julius caesar - prose & verse

to whom it may concern:
while searching for answers to my questions i found my self at your site. I was glad to find it, seeing that i could ask my questions and have them answered by you. (I have spent over five hours on this) i would greatly appreciate it if you would answer my questions.
Well here they are:
Which characters speak in prose and which speak in verse, in the play Julius Caesar? what could be the reason that some characters speak in prose and others in verse? how could I tell if a part is written in blank verse,iambic meter, or pentameter? I have a hard time figuring out which syllables are stressed and which aren't. Please give examples.
thanking you in advance,
Roxy

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Originally Posted by redeye

to whom it may concern:
while searching for answers to my questions i found my self at your site. I was glad to find it, seeing that i could ask my questions and have them answered by you. (I have spent over five hours on this) i would greatly appreciate it if you would answer my questions.
Well here they are:
Which characters speak in prose and which speak in verse, in the play Julius Caesar? what could be the reason that some characters speak in prose and others in verse? how could I tell if a part is written in blank verse,iambic meter, or pentameter? I have a hard time figuring out which syllables are stressed and which aren't. Please give examples.
thanking you in advance,
Roxy

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To answer some of your questions:

I am a high school student in AP English and we are reading Julius Caesar. Characters like Caesar, Brutus, and Cassius all speak in verse because they are the more important characters. Others like Maruvullas and Flavius(spelling?) speak in prose to show they are less important to the play, or to show they are commoners. I believe Julius Caesar was written in blank verse, which means each line is 10 syllables. Each syllables is stressed or unstressed. Unstessed is the second syllable of the first word, stressed is the second syllable of the second word, unstressed is the second syllable of the third word, and so on.
Hope my answers help you. I only came on this site to read a summary of the whole play before we finished it in class. I only registered to respond to your questions. -Samantha

what are three examples of pantameter in Act 1?

Those to can be compared a lot during the whole play.
Note...Everything is in iambic pentameter in the play. That's the way Shakespeare writes.

In the two famous soliloquys, Brutus speaks in prose while Antony speaks in blank verse. Brutus's funeral oration is well-balanced, straight-forward, and very logical. Antony, however uses very passionate words, calls the plebs friends. He uses power of rhetoric with Irony and also Rhetorical questions.

iambic pentameter is a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. the fist sylable of a line is unstressed, while the second is stressed, third unstressed, etc. example:

"You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!"

the stressed syllables are: blocks, stones, worse, sense, things

shakespeare used iambic pentameter for almost everything

It i generally the working class citizens or plebians who speak in prose in Shakespeare's plays. The more important characters speak in verse.
It may be because during the Elizbethan age when Shakespeare wrote, a long standing tradition regarded verse as a 'higher' form of literature - more refined and worthy of human attention. Prose, meanwhile held a status lower than that held by verse. The form in which characters speak therefore is a direct reminder of their social standing in the play.