Breaking Down the Bard - Verse vs Prose

One of the very first things you need to learn as a classical or Shakespearean actor is how to identify when you are speaking in Verse or Prose. Knowledge of this super simple thing can be the difference between looking like you know your stuff or looking like a total noob.

WHAT IS VERSE?

Simply put, verse is poetry. If a character is speaking in poetry, there is very often a reason behind it; whether it is because they are addressing the King, are royalty themselves, or they are in love. It doesn't have to rhyme, and it isn't necessarily "iambic pentameter" (though it often is, and we can get into that later).

WHAT IS PROSE?

Prose is everyday, non-poetic speech. This paragraph, for example, is entirely in prose. Prose is often used for plain-speaking characters, and usually - but not always - used to denote characters of lower social classes. Kings may speak in prose, but when they do, it is generally in informal situations (like confiding in a close friend).

HOW TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE:

Most editors make telling the difference between verse and prose as easy as possible when they are printing a new edition of the play. Here's an example of what the current industry standard for verse looks like:

Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?

Scorn and derision never come in tears.

Look when I vow, I weep; and vows so born,

In their nativity all truth appears.

How can these things in me seem scorn to you,

Bearing the badge of faith to prove them true?

While prose looks more like this:

I have of late - but wherefore I know not - lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament; this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors. What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving, how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals, and yet to me what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me - nor woman neither, though by your smiling, you seem to say so.

One of the easiest ways to tell if you are working with verse or prose is to see if the first letter of each line is capitalized. If so, it's probably verse! If not, and the lines of text fill the entire column in a block instead of being left justified, then it is probably prose!

There you have it; the first steps to identifying whether you are speaking in verse or prose!

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