Books by-the-month: March

As March arrives, bringing with it the promise of early spring, Women's History Month, and the festive revelry of St. Patrick’s Day. The literary world offers us tales of renewal, strength, and history. This month, we celebrate not only the invigorating green of the season but also the empowering stories of women throughout history. 

 

Daylight is adding up, about three minutes more each day as March progresses, give or take. Spring hasn’t arrived yet, but the plane is circling the tarmac. Welcome back, light! This time of year is The Great Unclenching, for when the light returns, something unclenches in us all. 

 

March offers the perfect opportunity to dive into novels that inspire and enrich. Here’s a carefully curated list of books that will fill your days with literary joy, perfect for curling up with during those first glimpses of warmth.

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March Theme: Women’s History Month

Women are amazing. Good Gd how we hate them. Let's uplift them instead.

1. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott 

Little Women remains one of the most beloved and enduring classics of all time. The story follows the March sisters—Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy—through the trials and triumphs of their adolescence and early adulthood during the Civil War. 

 

There is a certain magic in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women that no film adaptation—no matter how lovingly crafted—can fully capture. The silver screen has given us many beautiful versions, from the golden glow of the 1933 and 1949 classics to the heart-wrenching performances of the 1994 and 2019 renditions, but nothing compares to the original novel, with its gorgeous prose, recognizable characters, effortless warmth, wisdom, and its deeply personal intimacy. 

 

Alcott doesn’t just tell the story of the March sisters—she invites us into their magical attic, lets us sit by the fire as Jo scribbles away long in to the night, as Meg dreams of simple, beautiful things, as Amy yearns for greatness, and as Beth’s quiet kindness radiates through the pages. The novel pulses with life, with all the small joys and sorrows that make up a girlhood, and it is this depth—this richness is what truly makes Little Women not just a beloved book, but one of the great literary classics in the canon.

 

For at its heart, Little Women is about the messy, bittersweet journey of growing up—about the triumphs and disappointments, the laughter and heartbreak that shape us into who we become. Who hasn’t felt Jo’s frustration as she cries, “I’m angry nearly every day of my life!”? Who hasn’t longed to leave their mark on the world, or wrestled with duty and desire when torn between home and ambition? 

 

The beauty of Alcott’s novel is that it allows space for all these contradictions, for the quiet, everyday struggles of being human, and it does so with prose that glows like candlelight—soft, illuminating, and endlessly comforting. So yes, watch the films (come on: the 1994 was so crucial to my teenage sexual awakening it is hard to express just HOW important 1994 Christian Bale was so almost every one of my teenage romantic choices for better and for worse), fall in love with the March sisters all over again—but to truly know them, to hear their thoughts and feel their dreams, there is no substitute for the novel itself.

2. "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s masterpiece novella is a fever dream wrapped in the suffocating folds of Victorian domesticity. The protagonist, suffering from what is diagnosed as a “nervous condition,” is confined to a room in her home by her husband, where she becomes obsessed with the room's yellow wallpaper.

 

Written in 1892, the story explores the mental and physical confinement of women in the 19th century, it is a tale that simultaneously drones with claustrophobia and crackles with the desperation of a woman unraveling beneath the weight of total oppression.

From the very first lines, we are drawn into a world where the walls themselves seem to whisper, where the sickly yellow of the wallpaper morphs into a living, breathing tormentor. This is not just a tale of one woman’s descent into madness—it is a searing indictment of a society that silences and stifles, that mistakes a mind in turmoil for mere female "hysteria." Every creeping tendril of the wallpaper, every shadow shifting in the dim light, becomes a manifestation of our narrator’s struggle; her rebellion simmering beneath layers of repression until it spills over in a dizzying, mesmerizing climax.

 

What makes The Yellow Wallpaper so hauntingly unforgettable is its intimacy—the way Gilman locks us inside the narrator’s fractured psyche, forcing us to see the world as she does, to feel her isolation as palpably as the stale air of her sickroom. The language is hypnotic, looping and circling like the patterns on the cursed wallpaper itself, mirroring the slow dissolution of self that takes place within those four walls. 

 

And when, at last, the narrator succumbs to the madness that has been tightening its grip around her soul, we are left breathless, horrified, yet strangely exhilarated. Gilman doesn’t just tell a story; she drags us into the heart of a nightmare that feels all too real: a cautionary tale that still resonates fiercely today.

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March Theme: St. Patrick’s Day

There are too many exquisite Irish novels, plays and collections of poetry to even begin to narrow them down. From classics such as Dubliners, Star of the Sea and The Country Girls, to contemporary classics like Angela’s Ashes, there is nothing quite like an Irish writer talking about LIFE. 

