Word: iambic
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...with delightful melodies that are by turn jaunty and sweet. Harnessed to Lorenz Hart' witty and graceful lyrics, they pull the show along at an exhilarating clip, and in between numbers, George Abbott's book provides just the right mix of Shakespearean vaudeville and vaudevillian Shakespeare. Large chunks of iambic pentameter are carelessly tossed across the stage, only to be nimbly undercut by an outrageously topical reference or a wonderfully bad pun. And since its 1938 world premiere at the Shubert Theater, Boston, The Boys From Syracuse inspired quite a few more Shakespeare musicals, most notably Kiss Me, Kate...
rhyme and meter were for him very close to being the "natural speech" that William Carlos Williams and his followers were always calling for. The iambic pentameter was not an external, imposed literary method; after three books, it had become compulsive utterance. And it was probably harder for Lowell to discard rhymes than to invent them. Williams, he felt, was unique, but "dangerous and difficult to imitate...
...Time Waits for No One" is the second part of a pair, and showcases Watts' sweatless yet perfect drumming. With ample self-deprecation. Jagger clumsily explores the theme of mortality in what turns into a bastardized Shakespearian sonnet. The final couplet of iambic pentameter is repeated several times too many: "Time waits for no one, No favors has He: /Time waits for No One./ And he won't wait...
Among the other marvels is Merrill's mastery of forms, so skillful as to pass by almost unnoticed. Humans speak in a supple, casually rhymed iambic pentameter. A hurricane strikes the East Coast...
With the audacity of the venturesome, Joseph Papp has assembled a black-Hispanic acting troupe, and its debut production is Julius Caesar. In the U.S. the problem of proper delivery of the Shakespearean line transcends ethnic background or race. Few, if any, American actors are qualified to speak in iambic pentameter. Lacking sufficient breath control, they pant when they should roar, and jangle the music and authority of poetic rhetoric...