Scansion: The Disyllabic Foot

Just as we can all sing the same song different ways, we can also speak text different ways with different variations in tone, flow, intensity etc.

The differences are observed through what an audience can see and hear but the cause of the difference is interpretation.

Each artist has a different perspective based on a combination of varying life experiences and understanding of the arc of the character via the text.

Iambic pentameter, Shakespeares preferred poetic meter, grounds the language of the journey in a rhythm that closely resembles that of the human heart.

In a perfect world, that rhythm would go on and on uninterrupted ad Infinitu, but as we are well aware, the characters that live in Shakespeares worlds are FAR from perfect; FAR from monotonous and unchanging. In fact, as in real life, they are always shifting; always changing; always discovering.

Those shifts, changes and discoveries are very often illuminated in shifts, changes and even discoveries in the meticulously crafted meter behind the words that make up the verse, that tell the story.