 

3. Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt

As St. Patrick’s Day approaches, what better choice than Frank McCourt’s memoir Angela’s Ashes, a heartbreaking yet darkly humorous look at the author’s impoverished childhood in 20th-century Ireland. But Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes is not just a memoir—it’s a symphony of sorrow and resilience that transforms even the bleakest of childhoods into something fiercely beautiful. With prose that sings like an Irish ballad—both mournful and full of unexpected humor—McCourt paints a portrait of Limerick that is as rain-soaked and poverty-stricken as it is brimming with life.

Every page pulses with the raw, unfiltered voice of a boy who endures hunger, loss, and shame, yet somehow never loses his wide-eyed wonder at the world. “When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all,” he begins, and from that moment, we are swept into a story whose power lies in its stark refusal to submit to self pity or to sentimentality; in its ability to find poetry in the gutters and grace in the struggle. It is not just a memoir—it is a testament to survival, to storytelling, and to the indomitable spirit of those who dare to dream beyond their circumstances.

 

 

4. Ulysses by James Joyce

Ulysses was first serialized in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920. It has been called one of the most important works of Modernist literature. No other book captures the soul of Dublin with such ferocity and tenderness, stitching together the passage of Leopold Bloom through Dublin during an ordinary day, 16 June 1904, with a depth and complexity that transforms the ordinary into the epic. To read Ulysses is to walk the streets of Dublin in 1904, to feel the rain on your face, to hear the chatter of pub-goers and the distant tolling of church bells, to live inside the thoughts of characters.

 

James Joyce’s Ulysses is not just the crown jewel of Irish literature—it is its beating heart, its wildest dream, its most defiant and dazzling creation.  Joyce hammered a job on the novel so complete that he became a category unto himself. This is a novel that dares to contain multitudes—history and myth, comedy and heartbreak, the sacred and the profane—all flowing together in an intoxicating stream of consciousness that changed literature forever.

Every literary style was mist to his grill, as he might have said, and his plotting, if such it can be called - two men who take all day to meet each other - paved the way for, among others, Samuel Beckett. 

Above all he taught every writer the importance of naturalistic dialogue; with his fine tenor voice Joyce knew better than most that we read not with the eye but with the ear.

And yet, Ulysses is more than just an ode to Dublin—it is the very soul of Irish literary ambition; the book that shattered conventions and redefined what a novel could be. Joyce takes the English language, that instrument of colonial rule, and bends it to his will, infusing it with the rhythms of Irish speech, the poetry of everyday thought, the sheer audacity of a mind unchained. It is a book that demands everything from its reader, but in return, it gives back a universe— in which a single day can contain all of human existence. 

 

“Yes I said yes I will Yes,” Molly Bloom declares in the novel’s final, breathtaking lines, and in that moment, Joyce doesn’t just conclude a masterpiece—he affirms life itself, in all its messiness, all its beauty, all its infinite possibility. 

 

If one book must stand as the pinnacle of the Irish literary canon, let it be Ulysses.

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March Theme: The Ides of March

With this addition, Julius Caesar rounds out the list perfectly, infusing the month of March with both the classic weight of Shakespearean tragedy and a timely nod to the historical moment that defines it.

5.  Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

March is synonymous with the ominous "Ides of March," and what better way to dive into the drama of fate, ambition, and betrayal than with William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar? Julius Caesar—the mighty general and leader of Rome—is on the verge of absolute power, but a group of conspirators led by Brutus and Cassius believes his rule will bring tyranny. While this ticking-time-bomb of a play is set in the heart of ancient Rome, it reads (and plays!) like "DC Noir" made popular on television in the 21st Century. It explores the tension between personal loyalty and political duty through the all-too-human lenses of loyalists and conspirators.

 

William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is so much more than "just "a history play—it is a timeless political thriller; a study of power, ambition, and the chaos that ensues when the line between patriotism and personal ambition blurs. And in 2025, as the world grapples with populist movements, political conspiracies, misinformation, high emotions and a desperate common man, the ever-present question of who truly wields power reveals that this classic feels more relevant than ever. 

 

The fickleness of the Roman crowd, swayed so easily from love to uncontrollable rage, mirrors the way modern public opinion shifts with a single headline or viral video. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings,” Cassius warns, and his words ring truer than ever in an era where leaders rise and fall within 24-hour news cycles at the whims of public perception. The senators, believing they act in Rome’s best interest, justify their actions with noble rhetoric, yet their violence only breeds more instability—a cautionary tale for any modern political upheaval.

