Ever since it was told us in class, I've been trying to notice the rhyming couplet at the end of scenes in Shakespeare's plays we've been reading. I remember that it really stood out to me that often in Hamlet there would be the rhyme, and usually Hamlet spoke it. Not so in Winter's Tale. I've also been looking for the difference in poetry for higher ranking characters versus prose for lower ranking characters. In Winter's Tale Act II I can't pick it up. Every now and then there's some rhyming that goes with the pattern but not very much. Perhaps it is the fact that the characters have such short lines. But I think it's deeper. Shakespeare did it on purpose. So far in the play, there has only been confusion and jumping to conclusions, as our mood goes. I think that the prose lends to that since it lacks the rhythm of a rhyming pattern. I also noticed that maybe Leontes is a little over board and flustered and therefore demoted to prose so it lends that sense of disorder to his crazily concluded conclusions.
My search for prose&poetry has yet to be complete,
but think you on my words before you seek to eat...?
I think this is a valid point. I also noticed the lack of rhyming couplets, but I wasn't able to come up with any interesting theories as to why. I thought that maybe Shakespeare was trying to say that the King wasn't acting very noble, or most people for that matter, so he had them all speak in prose.
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