Prose and Verse

Prose and Verse by Year of Composition

Shakespeare's plays include both verse and prose, which was conventional with Elizabethan playwrights.

Shakespeare seems to have gone through a period (between 1596 and 1604) wherein he used prose more prominently.

(Data Table behind this analysis)

Prose and Verse by Genre

Also, Shakespeare tends to use prose more often in certain genres. If we use the three genres presented in the First Folio, we find:

• Comedy includes representations and themes of ordinary life, as such the language is less structured and elevated.

• History and Tragedy, by contrast, deal more prominently with themes and situations of noble, courtly life; thus, the language of the Histories and Tragedies is more highly structured, more likely to be in verse.

Finally, we can slice the plays according to a modified version of the genres: where we separate out the late "Romances" (Tempest, Winter's Tale, Cymbeline and Pericles) from the Comedies, where we separate out the more comedic "Henriad" (1HIV, 2HIV, HV) from the other English Histories, and where we separate out the "Roman Histories" as a category from the Tragedies (Titus, JC, AC, Cor) -- the thinking here being that in both the English and Roman Histories Shakespeare is basing the plot on historical chronicles or biographies (that of Holinshed and of Plutarch).

Doing this we see that pure "History" (i.e., the "English Histories" with the comedic Henriad removed and with the Roman Histories added) is the most poetic:

• History averages 95% verse

• Tragedy / Romance are second most poetic with 80% of the lines composed of verse

• Comedy and the "Henriad" are the least poetic at 61% verse