPLET
OR SOME SIMILAR DEVICE.

FOR NEUER WAS A STORIE OF MORE WO,

THEN THIS OF IULIET, AND HER ROMEO.

IF RHYMES ARE RULED OUT AS A MEANS OF MAKING DRAMATIC POETRY SPECIAL, WHAT ALTERNATIVE
IS LEFT?

WITH RHYME OUT OF FASHION AS AN END-LINE MARKER, THE APPEAL OF THE IAMBIC PENTAMETER
WAS THAT IT OFFERED A NATURAL ALTERNATIVE, FOCUSING ON LENGTH.
 WHY PENTAMETER?

1) THE PENTAMETER COMES CLOSEST TO THE WAY OUR BRAIN PROCESSES EVERYDAY
SPEECH. IF WE EXAMINE THE LENGTH OF RHYTHM IN NORMAL CONVERSATION, WE FIND
THAT 95 PER CENT OF THEM HAVE BETWEEN ONE AND FIVE STRESSED SYLLABLES. THE
AVERAGE IS 2.5 STRESSED SYLLABLES PER RHYTHM. THAT SEEMS TO BE THE EQUIVALENT
OF A PENTAMETRIC HALF-LINE. TWO OF THEM NEATLY MAKE UP ONE WHOLE-LINE
PENTAMETER.

2) PSYCHOLOGIST GEORGE MILLER ONCE ESTABLISHED THE RULE OF ‘MAGIC NUMBER

SEVEN PLUS OR MINUS TWO’. PEOPLE CAN REPEAT A SEQUENCE OF UP TO SEVEN RANDOM
ITEMS WITH RELATIVE EASE, BUT THEY BEGIN TO FEEL THE STRAIN WHEN THE SEQUENCE
CONTAINS MORE THAN FIVE UNITS OF MEANING. FIVE STRESSED ITEMS SEEMS TO BE THE
MOST WE CAN COMFORTABLY HANDLE WITHIN A SINGLE RHYTHM/TONE-UNIT WITHOUT IT
BECOMING A STRAIN ON OUR WORKING MEMORY.
With the pentameter in place as the ‘default option’, it
was then possible for Shakespeare to play with it,
adapting it to suit the dramatic needs of the moment.
If a thought proved too long for the line, it could run
on into the next. If a mind in turmoil had to be
portrayed, the line was long enough to be
fragmented. If the pace of interaction between
characters needed increasing, then the line could be
shared. If a really emotional crisis had to be
expressed, then the line could be stopped half way
through. Varying the patterns of strong and weak
syllables within the five units provides another
parameter of variation – something that traditional
books on Shakespearean prosody fully explored.
 THE RHYTHMICAL CONTRASTS ARE
CLEAR AND DISTINCT. WHY ARE THEY
THERE? BECAUSE THEY REFLECT THE
MAIN FEATURES OF RHYTHMICAL
VARIATION IN EVERYDAY SPEECH, AND
THUS CONVEY THE EMPHASES AND
EMOTIONS THAT WE HEAR THERE.
PROPER NAMES, FOR EXAMPLE, CAN
BE (OR INCLUDE) IAMBS (BEROWNE),
TROCHEES (FALSTAFF), SPONDEES
(DOLL TEARSHEET), DACTYLS
(ANTONY), AND ANAPAESTS
(RODERIGO). THE PENTAMETER HAS TO
BE ABLE TO COPE WITH ALL OF THIS,
AND ITS BEAUTY IS THAT IT DOES
COPE, EXTREMELY WELL,
INCORPORATING THE VARIED
RHYTHMS OF NATURAL SPEECH WHILE
MAINTAINING THE REQUIRED POETIC
DISCIPLINE.
 The pentameter rules. Its
power lies in its flexibility, its
adaptability to meet the
demands of the huge range of
subject-matter encountered in
the plays. It is the optimal work-
ing unit for oral performance in
English.