I have an unanswered question...

[Naramisrug]

I have just started reading Romeo and Juliet in my English class and I am not too far in the book were given, but I have realized that the educated characters speak in verse and the non-educated characters speak in prose. As I was reading along, I noticed that the Nurse speaks in both prose and verse.

So this was the question I asked my teacher:

-Why does the Nurse speak in both prose and verse?-

So if any of you have the answer, please I really would like to know and then I would be able to get this question off my head! I was thinking that Shakespeare wanted to do this for the audience ( does that make sense?) and not just for the personality of the characters.

Thank You! =)

[Bakiryu]

Maybe because she has some vestiges of education from leaving in the Capulet House (?)

[JBI]

Depends how they are acting. You will notice, that when a high-born person acts silly, then tend to sway more towards rhyme, whereas when a low born person does something intelligent, they don't rhyme. Besides which, the nurse has smart insights, as well as comic lines.

[quasimodo1]

Ok, this is the way my research and several well done documentaries have explanained Shakespeare's uncanny knowledge of the aristocracy and the grand courte. Most common explanation (mostly out of date sources) claim the man was a son of a glove and bootmaker or maybe just a glovemaker. A relatively low social status at that time. With that background, there is simply no way he could have written things like "Henry V" or "Othello" or even "As you like It". A person from that status simply wouldn't have the insights and inroads to such highborn social and military activiity. The best research seems to indicate that in his search for anonymity because he was making some rather dangerous political statements and satires, he assumed a low-born identity. There is pretty solid evidence that his real identity is The Third Earl of Oxford (the crypt for this person in Canteburry is mysteriously unmarked and empty; even though the location is correct). A person like that would have access to all the knowledge (and wisdom, he had an incredible mentor whose name escapes me at the moment) with which to write the Histories, Comedies and Tragedies, not to mention the inspired sonnets that no other author could ever touch. He also had the largest vocabulary of any English author, not including the words he invented. Does this sound like the son of a glovemaker? You can find some of this research in the archives of PBS.org and other phd theses on the subject. quasi