Of Pentameter & Bear Baiting - Romeo & Juliet Part 1: Crash Course English Literature #2
video description
Date: 2022-04-04
Related videos
Comments and reviews: 10
WillN2Go1
Modern English is naturally iambic (u /) or it's opposite trochee (/ u) I think if you asked Shakespeare and other of his contemporary writers, they would say not 'pentameter' but iambic is how they preferred to write. It's not the number of feet that's important, it's the beat. If you're deep into this, read -Shakespeare's Metrical Art- by George T. Wright. It was a desert between Chaucer and Shakespeare's generation.
Where I think English teachers go wrong is they say or imply that Shakespeare only and always wrote in iambic pentameter. This is completely wrong. Many times he does the opposite, completely violates it if he needs to, or feels like it. Your English teacher is hammering you over the head with this stuff and smart kids try to hear and speak the beats and admit it's impossible. Goodygoodies pretend or delude themselves that they can hear it. There are two big problems to 'hearing' the beats. First of all Shakespeare often started a line on a (/) beat, which isn't iambic; and It can be really difficult hearing the beats. The beats do work, we know this because we like things that have them; they're hard to hear. One trick is to hold a hand under your chin, when you feel your jaw drop a little that's a beat. (Practice. Driving to work, listening to the jazz station, I practiced tapping to the beat and in a matter of a couple of weeks I learned three things: how to keep the beat (more often but not always, and that for most of my life I had no clue and was almost always off-beat, and three most people also have no clue. It's worth learning to hear beats in what you write or how you sing or speak because then others find you more interesting, and often you can figure out why a sentence seems flat, it just needs a beat. I have no idea how beat or un-beat this comment is. )
-What's not mentioned in this video is: Why did Shakespeare and his contemporaries write using rhyme and beats? - Would Lord of the Rings (book or movies) be better rhymed? Some bits are. (I love the Elvish) However. I'll bet if you dig into great pop songs, great books, great movies, great speeches - you will hear beats.
-You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain, Too much love drives a man insane, You broke my will, But what a thrill, Goodness gracious, great balls of fire! Shakespeare would've approved.
Or -DEcemBER SEVenth NINEteenFORTYONE, IS a DAY that WILL LIVE in INfamy. - The words might not have had beats, the delivery absolutely had them. Rap, what little I know about it, is like FDR, the beats are often imposed on the text, this is why jokes about bad rap can sometimes still be catchy.
_Another interesting thing that I've noticed_. You can beat this last bit and see that it is pretty flat. (-An- -oth-er interesting thing -that- I've no-ticed-) This is how boring people speak. The beats are gone. I think this is something that happens to us when we become good employees, good students, boring Tolstoyholes. The whinny little kid John Green uses as an example? That's how English is naturally spoken. Kids Shakespeare knew probably talked the exact same way (and were more often beaten, by adults and their older married 14 year old siblings. -I'm an adult now you little creep. - Who although now fully mature, still retained their natural iambicity (ha)
I know this video is several years old, but our governor just grounded all of us in California. Talk about a dramatic moment. Since I returned from Hong Kong 40 days ago I've been pretty much self-quarantined anyway. I'm starting to climb the walls here.
Wait, did I just call John Green a 'whinny little kid'? (I hope my bold and italics worked)
reply
Modern English is naturally iambic (u /) or it's opposite trochee (/ u) I think if you asked Shakespeare and other of his contemporary writers, they would say not 'pentameter' but iambic is how they preferred to write. It's not the number of feet that's important, it's the beat. If you're deep into this, read -Shakespeare's Metrical Art- by George T. Wright. It was a desert between Chaucer and Shakespeare's generation.
Where I think English teachers go wrong is they say or imply that Shakespeare only and always wrote in iambic pentameter. This is completely wrong. Many times he does the opposite, completely violates it if he needs to, or feels like it. Your English teacher is hammering you over the head with this stuff and smart kids try to hear and speak the beats and admit it's impossible. Goodygoodies pretend or delude themselves that they can hear it. There are two big problems to 'hearing' the beats. First of all Shakespeare often started a line on a (/) beat, which isn't iambic; and It can be really difficult hearing the beats. The beats do work, we know this because we like things that have them; they're hard to hear. One trick is to hold a hand under your chin, when you feel your jaw drop a little that's a beat. (Practice. Driving to work, listening to the jazz station, I practiced tapping to the beat and in a matter of a couple of weeks I learned three things: how to keep the beat (more often but not always, and that for most of my life I had no clue and was almost always off-beat, and three most people also have no clue. It's worth learning to hear beats in what you write or how you sing or speak because then others find you more interesting, and often you can figure out why a sentence seems flat, it just needs a beat. I have no idea how beat or un-beat this comment is. )
-What's not mentioned in this video is: Why did Shakespeare and his contemporaries write using rhyme and beats? - Would Lord of the Rings (book or movies) be better rhymed? Some bits are. (I love the Elvish) However. I'll bet if you dig into great pop songs, great books, great movies, great speeches - you will hear beats.
