Shakespeare's Play Reading Course.

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Course Title: Shakespeare’s Play Reading            Course convener: Maxim Parr Name: Dawn (Lily Zhao)                        Student Number: 410107056       Year: 2nd                                         Major: English

If by your art, my dearest father, you have(1)
Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.(2)
The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,(3)
But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek,(4)
Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffered(5)
With those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel,(6)
Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her,(7)
Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock (8)
Against my very heart. Poor souls, they perish'd.(9)
Had I been any god of power, I would(10)
Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere(11)
It should the good ship so have swallow'd and(12)
The fraughting souls within her.(13)

This is from Act 1, Scene 2 in Shakespeare’s comedy The Tempest that is set in the island before Prospero’s cell. It is the first time two of the main characters in this play, Prospero and Miranda, are introduced to the audience.

In this speech by Miranda, she expresses her strong piteous concern for the people suffered from the sea storm created by her father and her affliction caused by this, which gives us a general idea of this girl’s personality. Meanwhile, it indirectly puts forward the information that the storm is terribly shocking. As the first speech of this scene, besides expressing the speaker’s feelings, it also acts as a connecting link between the preceding and the following.

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There are totally 13 lines in this speech. Seven lines, line 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, and 12, are iambic pentameter, while the rest are not. In one way, it implies though Miranda lives in the island for 12 years, she is still well-educated and entertains the ability to speak properly and nobly. On the other hand, the irregular lines suggests that Miranda is not collected at this moment, worrying and depressed about the “direful spectacle of the wreck” which touched her strong virtue of compassion inmost. The vehemence of care and sorrow for the wreck is not only ...

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