"But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?" Read the line aloud. What meter is Romeo using?

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" How many metrical feet does this sonnet line have?

"If music be the food of love, play on;" Which scansion best matches the line?

"So long lives this, and this gives life to thee." How should a reader count its beat?

"To be, or not to be, that is the question:" What should scansion notice?

"The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne," is unrhymed. What meter still organizes it?

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;" How many main stresses should the actor feel?

"Double, double toil and trouble;" Which meter do the witches' chant rhythms use?

"Now is the winter of our discontent" begins with a stressed syllable. What does the reversal do?

"A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!" What does the rough stress pattern make audible?

"Never, never, never, never, never!" How does Lear's line vary the usual iambic movement?

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow" repeats before the sentence moves on. What is the metrical effect?

Hamlet's last words are "The rest is silence." What does the short verse fragment do?

Sampson and Gregory's opening jokes in Romeo and Juliet are prose, not pentameter. What does that choice fit?

Hamlet's "To be..." is verse, but "What a piece of work is a man!" is prose to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. What does the switch track?

In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth's "Out, damned spot! out, I say!" is printed as prose. What does prose help mark here?

The cobbler jokes in prose in Julius Caesar's first scene, while Brutus and Cassius argue in verse. What contrast is Shakespeare making?

The gravediggers' scene in Hamlet uses prose before Ophelia's funeral turns solemn. What does the prose suit?

"Away, and mock the time with fairest show: / False face must hide what the false heart doth know." What does this rhymed couplet signal?

"The play's the thing / Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king." What does the couplet do at the end of Hamlet's soliloquy?

Romeo and Juliet's first exchange forms a sonnet before their kiss. What does that shared verse unit show?

Macbeth asks, "If we should fail?" Lady Macbeth answers, "We fail?" What is the effect of this shared line?

"The which if you with patient ears attend, / What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend." What does this couplet do in Romeo and Juliet's Prologue?

Juliet asks, "Wherefore art thou Romeo?" What is she asking in ordinary word order?

Macbeth says, "So foul and fair a day I have not seen." Put the syntax into ordinary order.

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." What is the sentence saying in plain English?

"What light through yonder window breaks?" Which paraphrase keeps the syntax straight?

Romeo says, "I dream'd a dream tonight," and Mercutio answers that "dreamers often lie." What wordplay is Mercutio using?

Mercutio says, "Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man." What makes the line a pun?

"And by a sleep to say we end / The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks" What should an actor do at the line break after "end"?