Working your way through Shakespeare isn't easy. It's sometimes hard just to work out what's going on, let alone to begin to analyse it. Follow these steps to get you started.
STEPS FOR ANALYSIS:
1: Locate the scene in the play. What has just happened? What will happen next?
2: Read the lines out loud (or - if you're in an exam - in your head but imagining you are reading out loud...). Think. Read again. Think again.
3: Go through slowly, line by line.
THINGS TO CONSIDER (in no particular order):
- Does this scene move the plot on? How?
- Does this scene explain the play’s bigger ideas or themes? In what way?
- Do any of the words or images remind you of other scenes?
- If you were a director, how would you stage it? Are there different ways to stage it? How do these change the way this scene is interpreted? Think about pauses, entrances/exits, props, facial expressions, positioning of characters on the stage.
- What interactions are happening between characters? What does this show about their relationships?
- Do any of the words seem to group together? Do any stand out? What connotations do the words have? Do they link to particular emotions?
- Look for language techniques. For example: imagery; contrast/juxtaposition; repetition; metaphor; use of senses; metre/rhythm (and changes to it); rhyme (and what links the rhyming words); symbolism (e.g. light and dark); stichomythia; paradox etc. Use the techniques as a clue that Shakespeare is doing something interesting - it's not enough to just spot them!
- What order are the ideas presented? How does the syntax and sentence order introduce ideas? Are some given more prominence than others?
- What is the tone of this line (e.g. lyrical, banal, emotionally charged, defiant etc)?
- Is there excess or restraint? Do they talk openly or do they present a controlled image?
- What is left out, obscured or hidden? What aren’t we told or don’t we see?
- What is the physical space and setting for this scene?
- Does time pass (in this scene or between scenes)? What transitions are there?
- Is there balance and symmetry to the lines? Or do things seem off kilter or in conflict?
LOOK FOR THEMATIC LINKS, for example:
- Kingship and good rule (artefacts of king, traits of a ruler, God’s approval)
- Manhood
- Mortality
- Good and evil / salvation and damnation
- Appearance and reality (faces, falseness, conditional language – ‘seems’)
- The health of the nation
- The supernatural
- Order and chaos; sleep and restlessness
Enjoy!
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