Words Become Music

Welcome to the Hall of Imagination for an episode with William Shakespeare called words become music. And here is Master Shakespeare himself as as he explains one of the most commonly used rhetorical devices of them all.

Mr. Bartley: Master Shakespeare, there is a word that continues to appear whenever people discuss your writing. That word is “parallelism.”

Master Shakespeare: A formidable word, Mr. Bartley. Five syllables marching in formation. Any word of five syllables must surely be either profoundly important or invented merely to frighten schoolchildren.

Mr. Bartley: In this case, I believe it may be both.

Master Shakespeare: Then we must approach it carefully. What meaning do your scholars give the word?

Mr. Bartley: At its simplest, parallelism means placing similar ideas into similar grammatical forms. A writer establishes a pattern, repeats that pattern, and creates a sense of balance.

Master Shakespeare: Ah! Then I know the creature, though I may not always have called it by that name.

Mr. Bartley: Most writers today use parallelism. You, however, seemed to invite it home, give it supper, and offer it a permanent room.

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Welcome to the Hall of Imagination for an episode with William Shakespeare called words become music. And here is Master Shakespeare himself as as he explains one of the most commonly used rhetorical devices of them all.

Mr. Bartley: Master Shakespeare, there is a word that continues to appear whenever people discuss your writing. That word is “parallelism.”

Master Shakespeare: A formidable word, Mr. Bartley. Five syllables marching in formation. Any word of five syllables must surely be either profoundly important or invented merely to frighten schoolchildren.

Mr. Bartley: In this case, I believe it may be both.

Master Shakespeare: Then we must approach it carefully. What meaning do your scholars give the word?

Mr. Bartley: At its simplest, parallelism means placing similar ideas into similar grammatical forms. A writer establishes a pattern, repeats that pattern, and creates a sense of balance.

Master Shakespeare: Ah! Then I know the creature, though I may not always have called it by that name.

Mr. Bartley: Most writers today use parallelism. You, however, seemed to invite it home, give it supper, and offer it a permanent room.

Master Shakespeare: yes, I utilized parallelism in all of my plays. In fact, many of lines utilize parallel structure. Here’s an example from As You Like It:

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”Yes, A generous host must provide accommodations for every useful figure of speech.

Mr. Bartley: Parallelism gives language rhythm. It allows one thought to answer another. It makes words easier to follow and easier to remember.  

Master Shakespeare: A permit me to discuss parallelism IN slightly more detail. These "parallel" elements can be used to intensify the rhythm of language, or to draw a comparison, emphasize, or elaborate on an idea. The following well-known adage is an example of parallelism: "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime." The grammatical structures of the first and second sentences parallel each other. In fact one might say, that it is not so different from music.
Mr. Bartley: Not different at all. In fact, parallelism is one of the ways prose becomes musical. Consider Marc Antony’s words in Julius Caesar: “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.”

Master Shakespeare: A simple balance. To bury upon one side and to praise upon the other.

Mr. Bartley: Exactly. The grammatical pattern lets the audience recognize the contrast immediately. Antony claims that he has come for one purpose and not the other, although everyone soon discovers that his real purpose is considerably more complicated.
Master Shakespeare: A speaker may arrange his words neatly while concealing a most untidy intention.
Mr. Bartley: Which is one reason parallelism is so effective in persuasion. The balance makes an argument sound reasonable, deliberate, and complete—that he or she is addressing both sides–even when the speaker is carefully leading the audience somewhere they did not expect to go.

Master Shakespeare: Marc Antony does not command the citizens to rebel.

Mr. Bartley: No. He says he is not trying to stir them to mutiny while proceeding to do precisely that.

Master Shakespeare: Then parallelism may serve honesty, but it may also dress deception in respectable clothing.

Mr. Bartley: Very much so. A perfectly balanced sentence can create the impression of perfectly balanced reasoning. The audience hears the structure before it has time to examine the argument.

Master Shakespeare: A dangerous power.

Mr. Bartley: Especially in the hands of a politician.

Master Shakespeare: Some things, I perceive, remain constant across the centuries.

Mr. Bartley: Parallelism can also express uncertainty rather than certainty. Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be” is constructed from two parallel possibilities.

Master Shakespeare: Existence upon one side. Nonexistence upon the other.

Mr. Bartley: And the grammatical balance makes the choice appear almost terrifyingly simple. To be—or not to be. Life—or death. Yet everything that follows reveals that neither possibility is simple.

Master Shakespeare: The form is balanced, but the man speaking it is not.

Mr. Bartley: That may be one of the most important uses of parallelism in your work. The language can create order while the character experiences chaos.

Master Shakespeare: Hamlet struggles to govern thoughts that refuse to be governed.

Mr. Bartley: Nevertheless, he places those thoughts into patterns: “To die, to sleep—no more.” Then again, “To sleep, perchance to dream.”

Master Shakespeare: Each phrase grows from the phrase preceding it.