 

Even more striking is the play’s exploration of the power of speech, leveraged emotions, and misinformation, something that resonates in an age dominated by social media and manipulated narratives. Mark Antony’s funeral oration is a masterclass in persuasion, as he subtly turns the crowd against the conspirators without ever directly condemning them: “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” What follows is a perfect example of how a skilled orator can bend public sentiment to his will, a lesson we see played out daily in modern media and politics. Observe Damien Lewis deliver Marc Anthony's eulogy-as-political-excoriation, here:

 

 

 

The chaos that erupts in the wake of Caesar’s death, where reason is drowned out by outrage, echoes our contemporary political divisions as they spiral into violence, dis and misinformation, and violent power struggles. Shakespeare’s Rome is not so different from our world in 2025—ambition, manipulation, and the ever-looming question of who truly holds power remain as urgent and dangerous as ever.

 

Call Me Adam: Merchant of Venice

1. I can't believe it's been six years since our last interview together! At that time, you were starring in Camelot in Washington DC. How would you say you have changed the most since that time?

 It’s almost unutterable how much I have personally changed and how much the world has too.

I have had a major organ removed and reconstructed. It saved my life.
I fell in love and got married.
I turned 40

There was a worldwide Pandemic. And the world is even more inside out and upside down. 

2. This fall you are starring in an updated William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice at Classic Stage Company. What made you want to sign on for this re-telling of The Merchant of Venice?

It is a dream-like opportunity to portray one of Shakespeare’s great leading roles in New York City—a dream I have had since childhood. To be a Jewish actor (born into a Catholic-Jewish largely secular family) in this particular moment in world history, telling a story that involves Jew hated, feels like another sensitive, challenging and important task.

It’s a thrill to ask hard questions in the room, to know we might never find answers, and to be a vessel for complex dualities onstage and off. 

3. Why do you feel audiences should come see this modern version?

We live in a world of knee jerk reactions, polarized camps and a culture that feels obedient to loudly chanting the “right” ideas for fear of estrangement from our communities, rather than arriving at points of view on our own — of much more nuanced.

I think The Merchant of Venice is a play that people have a knee jerk reaction about — assuming it cannot be done (and thus cannot be viewed) without a moral indictment of those both creating the production AND viewing it.

I welcome modern audiences to walk in ready to be confronted with very hard questions and thoughts and ideas— but leave room within themselves for growth and awe and surprise. Igor/our take on this piece is bold and yes, confrontational— but not in the ways you might assume. I welcome you to join us and be surprised. Have your expectations and your assumptions exploded. I won’t say more than that because of spoilers!

4. In the show, you are playing Portia. What do you relate to most about her?

Her loneliness and isolation.
I’d like to think we share a fierce intellect and large capacity for love. 

5. What is one quality of hers you are glad you yourself don't possess?

Even though your previous question asked about complimentary shared (pardon the expression) *qualities* It would be arrogant of me to assume that I — or anyone— don’t share all of Portia’s less favorable qualities as well. We contain multitudes.  

And I’ll admit that while i do not love, and endeavor daily to overcome, them , I possess such negative personal attributes such as

• self-obsession
• self righteousness
• Snobbery
• Manipulation
• Conscious and unconscious bias + “isms”
• Selective memory
• Elitism and classism

The list goes on.

Don’t you …posses those too?
In some level, Don’t we all? 

Knowing something is bad or wrong doesn’t eradicate it from our psyche — it gives us an opportunity to overcome it and behave differently despite ourselves. To offer ourselves and others grace and dare I say it? “Mercy.” 

6. In this re-telling, Superheroes and their archenemies battle it out to protect good in the face of evil. Considering the tumultuous times we are living in, how do you protect the good of the world with so much evil lurking at every corner?

I strive to do what I can in the ways that feel natural and accessible to me. I have always been on the quieter, slower and more thoughtful side of political, philosophical and ethical thought—preferring long and deep conversations to protests or more traditional advocacy. That is where I think I thrive, and where my gift for humanizing the “other,” for empathy, asking deep questions, the power of story and story telling, can be a light in the face of darkness.

I don’t always succeed. Many days I flail and fail. Some days I hang out at my rock bottom. But I endeavor. 

7. In our 2011 interview, you had mentioned that one day you hope to work with Director Matthew Warchus, act or sing opposite Audra McDonald, and be in the presence of John Adams. Have any of these come to fruition?

None. But I have new dreams now. 

8. What is the best advice you've given, but not taken for yourself?

“Don’t wash wool.”

9. What is something that you and your best friend like to do together?

Send texts and voicemails that begin the middle of an ever-on-going conversation. 

10. When you watch an episode of "The Golden Girls," the ladies would always solve their problems over cheesecake. If we were to sit down to Cheesecake:

* What problem of your own would you want to solve?
* What kind of cheesecake would we solve this problem over?

Ohhhh nothing huge just:
What in the heck shall I do with the time that has been returned to me post surgery, and that I blessedly have left on this earth?

