Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Preface ix
4. 1. The Iambic Pentameter Line 1
5. 2. Chaucer and Wyatt: Early Expressive Pentameters 20
6. 3. The Sixteenth-Century Line: Pattern and Variation 38
7. 4. Flexibility and Ease in Four Older Poets 57
8. 5. An Art of Small Differences: Shakespeare's Sonnets 75
9. 6. The Verse of Shakespeare's Theater 91
10. 7. Prose and Other Diversions 108
11. 8. Short and Shared Lines 116
12. 9. Long Lines 143
13. 10. Shakespeare's Syllabic Ambiguity: More Than Meets the Ear 149
14. 11. Lines with Extra Syllables 160
15. 12. Lines with Omitted Syllables 174
16. 13. Trochees 185
17. 14. The Play of Phrase and Line 207
18. 15. Shakespeare's Metrical Technique in Dramatic Passages 229
19. 16. What Else Shakespeare's Meter Reveals 249
20. 17. Some Metrically Expressive Features in Donne and Milton 264
21. 18. Conclusion: Verse as Speech, Theater, Text, Tradition, Illusion 281
22. Appendix A: Percentage Distribution of Prose in Shakespeare's Plays 291
23. Appendix B: Main Types of Deviant Lines in Shakespeare's Plays 292
24. Appendix C: Short and Shared Lines 294
25. Notes 297
26. Main Works Cited or Consulted 325
27. Index 339