Mr. Bartley: Yes. One idea is repeated and then changed. Death becomes sleep. Sleep produces dreams. Dreams produce uncertainty. The parallel construction does not merely decorate Hamlet’s thought; it shows us his thought developing. And another interpretation of to be or not to be could be on one side showing that a person has reached his inner goals and ambitions, then the interpreter moves to the other side and signs a sign language idiom that basically means living a boring life where you do the same monotonous activity over and over. So it could be interpreted either way.
Mr. Shakespeare: SO what do you favor as being the appropriate interpreting concept, and why?

Mr. Bartley: Well I choose the sign for life on one side and death on the other side, and then sign which to show they are two alternatives.

Master Shakespeare: AH, a very interesting choice–simple and basic.

Mr. Bartley: Also, a shorter way of communicating the two alternatives– Important when you're signing at what seems like a mile a minute!

Master Shakespeare: but at the same time, the DEAF audience can walk beside you easily from one idea to the next.

Mr. Bartley: And an interpreter for the deaF must make that progression visible. He or she must choose what that person feels is the most appropriate interpretation. The ASL cannot become a string of unrelated signs. The interpreter needs to understand the relationship among the ideas. Personally, I would choose life, death, which.

Master Shakespeare: I think that is an interesting way Mr. Bartley, of preserving the architecture of the thought.

Mr. Bartley: Precisely! An interpreter is not merely looking for a sign corresponding to each English word. The interpreter is identifying the pattern beneath the words. If the original contrasts life and death, the interpretation must preserve that contrast. If one thought grows out of another, the interpretation must show that growth.

Master Shakespeare: Then parallelism may be heard by one audience and seen by another.

Mr. Bartley: That is beautifully put. In spoken English, the pattern may be created by repeated sounds, words, and grammatical structures. In ASL, it may be created through repeated movement, placement, direction, rhythm, or the use of space.

Master Shakespeare: Explain this use of space.

Mr. Bartley: An interpreter might establish one idea on one side of the signing space and a contrasting idea on the other. LIFE may occupy one position and DEATH another. The interpreter can then move visually between the two possibilities. The parallel exists not only in the meaning but in the physical structure of the interpretation.

Master Shakespeare: The air itself becomes part of the sentence.

Mr. Bartley: Yes. And that is one reason a researched translation is so important. If the interpreter does not understand that two lines are parallel, the signs may communicate the basic information but lose the relationship between the ideas.

Master Shakespeare: The stones remain, but the bridge disappears.

Mr. Bartley: Exactly. Parallelism is the bridge.

Master Shakespeare: Yet you have spoken chiefly of words and sentences. Could you comment on the reality that parallelism possess other meanings?

Mr. Bartley: Entire characters can exist in parallel. One character may reflect another, contrast with another, or reveal what another character might have become under different circumstances.

Master Shakespeare: Hamlet and Laertes, perhaps?

Mr. Bartley: They are an excellent example. Both are sons whose fathers have been killed. Both feel obligated to avenge those deaths. Both are drawn into violence. Yet they respond differently.

Master Shakespeare: Hamlet considers, delays, questions, and considers again. Laertes rushes forward.

Mr. Bartley: Their situations run along parallel tracks, but their personalities carry them in different directions. By comparing them, the audience understands each man more clearly. No

Master Shakespeare: A character may therefore serve as a mirror.

Mr. Bartley: Yes—but not always a mirror giving a perfect reflection. Sometimes it is a distorted mirror. Sometimes one character illuminates qualities that another character tries to hide.

Master Shakespeare: And what of Fortinbras?

Mr. Bartley: He forms another parallel with Hamlet. He, too, is the son of a dead father. He, too, is concerned with honor and inheritance. But while Hamlet spends much of the play trying to decide how to act, Fortinbras advances steadily toward his objective.
Master Shakespeare: Three sons walking beside the graves of three fathers.

Mr. Bartley: And taking three different paths. Hamlet, Laertes, and Fortinbras are not copies of one another. Their similarities make their differences meaningful.
Master Shakespeare: Parallel lines need not be identical.

Mr. Bartley: No. In geometry, parallel lines travel in the same direction without meeting. In drama, however, parallel lives have an inconvenient habit of colliding.

Master Shakespeare: Without collisions, Mr. Bartley, our theatres would empty rapidly.

Mr. Bartley: Romeo and Juliet also contains parallel households: the Montagues and the Capulets. Each family possesses pride. Each family participates in the feud. Each sees the other as the source of the trouble.

Master Shakespeare: Each house points across the street and cries, “There stands the villain!”

Mr. Bartley: And neither house recognizes its own reflection. The parallelism exposes the absurdity of the feud. Their names are different, but their behavior is remarkably similar.

Master Shakespeare: Until the deaths of the children force the parents to see what the audience has seen.

Mr. Bartley: The parallel families are finally united by parallel grief.

Master Shakespeare: A costly reconciliation.

Mr. Bartley: Very costly. Parallelism can be comic as well. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the lovers chase one another through the forest in changing combinations. One person loves someone who loves someone else, who may suddenly—through magic—begin loving an entirely different person.

