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Romeo y Juliet. Structure and metrics (included in Grupo Fundacional de Verso )

Shakespeare says in the play that its representation takes 2 hours. let examine its structure and size, in order to extract teaching in the speech and metrics domain.

Lines (in Oxford edition) are counted by scenes; prose is counted also (as nnnn'), being its lines about 3 to 5 syllables longer than those in verse (iambic pentameter, 10-11 syll, counted as 12 with its necessary pause); Thus, we make prose lines a 25% longer than verse lines.. Prose line then will be about 20% longer than verse.

Approximately we count, from the table below,  about 3006 lines of 12 syll., that is 36072 syll.

If we must make the play (as William says) in 2 hours, or 7200 sec. we need to make 5 syll per second, which is to speak rather quick. And that without any pause besides one (1 syll duration) each 11 spoken syll.

5 syllables by second

We can suppose that this was the way in Elizabethan times, all this if the author were giving actual and no metaphoric information.

By acts we see that the first three ocupy about 750, 640, 800 lines. 70acts IV and V take as much as one single act: 810 (380 + 420).

Scene are not proportioned: we find one in 35 lines, and another of 308.

 

Act/lin	Scene	Lines	Time (	Happenings
I   749	Pro	14
	1	77' - 235 (158)
	2	104 +-
	3	105
	4	115
	5	143
II   659	Pro	14
	1	234
	2	93
	3	160'
	4	80
	5	38
III  793	1	32'-196  (-'15') <>45' y 150
	2	145
	3	175
	4	35
	5	243
IV  381	1	125
	2	48
	3	38
	4	170
V   424	1	86
	2	30
	3	308