Understanding Shakespeare

If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine, the gentler sin is this, my lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. Pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much. Which mannerly devotion shows in this? For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, and palm to palm is the holy palmer's kiss. Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too? Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer. O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do. They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair. Saints do not move, though grant for prayer's sake. Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take. Through childhood, past schooling, and into adulthood, we've been told time and time again that William Shakespeare is perhaps the greatest English-speaking writer to ever live. After all, his admirers and peers would refer to him as the Bard. Bard meaning poet. And that's Bard with a capital B, implying authority and headship. Similar to the way presidents of clubs or universities are lowercase compared to the President of the United States. Or how Norse and Greek gods are lowercase compared to the Judeo-Christian god. Shakespeare was so highly regarded in his time that he was commissioned by Queen Elizabeth I to write plays that honored her family's lineage, including the famous histories of Richard III and Henry V. It's even rumored that he was commissioned by Queen Elizabeth's successor, King James VI, during production of the King James Bible, to reconstruct and lyricize the Psalms. So we've seen Shakespeare's continued influence throughout history, but when we sit down to pore over the text ourselves, it feels almost impenetrable, like it was written in another language. In order for us to better understand the nuances of Shakespeare's complex writing styles, we must first acknowledge the context in which these works were created. In the late 16th century, Shakespeare wrote and performed as a part of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a troupe of actors that established the famous Globe Theatre on the outskirts of London. And it's when we examine how the Globe practically functioned as a theatre that we begin to understand Shakespeare's writing style and the reasoning behind it. The Globe Theatre was one of the first playhouses constructed in London. It consisted of three tiers of galleries, overlooking the stage below, and a standing area on the ground, surrounding the stage called the pit, or yard. Nobility sat in the galleries, which consisted of wooden benches and roofs to protect from inclement weather, while the commoners would occupy the pit below. That was the hardest task for playwrights at the time. You had to entertain a single room, consisting of vastly different ends on the social status spectrum. There was always the fear that either Nobility wouldn't endorse the play, or the commoners would openly mock and heckle a play during the live show. That's where Shakespeare's brilliance begins to show. He knew how to effectively alter his writing style from character to character and scene to scene in order to resonate with a diverse audience. He would accomplish this by fluctuating between prose and verse. Prose is what we would consider normal writing today, made up of sentences and paragraphs without any rhyming structure, whereas verse is poetry. Prose was usually attributed to the comedic relief characters, as well as characters of lower stature. This allowed the audience, specifically the groundlings in front of the stage, to be quickly entertained in such a way that they could understand what was being said by the actors on stage. That way, they were invested in the story throughout, which kept them from growing restless and bored, and actively booing and throwing food on the stage. Verse was usually attributed to the characters of higher class, which would entertain the audience members of higher stature due to the greater working vocabulary and complex character development and themes. They would enjoy seeing characters on stage that resembled themselves. Ultimately, Shakespeare understood that he had to please the commoners in the immediate for the individual performance, but he also knew that without the approval and finances from nobility, the entire play itself would collapse and fail. That's why a vast majority of his best lines are written in a form of verse. Now is the winter of our discontent. To be or not to be. O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? You won't find a constant standard for when Shakespeare switches between prose and verse in his works, because we're now reading a format that varies from book to book, based on that particular book's editor. But in every book, there's usually a visual cue for the audience, telling them when the style of writing is shifting. Since prose is plain speaking, it's common for those lines to run continuously from margin to margin, while verse is usually made up of narrower lines, all aligned on the left, creating jagged right-hand edges determined by the end rhyme or rhythm. Depending on the editor, they might also indent every other line of poetry to align the end rhyme. Now, verse encompasses many sub-genres of poetry, but the main genre that Shakespeare utilized is sonnets. Sonnets can be identified by three attributes. Rhyme scheme, rhythm, and structure. This 14-line rhyme scheme is broken down into three quatrains, followed by a couplet. Here, the couplet serves a vital role, usually arriving in the form of a grand conclusion to the theme or idea explored in the quatrains. In this example, Romeo and Juliet build a flirtation towards the couplet conclusion of their first kiss. The rhythm of these sonnets are predominantly written in iambic pentameter. In this style, each sonnet line consists of ten syllables, divided into five pairs, referred to as iambs, or iambic feet. An iamb is a metrical unit made up of one unstressed syllable, followed by one stressed syllable. An example of this unique rhythm would be a heartbeat. And that rhythm sounds like this. Now, Shakespeare isn't only using sonnets to appeal to the higher-class audience members. He's also establishing character and story elements. The use of poetry between Romeo and Juliet tells the audience that this isn't a childish lusting, but true love. This is a higher, fated love. And what's unique about this particular sonnet, in the long list of Shakespearean sonnets, is that it's spoken by two people. There's a call-and-response pattern that signifies that this romance is an equal partnership. Notice the spiritual imagery Shakespeare uses throughout this sonnet. Words like holy, saint, pray, sin, and faith are contrasted with the imagery of sensual body parts, such as hands and lips, which can be used for both praying and kissing. If we look at the next quatrain, immediately following this sonnet and their first kiss, the word sin is used four times in immediate succession, perhaps foreshadowing that this romance is doomed from the very beginning. Shakespeare's writing is dense and multilayered, which can make it extremely difficult. But it helps to know what to expect and look for when reading. However, remember that Shakespeare's words were never meant to be read on the page. They're to be experienced through performance. Good pilgrim, you'd wrong your hand too much. Which manly devotion shows in this? For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmer's kiss. Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too? Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer. Well then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do, they pray. Grant thou, lest faith turn to despair. Saints do not move, though grant for prayer's sake. Then move not, while my prayers effect I take. Hey everyone, thanks for watching my latest essay. I definitely stepped outside my comfort zone on this one. But I knew from the very beginning of launching Entertain the Elk that I didn't just want to pigeonhole myself into exploring TV and film, but I wanted to explore all things art and entertainment. So I hope you're walking away having a little more respect for Shakespeare than you already did, and are maybe even inspired to pick up some Shakespeare and read it again or for the very first time. I wanted to recommend the Norton Anthology of Shakespeare's Complete Works. I referenced this countless times when making this essay. If you go to the link below in the description, it'll take you right there. You can pick it up. It's great. Everything is formatted very clearly. There's history and information in here, and it's just a really great read to see everything, poems and plays-wise of Shakespeare. So I can't recommend it enough. And if there is any footage or music featured in this video that you would like to see more, please check the description box below. I'll have everything laid out there for you. Thanks again, everyone, for watching, and I will see you next time. Thanks.