Blueberry. 

11. What didn't we get to talk about in this interview that you'd like my audience to know about you?

I’m an introvert. 

 

Dressed by Jess!

OMG OMG OMG.
SO.
When I met wardrobe professional, dresser extraordinaire, smart, cool, genius human Jess Kenyon at Chiacgo Shakespeare Theater in 2018 into 2019, I told her she needed her own TV SHOW.

Cue: PANDEMIC.

CUE: JESS MADE A SHOW! "Dressed By Jess" is a conversation with Jess herself discussing the unparalleled power of costumes and clothing: the visual storytelling, the creativity, and the collaboration. These are not just "costumes" these are the characters' clothes.

On her show Jess discusses the relationship between artist and costumer, the ideas each creative brings to the eventual outcome, the backstage stories that make what we see onstage in the audience happen, and much more.

Jess is one of the greatest costume professionals I've ever worked with, and if she weren't married with a couple of cats I'd force her to come all over the world with me.

I was honored to be among her first interviews and it was such a joy to discuss some of the creative realities that don't get discussed very often!

"Al Silber and Jess discuss Fiddler on the Roof and Camelot. Al Tells amazing backstage stories! Costumes mentioned are designed by: Ana Kuzmanic, Fabio Toblini, Kendra Rai, and Catherine Zuber. Photos shown are taken by: Liz Lauren, Scott Suchman, and Stan Barouh."

Shakespearean Cocktails: A List

COMEDIES
The Taming of the Shew - The Shrewdriver
A Midsummer Night's Dream - Bottom’s Up, Puck’s Fizz
Twelfth Night - What you Will
Merchant of Venice - Quali-Tea of Mercy
Much Ado About Nothing - The Much a Woo Woo

ROMANCES
A Winter's Tale - Exit pursued by a Beer
Cymbeline - Cym-Bellini

HISTORY
Richard III - The Gimme-let

TRADGEDIES
Macbeth - Bloody Mary Queen of Scots
Hamlet - Best Served Cold, Drowned Ophelia, Get thee to a Winery
Othello - Put of the Light Beer, Green-Eyed Monster
King Lear - Serpent’s Tooth 
Titus Andronicus - Bloody Tamora, Speechless
R&J - Juliet’s Emoji-hito 
Anthony & Cleopatra - The Cleopolitan  

Another Alexandra

Dear Sasha, 

The cold has truly settled in here in Chicago and we’re looking forward to -17 as a high temp on Wednesday. It is warmer in Vladivostok. Next week it is projected to be -40 and -52 with the windchill. It will be warmer on the surface of Mars. *

 I had a wonderful friend visit this week— a friend made several years (2011?) ago during a one week workshop. Her name is also Alexandra. We fully intended to walk around Millennium park, but then (of course) the weather turned to such frigidity that we decided to keep our activities indoors. That included a great deal of tea-sipping and talking—delving into deeper and deeper depths, like taking steps down a beautifully lit stairwell of intimacy.  It was so soul-resorting to spend quality time with a true friend and almost-sister.  Alexandra is probably the only other woman in my life that truly feels like the relationship one might have with a same-aged family member (much like Arielle, though that is even deeper for Ari and I have shared our entire lives). 

Alexandra has had a difficult year—her life-force of a mother died of early-onset Alzheimer’s in July, and over the years we have shared a beautiful common-knowledge of grief. We both bore witness to our parents dying slowly, but mine was physical while hers was a mental loss. In that vein, her grief was complicated by the fact that the mother she knew and grew up with “died," while her physical body remained and was replaced by a new person who did not know Alexandra at all from day to day. 

There were, effectively, two grieving processes for her to go through. I never knew Joan (her mother) in her titanic stardom of self, and it was heartening to know that over the years I have been of comfort to A as her mother slowly evaporated. By the time her mother did pass, the first grief was already thorough. I was honored to hold her experience both through the lens of my own grief of a parent, with curiosity and respect for its own distinction. 

In October, just before I left for Chicago, I drove up to New Hampshire to sing in her mother’s memorial service.  The weeks leading up to the service I was so mind-squashingly irritated with her. I almost couldn’t think about her without my brain exploding. She had asked me to sing at the memorial—a huge honor—but she had absolutely fallen off the face of the earth and I was at a loss as to how to proceed. I needed practical details to plan getting myself there, getting to Chicago, etc. Dear god Alexandra, my brain raged, I actually know first-hand that grief is crushing but I can’t be there for you if you don’t call me back!  

