Iambic Pentameter

The Iambic Pentameter, also known as the "aB" technique, was the first exercise that we used when we first chose our Shakespeare monologues. Usually Shakespeare's sentence would have 10-11 syllables and followed a similar pattern when they were being presented. As the speaker would say the lines, on every other syllable the actor would rise in tone to put emphasis on that specific word to signify the importance of that word. This is what we started to do when reading through our monologue, we would read each line and highlight every other syllable where we would rise in tone. The purpose of this technique is to really bring out the true meaning of each sentence and what is intended by the line that is being said. This is how it turned out:

I will be brief, for my short date of breath

Is not so long as is a tedious tale.

Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet,

And she, there dead, that Romeo’s faithful wife.

I married them, and their stol'n marriage day

Was Tybalt’s doomsday, whose untimely death

Banished the new-made bridegroom from the city—

For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined.

You, to remove that siege of grief from her,

Betrothed and would have married her perforce

To County Paris. Then comes she to me,

And with wild looks bid me devise some mean

To rid her from this second marriage,

Or in my cell there would she kill herself.

Then gave I her, so tutored by my art,

A sleeping potion, which so took effect

As I intended, for it wrought on her

The form of death.