-You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain, Too much love drives a man insane, You broke my will, But what a thrill, Goodness gracious, great balls of fire! Shakespeare would've approved.
Or -DEcemBER SEVenth NINEteenFORTYONE, IS a DAY that WILL LIVE in INfamy. - The words might not have had beats, the delivery absolutely had them. Rap, what little I know about it, is like FDR, the beats are often imposed on the text, this is why jokes about bad rap can sometimes still be catchy.
_Another interesting thing that I've noticed_. You can beat this last bit and see that it is pretty flat. (-An- -oth-er interesting thing -that- I've no-ticed-) This is how boring people speak. The beats are gone. I think this is something that happens to us when we become good employees, good students, boring Tolstoyholes. The whinny little kid John Green uses as an example? That's how English is naturally spoken. Kids Shakespeare knew probably talked the exact same way (and were more often beaten, by adults and their older married 14 year old siblings. -I'm an adult now you little creep. - Who although now fully mature, still retained their natural iambicity (ha)
I know this video is several years old, but our governor just grounded all of us in California. Talk about a dramatic moment. Since I returned from Hong Kong 40 days ago I've been pretty much self-quarantined anyway. I'm starting to climb the walls here.
Wait, did I just call John Green a 'whinny little kid'? (I hope my bold and italics worked)
reply
Bub
Aristotle slavery = Morden working class. The context is different but the class is the same, only different in name. The Athenian slave has better living conditions than 21st century American working class.
In an anti-Athenian democracy speech, they mentioned: what on Earth of the system that you can't distinct a slave to a person ( imply slave in Athen live too well )
reply
Aristotle slavery = Morden working class. The context is different but the class is the same, only different in name. The Athenian slave has better living conditions than 21st century American working class.
In an anti-Athenian democracy speech, they mentioned: what on Earth of the system that you can't distinct a slave to a person ( imply slave in Athen live too well )
reply
TH
I know this video is ancient, but I'm going to say it anyway: your meter is way off! Verona, for instance, has three syllables, as in Ve-ro-na (each vowel forms a nucleus, of which two are stressed in blank verse. However, you only highlited one syllable in that line of verse, thus seemingly degrading it from a pentameter to a tetrameter.
reply
I know this video is ancient, but I'm going to say it anyway: your meter is way off! Verona, for instance, has three syllables, as in Ve-ro-na (each vowel forms a nucleus, of which two are stressed in blank verse. However, you only highlited one syllable in that line of verse, thus seemingly degrading it from a pentameter to a tetrameter.
reply
Sayori
When i first started watching you i had no clue that you wrote the fault in our stars, i just liked how you taught and thought you were good at it. Now, what i thought was impossible, happened. I gained even more respect for you.
reply
When i first started watching you i had no clue that you wrote the fault in our stars, i just liked how you taught and thought you were good at it. Now, what i thought was impossible, happened. I gained even more respect for you.
reply
Loveanimedragon
The other day I was reading Bulfinch's Mithology for fun and found a story called Pyramus and Thisbe and I noticed that it sounded a lot like Romeo and Juliet (sorry just really wanted to tell someone that.
reply
The other day I was reading Bulfinch's Mithology for fun and found a story called Pyramus and Thisbe and I noticed that it sounded a lot like Romeo and Juliet (sorry just really wanted to tell someone that.
reply
MP
I hate Romeo and Juliet, but if you put up Crash Course apparently it gets played. however you guys did a great job
I did still want to down vote just because Romeo and Juliet's placement in our society pisses me off
reply
I hate Romeo and Juliet, but if you put up Crash Course apparently it gets played. however you guys did a great job
I did still want to down vote just because Romeo and Juliet's placement in our society pisses me off
reply
Kelly
It-s not -the greatest love story ever- but I believe it-s a fantastic story because it perfectly captures the whirlwind and irrationality of being young and in love for the first time.
reply
It-s not -the greatest love story ever- but I believe it-s a fantastic story because it perfectly captures the whirlwind and irrationality of being young and in love for the first time.
reply
Joy
One of the ways I relate to R&J is how in my teenage, I got easily swayed by temporary emotions and passions. And oftentimes failed to see how my actions and decisions effect others.
reply
One of the ways I relate to R&J is how in my teenage, I got easily swayed by temporary emotions and passions. And oftentimes failed to see how my actions and decisions effect others.
reply
Sebastian
3: 53 umm the animators must have thought it took place in Florence, not Verona. Since that's clearly Santa Maria del Fiore (or the duomo, which lies in Florence and NOT Verona
reply
3: 53 umm the animators must have thought it took place in Florence, not Verona. Since that's clearly Santa Maria del Fiore (or the duomo, which lies in Florence and NOT Verona
reply
Apollostarwars1
I know this was made in 2012 but I finally got to Romeo and Juliet in my semester and I'm so glad that all the videos are out. -
reply
I know this was made in 2012 but I finally got to Romeo and Juliet in my semester and I'm so glad that all the videos are out. -
reply
Add a review, comment
Other channel videos
