Shakespeare uses two types of language, prose and verse.

Prose is ordinary speech.  It doesn’t have a particular rhythm.  You recognize it on the page because it is written in paragraph form.

Othello

Get you to bed on th’instant.  I will be returned forthwith.  Dismiss your attendant there.

Look’t be done.

Verse, though it may sound like ordinary speech, actually has a regular rhythm pattern.  You can recognize it on the page because it is written line by line.

The first line Emilia speaks is in verse.

Emilia

How goes it now? He looks gentler than he did.

Rhythm is constructed out of beats that correspond to the syllables in the words.

Finding the rhythm helps you pronounce the words

-     /    -                        /     -    

gen- tle -er. rather than gent-ler

Emilia

How goes it now? He looks gen-tl-er than he did.

The rhythm pattern in this line is

unstressed beat, stressed beat

We mark the the rhythm in this text as

Emilia

- / - / - / - / - / - /

How goes it now? He looks gentler than he did.

This pattern is called an "iamb".  It is the same pattern as a regular heartbeat.

Shakespeare's basic rhythm pattern is iambic pentameter: five (penta) meters (sets of iambs) in each line.  But as you can see, he will vary that pattern.  This line has 6 meters, later we will find lines with fewer than 5, and with just half an iamb, either an extra unstressed or stressed syllable. 

In the next guide, we'll be going into more detail about why rhythm is important and what variations might mean.

Why is finding the rhythm important?  Let's see, or rather, hear and see...