Tempest (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1864 edition. Excerpt: ...now. 66. Fain, adv. 'gladly.' The adjective fain was also in use in Shakespeare's time; as in Psalm lxxi. it, "My lips will be fain when I sing unto Thee." Act I. Scene II, 1. In the first scene, the dialogue, being carried on chiefly by inferior personages whose sentiments and language were devoid of dignity, was in prose; but Prospero and Miranda speak on subjects of high importance, and their language therefore is in blank verse. But the verse is far looser than would be deemed correct in a more critical age. A line of English blank verse ought to consist regularly of ten syllables, or five feet of two syllables each, of which the second should be the more strongly accented. These feet correspond, so far as the accent of English can correspond with the prosodiacal length of Greek and Latin, with the iambus. But the lines have often a redundant unaccented syllable at the end, or are what Greek and Latin grammarians call hypercatalectic. The second line is an example of this, for them is redundant; in the first line the folio reads 'you have, ' but I have changed it to 'you 've;' the. third line is regular; the fourth is irregular, for in the first foot the first syllable is the accented one, and on account of the strong accentuation of the syllable mount, it admits the very slight ones ing and to without any offence to the ear, for which, and not the eye, Shakespeare wrote: mounting to must be read as one foot. As a general rule, it will be found that Shakespeare's verse, like Chaucer's, is tolerant of many redundant unaccented syllables, provided the proper number of accented ones is maintained. It would be endless to notice each case of irregularity as it occurs, but if any very striking example present itself I will endeavour to...