Today’s Totally Random Line(s)
And
therefore are we certainly resolved
To
draw conditions of a friendly peace;
-Henry
King Henry the Sixth Part I Act V, Scene i, Line 38
Henry
says he’s going to stop fighting with France and marry the daughter of the Earl
of Armagnac as part of the peace deal.
It’s a short scene, so that I was able to read the
whole thing this morning. It ends with Winchester, newly installed as a
cardinal, giving an aside and concluding with a rhyming couplet:
I’ll either make thee stoop and bend thy knee,
Or sack this country with a mutiny.
So
this guy is obviously up to no good.
But that’s not my line of thought this morning (and please don’t ask me to account for my line of thought - that’s a lost cause). What I was wondering was about the nature of the scene-ending rhyming couplet. Primarily, why do some scenes end with rhyming couplets and others don’t? Is there any rule governing where and why these bad boys are used?
(Okay, I just got auto-corrected from
‘governed’ to ‘for Vern Bing’. Who the heck is Vern Bing? And don’t even get
me started on AI. So, I just googled Vern Bing. All I got was someone named
Vern Bing on Pinterest with one follower. Very odd. So I’ve decided to follow
Vern. I'll keep you updated.)
Anyway, rhyming couplets. Right? I’m tempted to go
through and start compiling a list of what plays and scenes use the rhyming
couplet as and ender and which don’t to see if I can identify some rhyme or
reason. Perhaps it’s just one of those unanswered questions, like what’s the rational
for prose vs verse?
Wouldn’t it be great to have Will here to ask these questions to? Or even some of his personal writings where he talks about this stuff? Oh well, I don't see that happening anytime soon. Instead you're stuck with the personal writings of a bonehead like me. Ooof.
No comments:
Post a Comment