I tried her friends and boyfriend for help: what was I singing? What town was I going to? Do you realize how far away new Hampshire is? Do you realize how stressed I am trying to move to Chicago for 4 months, in only 4 days? What time was the service? Where? Where would we sleep? What in the actual hell was going on? This event very quickly became a major pain in my ass despite me desperately wanting to be there for her. As the day approached my frustration with her silence and scatter-brainedness mounted and nearly boiled over. I was a record-breaking level of grouchy.  

But, from the moment she and her boyfriend E piled into our rental car, I was transformed. Instantly. Over the course of the 48 hours encompassing the event, I’m wholly proud to say we shared one of the best, most hilarious, and most profound experiences of our adult lives. A treasured memory of laughter and sorrow and fullest humanity. I now own how thoroughly I projected her lack of communication as a lack of regard, and misinterpreted her silence as a lack of gratitude and love. I was wrong. She was, of course, just drowning. 

Alexandra, her boyfriend E (also a dear lovely friend) and I road-tipped up the country to her family’s home in New Hampshire. We sang along to terrible music the entire way. We told stories and laughed from our viscera. We vacillated from that laughter to tears in micro-seconds. We talked about real things. We talked about nothing.  We stopped at a being-renovated diner somewhere in deepest Massachusetts called “Athena 2,” (we never did locate Athena 1), ate gigantic over-priced salads underneath renovation tarps and laughed some more. Later, I helped her write her eulogy. I was her “other family” member and the family offered me a check after the service for my singing (which I, of course, donated to the Alzheimer’s Association). I got to know Alexandra, her family, and above all, her mother in a way I lack the language to express— but I recognize it as a sensation I still long to share with close friends about my father’s life. I bore witness to something deep and fervent and eternal. 

Basically: I was profoundly wrong.  I’m so glad I was wrong.  I learned the lesson thoroughly. I will never be such a grouchy pants again.  I should also mention that Alexandra was in a Broadway show (called “Head Over Heels”) that opened and closed in a matter of weeks, and thus, her highs and lows this year were on the Richter scale of intensity. This was her second week off after the close of the show, and she chose to spend it with me. I was very touched. 

Alexandra arrived on my doorstep last Wednesday on the first stop of what she is terming her “Grief Tour 2019.” All we did was light candles, snuggle Tati and one another, and talk at length about things that truly matter deep into the night. We occasionally ate food, sleep, bathe, and I did take breaks to go to work at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. When we weren’t doing those things, we were having a great deal of fun at Improv Shakespeare and the Art Institute. This visit somehow felt like the closing of the circle of memorial experience in October—like an echo. 

And I, of course, needed her too. I am lonely here and feeling unseen in that deep way that feels so necessary to me. I crave to know others deeply, and also to be known at the same depth—the latter sometimes being challenging for me, as discussed.  When she left there was indeed an Alexandra Socha-shaped hole in my apartment, but what remained was her essence, the fullness of my heart, and a little notebook labeled “SCREENPLAYS ABOUT MY CAT” with a long heartfelt note within it.

“To Alexandra, The only Alexandra I love more than myself.”

 My heart swelled, and off I went to play the fairy queen. 

Preview of 'A Midsummer Night’s Dream' at Chicago Shakespeare

Cast members Melisa Soledad Pereyra, T.R. Knight, Alexandra Silber and Sam Kebede and took time out of rehearsal to share their excitement about the production, and why this production of Shakespeare’s audience favorite “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” will have the whole theater laughing and dancing. Performances begin on December 6 in the Courtyard Theater at CST’s home on Navy Pier.

from As You Like It, "All the world’s a stage..." by William Shakespeare

Jaques to Duke Senior

 All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Ask Al: Poetic Scansion 2 - Rhythm & Meter

RHYTHM  [We got rhy-THM!]

In English, the major feet are:

TWO FEET:

IAMB ( ^  / )  — unstressed, stressed 

Examples:      InDEED  // beLIEVE  //  the END

    Shall I | comPARE | thee TO | a SUM | mer’s DAY? |


TROCHEE ( /  ^ )  —  stressed, unstressed

Examples:      SINGing  //  SLEEPy  //  TALK to

    DOUble, | DOUble, | TOIL and | TROUble — |


SPONDEE ( /  / ) —  stressed, stressed

Examples:      AMEN  // ARCH-FIEND  // DARK NIGHT

    •    (It would be confusing at best to literate an entire poem consisting of purely spondaic feet —it would sound like a drill! Or Incessant hammering! For this reason, the spondee is usually used for emphasis, or to break up another foot such as the anapest.)


PYRRHIC ( ^  ^ ) —  unstressed, unstressed

Examples:      and the  //   in the  //  is to

    And the | QUAINT MAZ | es in | the WAN | ton GREEN. |

    •    (Due to the monotonous, or redundant sound, the pyrrhic foot is not used to construct an entire poem. Much like the anapest and the dactyl, the pyrrhic is often found within the framework of the poem, but does not make up the entire structure.)

