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- Notes
145
is in verbs like cry^ die, sue, etc., the -ed of which is very rarely, if
ever, made a separate syllable.
Shakespeare's Use of Verse and Prose in the Plays. —
This is a subject to which the critics have given very little attention,
but it is an interesting study. In this play we find scenes entirely
in verse or in prose, and in which the two are mixed. In general,
we may say that verse is used for what is distinctly poetical, and
prose for what is not poetical. The distinction, however, is not
so clearly marked in the earlier as in the later plays. The second
scene of M. of V., for instance, is in prose, because Portia and
Nerissa are talking about the suitors in a familiar and playful
way ; but in T. G. of V., where Julia and Lucetta are discussing
the suitors of the former in much the same fashion, the scene is in
verse. Dowden, commenting on Rich. II., remarks : " Had Shake-
speare written the play a few years later, we may be certain that
the gardener and his servants (iii. 4) would not have uttered
stately speeches in verse, but would have spoken homely prose,
and that humour would have mingled with the pathos of the scene.
The same remark may be made with reference to the subsequent
scene (v. 5) in which his groom visits the dethroned king in the
Tower." Comic characters and those in low life generally speak
in prose in the later plays, as Dowden intimates, but in the very
earliest ones doggerel verse is much used instead. See on 10
above.
The change from prose to verse is well illustrated in the third
scene of AI. of V. It begins with plain prosaic talk about a busi-
ness matter ; but when Antonio enters, it rises at once to the higher
level of poetry. The sight of Antonio reminds Shylock of his hatred
of the Merchant, and the passion expresses itself in verse, the ver-
nacular tongue of poetry.
The reasons for the choice of prose or verse are not always so
clear as in this instance. We are seldom puzzled to explain the
prose, but not unfrequently we meet with verse where we might
expect prose. As Professor Corson remarks {Introduction to Shake'
MERRY WIVES — lO
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