Act I The Tragedy of Julius Caesar
5/9/11
Vickie C. Ball, Harlan High School
1
I. After the humorous section of
puns in Act I, scene i, the tone
changes drastically in line 33 and
thereafter. Notice how hostile
Marullus becomes as the humor
ends.
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Vickie C. Ball, Harlan High School
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II. Pay close attention to Marullus' hostile question in line 34:
"Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?"
5/9/11
Vickie C. Ball, Harlan High School
3
(II continued) In this line, Shakespeare switches
from prose to iambic pentameter.
Up to this point, everyone’s lines
have been written in prose, which
simply means ordinary speech or
writing written in paragraph form,
as opposed to verse.
5/9/11
Vickie C. Ball, Harlan High School
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III. The tribunes, however, switch
to iambic pentameter. What,
exactly, does this mean? 5/9/11
Vickie C. Ball, Harlan High School
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III A. An iamb (the adjective is "iambic") is
an unstressed syllable followed by a
stressed one.!
Note: The homograph “record” may be
pronounced two ways:!
re-cord or re-cord
Mark the accents and circle the one that is an iamb.
5/9/11
Vickie C. Ball, Harlan High School
6
III B. Now that we know what an iamb
is, we know that the pentameter must be
iambic.
But what does the term pentameter
mean?
Penta means ____________.
Meter means _____________.
5/9/11
Vickie C. Ball, Harlan High School
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So iambic pentameter is a poetic
form consisting of ______ syllables per
line in pairs of ______—one
_______________ syllable followed by
an ________________ syllable.
5/9/11
Vickie C. Ball, Harlan High School
8
IV. Here is Marullus’ quote from line 34.
Mark it with the accents for iambic
pentameter
"Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?"
5/9/11
Vickie C. Ball, Harlan High School
9
V. Now look at page 829 in the purple literature
books. Keeping in mind what we have just learned
about iambic pentameter, why is line eighteen
written in the following way?
Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March.
Caesar:
What man is that?
Shakespeare collapses the two lines of
text to get the ten syllables necessary for
iambic pentameter.
5/9/11
Vickie C. Ball, Harlan High School
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VI. Iambic pentameter becomes
blank verse when the poetry is
not written to rhyme.
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Vickie C. Ball, Harlan High School
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VII. Now look at page 880 in the
book at Brutus’ monologue (lines
12-34). Is Brutus speaking prose
or blank verse in his monologue?
(Circle one.) How do you know?
His monologue is written in prose
because it’s in ¶ form and because there
are not ten syllables per line.
5/9/11
Vickie C. Ball, Harlan High School
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VIII. Turn the page to Mark
Antony’s monologue (p. 882).
Does he speak prose or blank
verse in his monologue?
Antony’s monologue is written in blank
verse because it’s in poetic form and
because there are generally ten syllables
per line.
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Vickie C. Ball, Harlan High School
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IX. What can we infer from the
use of blank verse?
Shakespeare uses blank verse when he
wants to make a character seem more
intelligent or more noble.
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X. One last point: Why does
Mark Antony say “interréd”
instead of “interred”?
Shakespeare needed the extra syllable to
complete the line of blank verse.
5/9/11
Vickie C. Ball, Harlan High School
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Vickie C. Ball, Harlan High School
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Using your glosses in your text,
decode the imagery Shakespeare
uses to have Flavius describe
Caesar and his relationship with
the commoners in lines 74-77.
5/9/11
Vickie C. Ball, Harlan High School
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