SAT II Literature : Structure and Form
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for SAT II Literature
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Example Questions
Example Question #7 : Structure And Form: Drama
HAMLET: … What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,(5)
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing. No, not for a king, (10)
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damned defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain?
What type of verse is this?
Free verse
Sestina
Blank verse
Sonnet
Mock heroic
Blank verse
Here we have unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter. Were they in rhymed pairs, we would have heroic couplets, and were they satirical rhymed pairs, we would have a mock heroic. However, since the lines are uncoupled, this is simply blank verse. A sonnet is typically a 14-line love poem, and a sestina is a series of 6-line stanzas concluded by one 3-line stanza.
Passage adapted from William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark. (1603)
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