 Hey everyone, my name is Kim Douthit, and today we're gonna be looking at Shakespeare, how to break down the text, and we're gonna be using the prologue from Romeo and Juliet. Now you don't need a whole lot of materials. We have the text, as you can see, available right here for you. Shakespeare is meant to be performed, so I'm gonna ask you to be reading aloud with me so you can read the text aloud. If you wanna take any notes, you're welcome to do that. Grab a writing utensil and something you can write on. Now we're going to be breaking down some text today, and we're gonna be using the prologue from Romeo and Juliet to do it. And one of the reasons why I love the prologue from Romeo and Juliet is it lays it all out there for you. The entire play is laid out in these lines. So we're gonna start by reading these lines aloud. So put on your best Shakespearean actor voice and read, two households, both alike in dignity. In fair Verona where we lay our scene, from ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life, whose misadventures piteous overthrows, do with their death bury their parents strife. The fearful passage of their death marked love and the continuance of their parents rage, which but their children's end not could remove is now the two hours traffic of our stage. The witch, if you with patient ears attend, what here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend. All right, that was a lot of words we just did, so well done. Let's break this down. Now the first thing I always like to do when I'm looking at text is I like to do a little scanning. I like to see what the meter we're dealing with is. So let's see what kind of meter this is. Let's clap out our stress and unstressed. Let's look at our first line, two households both alike in dignity. What happens if we try to scan that? Two households both alike in dignity. In fair Verona where we lay our scene. We've got that nice unstressed stress, right? And there's 10 syllables. So that means we are dealing with text that is in iambic pentameter. Now we've got some rhyme going on here, don't we? We've got dignity and mutiny. We have seen and unclean, foes and throws, life and strife. So we have a A, B, AB, CD, CD rhyming scheme. What else do we notice? At the end here, if we go all the way down to the end, we have a little rhyming couplet. We have mend, attend. And if you look how many lines we have in total, there's 14 lines. So 14 lines, AB, AB, CD, CD, iambic pentameter, nice little rhyming couplet here at the end. We are dealing with a sonnet structure. Shakespeare gave us this prologue in the structure of a sonnet, that's pretty cool. Now when I'm first looking at Shakespeare's text, I also like to see if there's words that stand out to me. The word dignity, that stands out to me. Mutiny, oh that's a fantastic word, I love that word. Blood, love the word blood, it's fun to say, blood, say blood, right, that's a satisfying word to say. Words are one of my favorite things and that's one of the reasons I love Shakespeare so much. Let's break this down even further. Let's take this line by line. So our very first line, two households, both alike in dignity, what's that mean? We have two households, which means we have two different families, right? And now in Shakespeare's time, saying something was a household, that didn't just mean it was like you, your brother, your mom or your dad, it meant that extended family were counted as part of your household, so cousins, second cousins, third cousins, five times removed, your servants were also considered part of your household because they served you, they served in your household. Close family friends, you could also claim as part of your household, so that means two households, that's not just small families, these are big, big groups. Both alike in dignity, there's that word again, I love that word dignity, that tells us a whole lot about the families we're dealing with, these are considered to be upright families, these are dignified families. If Shakespeare had said two households both alike in shamelessness, or two households both alive in stinkiness, it gives us a very different picture of what kind of families we're dealing with, but he specifically says dignity. In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, where does the story take place? Not just Verona, fair Verona, lovely Verona, Verona is in Italy, so we know that our story takes place in Verona, Italy. And where we lay our scene, it's another interesting way of saying that because it puts forth theater, scene is a theatrical term. So we're putting right out there from the beginning, hey ma'am, we're watching a play. Let's look at our next two lines. From ancient grudge, break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. Does anything stand out to you right away about that? Well, for me, it's the fact that civil, civil is said twice, right? That means it's extra important. If Shakespeare is putting a word up there more than once, we must pay attention. The first part of that from ancient grudge, break to new mutiny, ancient grudge. This is not your neighbor left their garbage on your lawn the other day, and so you're kind of mad about that, ancient grudge. This grudge goes back, even the word grudge. That tells you a lot about how big this is. This isn't just a small squabble, this is a grudge. But new mutiny, that means something new has started this fresh again, right? So we're dealing with a whole new conflict arising. And then our second line, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. We say the word civil twice. And that's interesting because civil can actually have more than one meaning. The word civil can mean civilized, again, proper, dignified. But it also means a conflict that's happening between its citizens, between your neighbors, like the civil war. So we have that double meaning going on there. And the word blood, again, Shakespeare talks a lot about blood, but it's civil blood, civilized blood, as well as neighbor's blood. Make