Lord Byron's "Don Juan" contains a fine example of pyrrhic feet:

    My WAY | is to | begIN | with the | begIN | ning. |

THREE FEET:

ANAPEST ( ^ ^ / )  — unstressed, unstressed, stressed (FYI: this is the natural rhythm of the French language)

Examples:      in the NIGHT  //  by the LIGHT  //  of the MOON

    I am MON | arch of ALL | i surVEY |


DACTYL ( / ^ ^ )  — stressed, unstressed, unstressed (FYI: this is the natural rhythm of the Italian language)

Examples:      BEAUtiful  //  SERious  // SING to her

    TAKE her up | TENDderly |

    •    IAMBIC and ANAPESTIC meters are called rising meters (because their movement rises from unstressed syllable to stressed)

    •    TROCHAIC and DACTYLIC meters are called falling meters.

SPONDEE and PYRRHIC feet, are never used as the sole meter of a poem; if they were, it would be like the steady impact of nails being hammered into a board—no delight to hear. Blech. But inserted now and then, they can lend emphasis and variety to a meter.

    •    (In the twentieth century, the bouncing meters—anapestic and dactylic—have been used more often for comic verse than for serious poetry.)


What is a caesura?
A caesura . . . is . . . . . . . . . a pause.

indicated by a “double-pipe”  || (so as to be discernible front he SPONDEE “railroad tracks:” //) is an indication of a brief pause outside of the metrical rhythm. It may be:
- initial caesura (near the beginning of a line)
- medial caesura (near the middle of a line)
- terminal caesura (near the end of a line)


FEMININE ENDING - A line of iambic pentameter (our stock in trade) has a feminine ending when there are one (or sometime more) unaccented syllables after the fifth foot. The line ends with an extra unstressed syllable, giving eleven syllables instead of ten. (For reference, a masculine ending is a (“regular”) end, one with a stressed syllable.)

Crucial: a feminine ending indicates the presence of a CAESURA, a pause.

Why is this so critical?
    •    Let us begin with the assertion that William Shakespeare is a great poet.
    •    Thus, we can assume that Shakespeare can write regular iambic pentameter any time he damn well wants to.
    •    Therefore, when he varies from it, he has a purpose.
    •    If dramatic verse represents the character's thoughts, we can have confidence that any “turbulence” or irregularity within the verse represents some idea that causes the character distress or pause for some reason.

If a line ends with a feminine ending, we can pick out the exact word that is causing the character additional thought/distress/pause.

The effects:
    •    It makes the thought itself potentially ironic
    •    It makes the effect making the line more pliant
    •    and often giving the quality of working through the thought
    •    something giving it a haunted and unfinished sound as thought leaving the thought in the air.

There are many feminine endings in Hamlet's famous Act 3 soliloquy:

          To be, or not to be: that is the ques-tion:
          Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suf-fer
          The slings and arrows of outrageous for-tune,
          Or to take arms against a sea of trou-bles,
          And by opposing, end them.     (…)


My personal favorite example of an extremely effective feminine ending is from Desdemona’s speech in Act 4, scene 2 of Othello:

    DESDEMONA
    O good Iago,
    What shall I do to win my lord again?
    Good friend, go to him; for, by this light of heaven,
    I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel:
    If e'er my will did trespass 'gainst his love,
    Either in discourse of thought or actual deed,
    Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense,
    Delighted them in any other form;
    Or that I do not yet, and ever did.
    And ever will--though he do shake me off
    To beggarly divorcement--love him dearly,
    Comfort forswear me! Unkindness may do much;
    And his unkindness may defeat my life,
    But never taint my love. I cannot say 'whore:'

—the topic word itself IS the feminine ending, and the subsequent pause further emphasizes the following line:

    It does abhor me now I speak the word;
    To do the act that might the addition earn
    Not the world's mass of vanity could make me.

[…Beautiful…]

Elision and Expansion

Things to keep in mind:

• Remember to put a mark over every syllable. 
• Keep in mind that by pronouncing a word differently, you may find different numbers of syllables in it, as in “diff-rent-ly” and “diff-er-ent-ly.” (I'll go into more detail about what is called elision and expansion in the next post). This is particularly true of proper names ("Iago" can be "ee-AH-go" or "YA-go"). 
• If you are having "trouble" with a line, go to proper names first and then any polysyllabic words and play around with pronunciation, see if you missed something. This is art not science so try not to have a stroke about it.

METER [Meter maids!]

What is meter?
Meter defines the number of feet in a single line of poetry.

