Twelfth Night

Viola SG

Hey friends, need some help on this play for Os.
Hope some experts here would enlighten me on the language used in the play.

Such as prose, verse and iambic parameter...thanks a lot.

tare SG

err... if u need this for Os... u should have went thru the lessons? usually they look for the standard ans which were taught... the qns ask would be relatively similar too....

i din do this book for my Os, so i can't help much....

perhaps the poem experts here could help... pls wait for them to come online Mr. Green

KittynMeow SG

Copied this from one of my old posts.....

Viola?? Yup... that would be Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night

Viola has been shipwrecked in a violent storm off the coast of Illyria; in the process she has lost her twin brother, Sebastian. She disguises herself as a boy and assumes the name Cesario for protection. Thus disguised, Viola becomes a page in the service of Orsino, the Duke. It seems that Orsino is having little luck courting Olivia, who is in mourning for the death of her father and brother. As Orsino's proxy, Viola is sent to Olivia with love letters. Viola refuses to budge until she is let in to see Olivia; Olivia, intrigued by the impudent young "boy," contrives to get "Cesario" to return by sending her steward, Malvolio, after her with one of Olivia's rings. Viola realizes to her dismay that Olivia has fallen for her Cesario rather than Duke Orsinofurther complicated by the fact that Viola has had stirrings herself for Orsino.

In the two major subplots of the play, Sebastian (Viola's twin, presumed dead) comes ashore in Illyria thinking that Viola has drowned in the shipwreck. A man named Antonio rescued him from the surf, and continues to aid himat some risk to himself, as Antonio fought against the Duke at one time. Meanwhile, in Olivia's house, Sir Toby Belch (her uncle) has hoodwinked a foppish Sir Andrew Aguecheek into supporting him by convincing him that he could be a suitor to Olivia. There is a running feud between Malvolio and Belch; with the help of Maria, Olivia's maid, and Feste, a clown, Belch plots to make a buffoon of the steward. Maria writes a love letter to Malvolio that will make him think Olivia has fallen for him.

Malvolio falls entirely for the sport, which eventually leads to his confinement as a madman. All the while, Belch is egging Sir Andrew into a duel with Viola's "Cesario" character as she departs from Olivia; Olivia is now entirely smitten with Cesario, even though Viola continues to press Orsino's cause. As Viola and Sir Andrew prepare for a duel that neither one wants, Antonio happens upon the scene. Believing Viola to be Sebastian, he intervenes and is arrested. Viola, of course, does not recognize Antonio. Later, Belch and Sir Andrew encounter Sebastian, who doesn't back down from Aguecheek when challenged and resoundingly beats him. Olivia intervenes in the matter, andmistaking Sebastian for Viola/Cesariopresses her suit for him. A bemused Sebastian agrees to marry her.

Antonio is brought before the Duke for questioning, and Viola relates the events of the duel. Antonio tells everyone how he dragged "this man" from the surf, saving his life. Then Olivia enters, searching for her new husbandwhich she thinks is Viola (as Cesario). Adding to this confusion, Belch and Aguecheek enter claiming that Viola/Cesario has violently assaulted them. In the midst of Viola's denials, Sebastian appears. The brother and sister recognize one another and are reunited; Sebastian helps to clear the confusion as to who fought and married who. At the end, Orsino and Viola pledge their love, Olivia and Sebastian will remain satisfactorily wed, and Olivia rebukes Belch and Maria for their abuse of Malvolio, who vows his revenge upon the whole lot. Belch agrees to wed Maria to make up for getting her in trouble, and allexcept the disgruntled Malvoliowill apparently live happily ever after.

KittynMeow SG

hope this will help too...

All things poetic

KittynMeow SG

DEFINITION OF METER

Meter is the rhythm established by a poem, and it is usually dependent not only on the number of syllables in a line but also on the way those syllables are accented. This rhythm is often described as a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. The rhythmic unit is often described as a foot; patterns of feet can be identified and labeled. A foot may be iambic, which follows a pattern of unstressed/stressed syllables. For example, read aloud: "The DOG went WALKing DOWN the ROAD and BARKED." Because there are five iambs, or feet, this line follows the conventions of iambic pentameter (pent = five), the common form in Shakespeare's time. Stressed syllables are conventionally labeled with a "/" mark and unstressed syllables with a "U" mark.

KittynMeow SG

Prose and verse in Shakespeare

Witty characters like Falstaff usually speak in prose.

If the spectators in Shakespeare's theatre were so delighted with the gorgeousness of language, why did Shakespeare sometimes write in prose?

Sometimes, as in Henry IV, Part One, there seems a clear division between the formal verse of the court and the rambunctious prose of the tavern. . .