Master Shakespeare: I confess that I occasionally created confusion for the sheer pleasure of finding my way out of it.

Mr. Bartley: You also created parallel worlds. There is the ordered world of Athens and the enchanted world of the forest. There are the aristocratic lovers and the working people rehearsing their play. There is the human court and the fairy court.

Master Shakespeare: These worlds appear separate.

Mr. Bartley: But they comment upon one another. Duke Theseus and Hippolyta are preparing for marriage. Oberon and Titania are experiencing marital conflict. The young lovers are trying to determine whom they will marry. Even Bottom becomes involved in a wonderfully improbable romantic episode.

Master Shakespeare: You speak of Titania as though the lady’s affection for a man with the head of an ass were in some way unusual.

Mr. Bartley: I will merely say that love has produced stranger choices.

Master Shakespeare: Wisely answered.

Mr. Bartley: Parallelism can also connect the beginning and ending of a play. An image, question, or situation introduced early may return later with a changed meaning.

Master Shakespeare: The audience remembers what it heard before, even if it does not consciously announce the remembrance.

Mr. Bartley: Exactly. Repetition creates recognition, but change creates significance. A word spoken lightly near the beginning may return tragically near the end. The wording is parallel, but experience has altered its meaning.

Master Shakespeare: The same words may enter twice wearing different garments.
Mr. Bartley: That is something actors and interpreters must understand. Repeated words should not automatically receive identical performances. Context changes them.

Master Shakespeare: Give me an example.

Mr. Bartley: A character might say “Good night” early in a play as an ordinary farewell. Later, the same character might say “Good night” knowing that the separation is permanent. The words remain simple, but the emotional meaning has been transformed.

Master Shakespeare: Then parallelism does not imprison the performer in repetition.

Mr. Bartley: No. It gives the performer an opportunity to reveal what has changed. The audience recognizes the verbal echo and feels the emotional difference.

Master Shakespeare: Your explanation suggests that parallelism exists not merely upon the page but between page and stage.

Mr. Bartley: It does. The written line and the performed line exist in parallel. The playwright supplies words, but the actor supplies voice, movement, timing, expression, and physical presence.

Master Shakespeare: And the interpreter supplies yet another performance.

Mr. Bartley: Yes. The actor and interpreter may work in parallel. They are not performing identical physical actions, but they are communicating the same dramatic event through different languages.

Master Shakespeare: Neither should outrun the other.

Mr. Bartley: Ideally, no. Timing is crucial. If the actor reaches an emotional climax while the interpreter is still explaining an earlier thought, the two performances separate. The Deaf audience receives the meaning, but not at the moment when the play gives it its greatest force.

Master Shakespeare: The thunder arrives, but the lightning appeared several moments before.

Mr. Bartley: Or the other way around. Either way, the storm loses its effect.

Master Shakespeare: Thus the interpreter must discover a parallel rhythm without becoming a mechanical reflection of the actor.

Mr. Bartley: That distinction is vital. The interpreter is not copying the actor. The interpreter is creating an equivalent performance in ASL. The two performances should travel together, but each language has its own grammar, rhythm, and physical demands.

Master Shakespeare: Two horses drawing the same carriage.

Mr. Bartley: Yes—provided the horses have rehearsed together.

Master Shakespeare: Otherwise, the carriage may enter the audience.

Mr. Bartley: Which would certainly make the performance memorable.

Master Shakespeare: Though perhaps for reasons not advertised upon the playbill.

Mr. Bartley: There is still another meaning of parallelism that interests me. You and I are separated by more than four centuries. You wrote for the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage.
 I interpret your plays for Deaf audiences in the modern world. Our lives could hardly be more different.

Master Shakespeare: And yet here we stand, engaged in conversation.

Mr. Bartley: We share a fascination with language and performance. You took stories from history, legend, poetry, and earlier plays, then transformed them for your audience. An interpreter also begins with an existing work and transforms it into another language for another audience.

Master Shakespeare: Are you suggesting, Mr. Bartley, that the playwright and the interpreter follow parallel paths?

Mr. Bartley: In certain respects, yes. Neither begins with emptiness. Both begin with material that must be understood, selected, shaped, and finally performed.

Master Shakespeare: Yet the interpreter must remain faithful to the play.

Mr. Bartley: Faithful, yes—but faithfulness does not mean replacing one word with one sign. That would be like taking your poetry apart brick by brick and then claiming that the pile of bricks is still the house.

Master Shakespeare: You return us to architecture.

Mr. Bartley: Because language has structure. Parallelism is one of the beams holding that structure together. The interpreter must discover which parts carry weight.
Master Shakespeare: And this discovery requires research.

Mr. Bartley: A great deal of it. The interpreter studies the play, examines modern-English versions, considers the character’s purpose, and determines how each thought relates to the next. Only then can the interpreter create a researched translation.

Master Shakespeare: The performance seen upon the hands begins long before the hands begin to move.

Mr. Bartley: That may be the most important lesson of all. 

Join us for the following episode of the hall of imagination. This has been George Bartley.