Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon’t, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed yet all this while in a most fast sleep. You can tell something is in prose because it appears without line break capitalization. Lower-class characters generally speak in prose, while upper-class and formal characters tend to speak in verse. If the text doesn’t have the distinct verse style, then it’s written in prose which means scansion rules don’t apply. A scene that has many shared lines indicates that the pace of it should be rapid fire as the characters almost talk over each other.
This indicates that Ariel’s line should come right on the heels of the one before her without a pause.
That’s because the line that comes before her has seven syllables and together they create a perfect 10. In the text above, Ariel’s first line is only three syllables. A line with less than 10 syllables indicates that either a pause is allowed in the script or the character has a shared line with another character. A line with 12 syllables is called an Alexandrine line, a character is overcome by emotions OR they’re delivering information (common in messenger characters), OR they won’t shut up and this a Shakespeare clue that your character is rather annoying (Polonius is a great example).
SCANSION EXERCISE FULL
A line with 11 syllables is called a feminine ending, indicating a character is so full of emotions they spill out over the 10 syllable line. Finding the moments that are breaking the rules indicate a direction for the actor. Well, what if you get an imperfect line? That’s the point of scansion.
0 kommentar(er)