For example:
    •    monometer - One foot
    •    dimeter - Two feet
    •    trimeter - Three feet
    •    tetramter - Four feet
    •    pentameter - Five feet
    •    hectameter or hexameter - Six feet
    •    heptameter - Seven feet
    •    octameter - Eight feet

A frequently heard metrical description is iambic pentameter which simply describes/translates to: a line of five iambs.

As an example of iambic pentameter, take a look at the first four lines (describes in poetry as a quatrain) of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 141:

In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,
 
For they in thee a thousand errors note; 
 
But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,
 
Who in despite of view is pleased to dote;     (…)

We see the rhythm of this quatrain is made up of:
    •    one unaccented syllable
    •    followed by one accented syllable,
    •    that is called an iambic foot.
    •    we also count that there are five feet per line
    •    making the meter of the line pentameter.
    •    So, the rhythm and meter are: iambic pentameter.  (Ta-daaaa!)

This is a meter especially familiar because it occurs in all blank verse (such as Shakespeare’s plays), heroic couplets, and sonnets. It is the most like English speech, and thus a familiar and “comforting” rhythmic meter to speak and hear.

*

OK, BUT… WHY?

Okay. Yes, that’s all very lovely and fancy and all, but why do we study rhythm & meter?

People have a basic need for rhythm (or for the effect produced by it) as several experiments in human psychology have demonstrated (as you can see by watching a crew of workers digging or hammering, or by listening to the chants of work songs, not to mention our most intrinsic human rhythm: our heartbeat—the source and evidence of human life).

Crucially:

    Rhythm gives pleasure and a more emotional response to the listener or reader because it establishes a pattern of expectations, and rewards the listener or reader with the pleasure that comes from having those expectations fulfilled, or the noted change in a rhythm.

To emphasize this extraordinary poetic pleasure, here is one of the most rhythmic poems in history: Hilaire Beloc’s Tarentella:

Do you remember an Inn,
Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?
And the tedding and the spreading
Of the straw for a bedding,
And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees,
And the wine that tasted of tar?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
(Under the vine of the dark verandah)?
Do you remember an Inn, Miranda,
Do you remember an Inn?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteeers
Who hadn't got a penny,
And who weren't paying any,
And the hammer at the doors and the Din?
And the Hip! Hop! Hap!
Of the clap
Of the hands to the twirl and the swirl
Of the girl gone chancing,
Glancing,
Dancing,
Backing and advancing,
Snapping of a clapper to the spin
Out and in --
And the Ting, Tong, Tang, of the Guitar.
Do you remember an Inn,
Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?

Never more;

Miranda,

Never more.

Only the high peaks hoar:

And Aragon a torrent at the door.

No sound

In the walls of the Halls where falls

The tread

Of the feet of the dead to the ground

No sound:

But the boom

Of the far Waterfall like Doom.

An argument might be raised against scanning: isn’t it too simple to expect that all language can be divided into neat stressed and unstressed syllables?
Well. Yeah. Of course it is. 
There are infinite levels of stress, from the loudest scream to the faintest whisper.
But, the idea in scanning a poem is not to reproduce the sound of a human voice—a recorder can do that.

To scan a poem is to make a diagram of the stresses and absence of stress we find in it. Studying rhythms, “scanning,” is not just a way of pointing to syllables; it is also a matter of listening to a poem and making sense of it—thus allowing the sense to emerge FROM THE TEXT.
To scan a poem is one way to indicate how to read it aloud; in order to see where stresses fall, you have to see the places where the poet wishes to put emphasis.

That is why when scanning a poem you may find yourself suddenly understanding it.


Above all, in Shakespeare:
    Text first.
    Emotions emerge.

By understanding, and ultimately honoring the poetic verse in all its glory, we allow emotion to stir itself from within the confines of the poetry, as opposed to forcing our emotions upon the the text.

View the text AS THE SPINE of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets.

Ask Al: A Basic Intro to Scansion for The Perplexed

Will Shakes.

Dear Al,

I am currently receiving training from my college-level conservatory about playing Shakespeare (as in opposed to reading Shakespeare--meaning I am taking an acting class rather than a literature class, just FYI). 

Basically: HELP. There is a major logic leap our intructor is making between truly understanding how the poetry "works" and "owning it" theatrically. The words still just look like a sea of thees and thous.

Truly, Madly, Sincerely, 

Perplexed

*

Dear Perplexed,

Aha!
                         Forsooth!  
     Pray tell!
                                  Heck yes!

Ya know, sometimes we get find ourselves in a class where the teacher assumes we know the basics. That stinks. (This has happened to me countless times as a student as well as in life, and that is why as a teacher, I always teach things that seem mind-numbingly obvious, but actually are not--How to Actually Read a Play, How to Rehearse, How to fill out your Tax forms, etc.)

