William Shakespeare's the Taming of the Clueless
Page 15
What about words with more than two syllables? The trick with multisyllabic words is to figure out which syllable has the primary emphasis, and then see if another syllable has a minor emphasis. The word intelligent is a good example. The primary emphasis is on the second syllable, intelligent. In iambic pentameter, it makes sense to pronounce it as two iambs, “intell-” and the next iamb to be “-igent.”
The final syllable -gent has a secondary stress that fits the meter nicely.
To Thee or Not to Thee?
Shakespeare’s work is well known to be full of archaic pronouns (think thee and thou) and verbs ending in -est and -eth that can sound jarring to a modern ear. Consider this your crash course in these unfamiliar terms.
thou: second person singular pronoun that’s the subject of a sentence, as in “thou hast.” Modern writers would use you.
thee: second person singular pronoun that’s the object of a sentence, as in “that causeth thee to fret.” Modern writers would use you.
ye: second person plural pronoun that’s either the subject or object of a sentence. Modern writers would use you.
thy: second person singular possessive before a word starting with a consonant, as in “thy head.” Modern writers would use your.
thine: second person singular possessive before a word starting with a vowel, as in “thine assistance.” Modern writers would use your.
In Shakespeare’s time, the pronoun you was used either as the second person plural or as the second person singular in formal settings. For example, a citizen would generally call the king you, not thou (which, in fact, might be considered an insult).
In general, the -est ending (sometimes shortened, with an apostrophe, to -st or just -t) is added to a verb whose subject is the pronoun thou: “thou hast” or “thou shouldst.” The -eth ending accompanies verbs whose subject is he, she, or a singular it. For example, when referring to the vulture, Mel says “Which paceth to and fro back and forth.”
Another note about verb endings: In Shakespeare’s time, the -ed at the end of a past tense verb was sometimes pronounced as a separate syllable. Whereas a modern speaker would pronounce the word turned as one syllable, back then people would have pronounced two syllables: “turn-ed.” When such a word needed to be shortened to fit the meter, Shakespeare wrote it as a contraction: turn’d. In modern editions of Shakespeare—and in William Shakespeare’s Taming of the Clueless—an accent over the e indicates that the -ed should be pronounced as a separate syllable: turnèd.
Other Shakespearean Hallmarks
The following features of Shakespeare’s plays can all be found in William Shakespeare’s Taming of the Clueless.
Five acts. This was the usual structure of plays in Shakespeare’s time, which drew on the earlier tradition of ancient Roman plays. Acts can contain any number of scenes.
Minimal stage directions. Shakespeare left it to the performers to determine who should do what on stage, offering only minimal guidance on the page. I tried to do the same when writing William Shakespeare’s Taming of the Clueless, though it has far more stage directions than a Shakespearean play would, to make action sequences clear.
Rhyming couplets at the end of scenes. A rhyming couplet is a pair of consecutive lines of verse that rhyme. For example, Act I, scene 3, lines 139–140 (see this page): “Though we awhile may see each other more, / Unto thy heart to her ope not the door.” Shakespeare ended his scenes this way to mark a narrative shift, similar to a final cadence in music.
Asides. An aside is dialogue that the audience can hear but that the characters other than the speaker (supposedly) do not. These speeches often explain a character’s motivations or inner thoughts or reveal background information to the audience. These days, an aside in theater is sometimes called “breaking the fourth wall,” that is, crossing the imaginary divide between stage and audience to address the spectators directly.
Soliloquies. These monologues are similar to asides in that they explain a character’s behavior or motivation. But they occur when the character is alone on stage and tend to be longer than asides.
Literary Devices
Throughout William Shakespeare’s Taming of the Clueless, I made direct references to lines from Shakespeare’s plays. (How many did you find?) In addition, I also borrowed the following Shakespearean literary devices.
Anaphora. Anaphora is the repetition of a word or phrase at the start of successive lines, used for rhetorical effect. One example from Shakespeare appears in Act II, scene 4, lines 11–15 of The First Part of Henry the Sixth. I used this device in William Shakespeare’s Taming of the Clueless every time a character utters the phrase “As if!” The following example is from Act I, scene 1, lines 196–199 (see this page):
CHER
As if he should so blatantly approach,
As if I would, then, fall into his arms,
As if we two familiar would become,
As if he could usurp my maidenhood!
Extended wordplay. Shakespeare drew multiple meanings from words and squeezed as much life from them as possible. One excellent example of Shakespearean wordplay occurs in Act II, scene 1, of The Taming of the Shrew, when Kate and Petruchio verbally spar in one of their first scenes together. I wrote a similar interaction—including Petruchio’s line “With my tongue in your tail?”—when Cher and Josh first appear together in William Shakespeare’s Taming of the Clueless in Act I, scene 2, lines 22–38 (see this page). See how many plays on words (either the same word or homonym pairs) you can find in the following passage.
JOSH
Holla, my halfway sister. Thou art here,
So who then watcheth o’er the Galleria,
Where thou dost ever spend thy precious time?
CHER
Thy shirt of flannel—dost thou pay respect
Unto the gods who make Seattle gray,
Or merely, mayhap, needest thou the warmth
Because thou near the ice house ever stand’st?
JOSH
Thy belly filleth like a burlap sack.
CHER
Thy face doth race to catch up with thy mouth, 30
For both are filthy.
JOSH
—If thou wouldst face truth,
Thy tongue is far too sharp to match thy mien.
CHER
Thy face too mean for me to hold my tongue.
JOSH
Thy sharpness tells a tale a man could fear.
CHER
Thy tongue and face should turn their tails and flee. 35
JOSH
A flea would gladly take a turn on thee.
CHER
Thy tongue dost turn its face to tales. Farewell.
JOSH
With my tongue in your tail? Let us restart.
Songs. Shakespeare’s plays are full of songs. Sometimes playful, sometimes mystical, sometimes sorrowful, songs appear at unexpected moments and often break the rhythm of iambic pentameter. I adapted several tunes from the Clueless soundtrack for this play. Here’s my adaptation of the film’s most famous song, from Act II, scene 4, lines 108–118 (see this page).
BALTHASAR
[singing:] ’Tis Saturday, and I do roll,
My homies near, my spirit full,
Some sixteen instruments do play, 110
Unto the shore we make our way!
Roll with the homies, saucy jack!
Roll with the homies, sip the yak!
My carriage is a hearty ride,
The people gawk when I’m outside, 115
No gang of rogues our joy reduce—
My homies bear the dinner juice.
Rol
l with the homies, &c.
The Internet in ’95? As if!
The lovers Cher and Josh have been united,
Our tale of love and cluelessness concludes.
We hope our story hath thine eyes delighted,
For we would bring thee future interludes.
If there is more that thou desirest still,
Quirkbooks.com should be thy destination.
Pop Shakespeare titles shall bring thee a thrill
Should thy heart need a further palpitation.
If thou wouldst know more of the author’s mind,
The website ever is the place to be!
An interview with Ian Doescher find,
He’ll answer all thy questions ardently.
Be thou not clueless, nay, but ere the dawn,
Hie to Quirk Books, be calm, and carry on!
quirkbooks.com/tamingoftheclueless
IAN DOESCHER is the New York Times best-selling author of William Shakespeare’s Star Wars and the Pop Shakespeare series. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his family. Visit him online at IanDoescher.com.
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