civilized, civil hands unclean. This new strife is spreading, and it's affecting everyone, and it's not civilized. Our next lines, from fourth, the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life. Does anything stand out in here? For me, it's that a certain letter is used over and over. Can you see what letter that is? I see from fourth, fatal foes. Got the letter F being said over and over, from fourth, fatal foes. And there's kind of a harshness when you say it like that, right? Fatal, it's another word that stands out to me. Play around with the words, play around with the sounds, and you might notice stuff even further. Now, if we're looking at the text of the whole, again, what are they talking about? From fourth, the fatal loins of these two foes, basically enemies having babies. You have two different families, the fatal loins, they had babies. A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life. Now, star-crossed lovers, what does that mean? Star-crossed means that it was not something that was written in the stars. It was fate would not allow it, something that was destined to not be. Take their life. This is another double meaning, because take their life could be referring to the fact that the children get their life from the enemies, from the two foes, but it could also mean it's a little bit of a spoiler. And I'm sorry if I'm spoiling a 400-year-old play for you, but at the end of the play, Romeo and Juliet do take their own life. So we have that nice, dual meaning. Our next line, whose misadventured, piteous overthrows do with their death bury their parents' strife. The word piteous always stands out to me right away. Piteous, you have that nice, plosive sound on the P, that pop. But what are we saying there? Misadventured, meaning that there's gonna be some struggle. Piteous overthrows, they're trying to get together and they can't do with their death, bury their parents' strife. The only thing that is going to bury their parents' strife, make them bury the hatchet, is their death. So that also tells you, this is not a romantic comedy. The lovers are gonna die, it's gonna be sad. The fearful passage of their death-marked love and the continuance of their parents' rage, which but their children's end not could remove, is now the two hours' traffic of our stage. So let's look at that whole little chunk right there, because a lot is happening right there. Now, fearful passage, that's a really interesting phrase. It tells you that the love had danger, there's a little bit of danger to it, but fearful passage, that's another way in Shakespeare's time to say that something was exciting. So this fearful passage, the continuance of their parents' rage, it's not a great word, rage. Their parents' rage was gonna continue and the only thing again that would remove it that not could remove was their children's end. So we're bringing back home that the parents only will bury the hatchet when their children die, is now the two hours' traffic of our stage. So again, putting it out there, you're about to watch a play. You're gonna see all of this play out over the next couple hours on our stage right here. We have our little rhyming couplets at the end. The which if you with patient ears attend, what here shall miss our toil shall strive to mend. What's that mean? Patient ear, patient ears. That's something I'm sure all of your teachers and maybe sometimes your parents hope that you're doing. It means listening. So if you listen to our play, and again, listen to our play, not watch our play, but hear this story. What here shall miss? Anything you might've missed or you didn't get from this prologue, you're gonna find out. They're gonna mend that. They're gonna show it to you over the rest of the play. So over the next two hours, if you listen, anything that doesn't make sense, we're gonna clear up for you. We're gonna tell you that story. Shakespeare's a master at laying things out. He painted this fabulous, fabulous picture for us because we know everything we need to know about the play in this prologue. Who are we dealing with? Two households, the Montagues and the Capulets, right? What are we dealing with? We have two families who hate each other and their kids fall in love. And because of their star-crossed love, in trying to get together, the kids don't make it. They take their own life and so the parents bury the hatchet. Where are we? Fair Verona, when are we? Now originally, Shakespeare intended the play to take place about 100 years prior, but if any of you have seen West Side Story or any of the other adaptations, this is a universal story. It can be in the here and now. Why do we tell this story? Because what happens when we have these grudges? Nothing good ever comes from it. A lot of sadness. It's an important lesson that we have to keep saying. So now we've broken everything down. Hopefully this makes a little bit more sense to you. Let's try reading it one more time. Two households, both alike in dignity. In Fair Verona where we lay our scene, from ancient grudge break to new mutiny where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life whose misadventured piteous overthrows do with their death bury their parents strife. The fearful passage of their death marked love and the continuance of their parents rage which but their children's end not could remove is now the two hours traffic of our stage. The which if you with patient ears attend what here shall miss our toil shall strive to mend. So any time you have text, particularly Shakespeare text or poetry or any kind of verse that you look at you say, ah, this is a lot. You break it down into smaller chunks. You look for words that stand out, words that are familiar to you and pretty soon everything is a whole lot clearer. This is something you can apply to any text. That's why I like using this method. Thank you all for playing with some words with me today and reading a little bit of Shakespeare. I hope you learned a little bit. My name is Kim Douthit and I hope you have a wonderful day.