Reader: do not freak the eff out: I GOT YOU.
Chances are, if you graduated from high school, you've probably had one of Shakespeare's plays in your hot little hands at some point in time.

• Ya know the one about the rich-horny-teen-couple-whose-parents-super-duper-hate-eachother?
• Or the one about the camping trip with a double-date-gone-wrong? Plus psychedelic drugs. And fairies. And a donkey-man-person?
• Or about the emo-collge-drop-out-ghost-hunter from Denmark who is faced with a moral dilemma. He's crazy, but harmless (because nothing says "un-threatening" like "visibly deranged."). Oh! and his uncle killed his father so he could be king. And bang his mom.

...Or something. 

Hell, if you were brave, you may even have cracked the spine open and, ya know, read a couple pages, sifting through those "thee"s and "thou"s like you were some kind of FBI codebreaker.

Ah Billy Shakes.
He was cool. 
Widely regarded as the greatest writer in the history of the English language. - Whatevs.
His collective works consisted of 38 plays and 154 sonnets. - Casual.
And he never even attended university. (Take that, guidance counselors everywhere!) - No bigs.
Plus he married a woman named Anne Hathaway. - Seriously.
And was the original purveyor of The Dick Joke. - For reals. 
He used big words. - Cool.
And he invented a gazillion words when there didn't seem to be enough. - Super cool.

But actually, once you figure out what the hell is going on, it's not only quite straightforward but it is readable; not to mention profoundly, bone-marrow-chillingly, genius. And reader, that is where we begin this lesson: let us assume that William Shakespeare was a Great Poet. That'll help prevent us from second-guessing him. Or, critically, ourselves.

So.
Just in case you've never had the absolute basics on poetry read on, anon...

I give you: [drum roll]

The 'Al Silbs' Shakespearience:
A Basic Guide to Scansion for The Perplexed.

[::: balloon drop! :::]

*

Ahhhhhh, SCANSION.
So. What the hell is it?

Definition:

SCANSION: Describing the rhythms of poetry by dividing the lines into feet, marking the locations of stressed and unstressed syllables, and counting the syllables.

Take note that we do so much writing nowadays on the internet, in which we are trying to convey our natural speaking styles. We are used to putting. periods. after. words. to indicate all those words have equal stress, or using italics or CAPS or bold to indicate stressed words. (I am guilty of loving this style myself).  We see this all the time in modern scripts, essays, blogs and even on television. Shakespeare's scripts are only unusual to our eyes today because he did not utilize these "Interpretive Reading For Dummies" method—instead he utilized audible cues and clues inside blank verse, placing his stresses in the rhythm and meter. 

Let's define those.  

BLANK VERSE: unrhymed verse, especially the unrhymed 'iambic pentameter' most frequently used in English dramatic, epic, and reflective verse.

 

What we look for when we first scan a poem or piece of dramatic verse are two things:

    1.    RHYTHM: the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line. The rhythm of the line is the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables over the course of the line or passage. It may be regular or irregular, which usually conveys information about the speaker and their feelings or motivations.


    2.    METER: the number of feet in a line.



Thus, when we describe the rhythm of a poem, we “scan” the poem and mark:

    •    the “stresses” indicated by a ( / )
    •    and absences of stress known as “un-stress” ( ^ )

Then, we suss out the meter by counting the number of feet. And what are poetic “feet?” Simply,

a foot is a group of syllables.

- The purpose of all of this is to try to determine the regularity and irregularities of the iambic pentamenter, because even though 'iambic pentamenter' (I'll explain exactly what this means in detail in the next post) is the standard poetic structure, it is designed to be "broken" (from slightly to hugely) for artistic and theatrically practical reasons. 

What you should do first:

• Speak the line like a normal human person, pronouncing words as you normally would.
• Mark your script to indicate which syllables are stressed and which are unstressed (this should be obvious: it is pronounced goodBYE and not GOODbye, right? Don't freak out).
• The marks over the syllables in your script (in pencil please) should look like this:

  ^ = unstressed

  / = stressed

• Try to determine what all of this indicates about the character's personality/emotional state.

It should look like this:

Things to keep in mind:

• Remember to put a mark over every syllable. 
• If you are having "trouble" with a line, go to proper names first and then any polysyllabic words and play around with pronunciation, see if you missed something.  
• Keep in mind that by pronouncing a word differently, you may find different numbers of syllables in it, as in “diff-rent-ly” and “diff-er-ent-ly.” (I'll go into more detail about what is called elision and expansion in the next post). This is particularly true of proper names ("Hermia" can be "HER-mi-ah" or "HERM-ya"). 

This is art not science so try not to have a stroke about it.

Next up: Rhythm.

Poetry!