This blog has come about because of a chance comment by one of my students. He said that he wished that there was somewhere he could go for ideas on how to teach Shakespeare to his class. I'm going to attempt one idea each day.

Monday, 4 July 2011

introducing metrical feet

Meter is about the number of stresses in a line.  Feet refers to the pattern of the stresses.

Look at some two syllable words.  Decide which syllable is stressed and which syllable is unstressed. Take the word enjoy. The emphasis is on the last syllable.

Put a / symbol over the stressed syllable and a u (it should be more a a smile than a u) over the unstressed syllables.

The patterns that the rising and falling sound, or rhythm, that the syllables make are given different names.

An iambic foot has a pattern like enjoy.  The is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

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