Read the excerpt from william shakespeare’s hamlet.
to be, or not to be, that is the question:
whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
and by opposing end them? to die: to sleep;
no more; and by a sleep to say we end
the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
that flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
devoutly to be wish’d. to die, to sleep;
to sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
for in that sleep of death what dreams may come
when we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
must give us pause: there's the respect
that makes calamity of so long life;
this excerpt is an example of
blank verse.
free verse.
heroic couplet.
common meter.