But there are as many exceptions to this neat division as there are instances when it is accurate. Hamlet's powerful speech "What a piece of work is a man" (2.2.303-16) is delivered entirely in prose, and what are we to make of a play like The Merchant of Venice, in which the prosaic, business-obsessed characters of Venice usually speak in verse and the poetic, imaginative characters of Belmont often speak in prose?

One consistent difference seems to be that verse is used when there are passages of high feeling and increased intensity, while prose is often the language of wit and play.

The rhythm of prose

Shakespeare's prose is as masterly as his verse, and often even more dense with meaning (check the footnotes of a passage of prose, and see if there are fewer than for verse). Prose is the vehicle for many of Shakespeare's wittiest characters: Falstaff, Beatrice, Rosalind, the Porter in Macbeth, Autolycus in The Winter's Tale, and many others.

While most of the memorable passages from the plays are in verse, many memorable scenes are in prose, or a mixture of the two: prose is one of the many ways in which Shakespeare keeps the rhythmic counterpoint* of his language alive.

KittynMeow SG

a bit long so i only copied the first para which contained the impt info...

Definition of Prose

Prose is any writing without a formal structure of meter or rhyme only conforming to the basic rules of grammar. Writing which uses these structures is known as poetry. Although some works of prose may contain traces of metrical structure or versification a conscious blend of the two forms of literature is known as a prose poem. In a similar way poetry with less of the common rules and limitations of verse, which is closer to prose, is known as free verse.

KittynMeow SG

Definition of verse

Verse is a writing that uses meter as its primary organisational mode, as opposed to prose, which uses grammatical and discoursal units like sentences and paragraphs. Verse may also use rhyme and other technical devices that are often associated with poetry.

However, while much poetry is written in verse, not all of it is (see prose poetry)

Equally, not all verse is poetry. Generally speaking, what separates the two is that in poetry language achieves the highest possible level of condensation.

A verse is also another name for a stanza.

KittynMeow SG

DEFINITION OF ALLITERATION

Alliteration occurs when the initial sounds of a word, beginning either with a consonant or a vowel, are repeated in close succession.

Examples:
Athena and Apollo
Nate never knows
People who pen poetry

Note that the words only have to be close to one another: Alliteration that repeats and attempts to connect a number of words is little more than a tongue-twister.

The function of alliteration, like rhyme, might be to accentuate the beauty of language in a given context, or to unite words or concepts through a kind of repetition. Alliteration, like rhyme, can follow specific patterns. Sometimes the consonants aren't always the initial ones, but they are generally the stressed syllables. Alliteration is less common than rhyme, but because it is less common, it can call our attention to a word or line in a poem that might not have the same emphasis otherwise.

KittynMeow SG

DEFINITION OF IMAGE

Think of an image as a picture or a sculpture, something concrete and representational within a work of art. Literal images appeal to our sense of realistic perception, like a nineteenth-century landscape painting that looks "just like a photograph." There are also figurative images that appeal to our imagination, like a twentieth-century modernist portrait that looks only vaguely like a person but that implies a certain mood.

Literal images saturate Samuel Coleridge's poem, "Kubla Khan: or, A Vision in a Dream":

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And there were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. (lines 6-11)

A figurative image begins T. S. Eliot's famous poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock":

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;

To see the evening in the way Prufrock describes it requires an imaginative leap: He's doing much more than setting the scene and telling us that it's nighttime. We are encouraged to see stars, to feel the unconscious and infinite presence of the universe, but these things are only implied. In either case, poetic imagery alters or shapes the way we see what the poem is describing.

KittynMeow SG

DEFINITION OF METAPHOR

Closely related to similes, metaphors immediately identify one object or idea with another, in one or more aspects. The meaning of a poem frequently depends on the success of a metaphor. Like a simile, a metaphor expands the sense and clarifies the meaning of something. "He's such a pig," you might say, and the listener wouldn't immediately think, "My friend has a porcine boyfriend," but rather, "My friend has a human boyfriend who is (a) a slob, (b) a voracious eater, (c) someone with crude attitudes or tastes, or (d) a chauvinist." In any case, it would be clear that the speaker wasn't paying her boyfriend a compliment, but unless she clarifies the metaphor, you might have to ask, "In what sense?" English Renaissance poetry is characterized by metaphors that turn into elaborate conceits, or extended metaphors. Poets like John Donne and William Shakespeare extended their comparisons brilliantly, with the effect that the reader was dazzled. Contemporary poets tend to be more economical with their metaphors, but they still use them as one of the chief elements that distinguishes poetry from less lofty forms of communication.

tare SG

hehe... kitty is always a better mob! Mr. Green

LazerLordz SG

Bravo Kitty!