Epitaph Activity
Background: During Shakespeare’s time, when church graveyards became full, old corpses were often dug up and the bones burned in large fireplaces to make room for the burial of more bodies. Also, it was not uncommon for grave robbers to dig up and strip a corpse after burial, particularly if the deceased was known to have been wealthy. Shakespeare hated this type of treatment of the body after death, so he wrote his own epitaph, engraved upon his stone at the Stratford church.
“Good Friends, for Jesus’ sake forbear
To dig the bones enclosèd here!
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones.”
Even to the end, Shakespeare knew his audience, and this little rhyme did the trick. People of the time were extremely superstitious, and no one ever bothered his corpse. The irony to this story is, or course, that while his epitaph served its purpose, it is little more than doggerel, hardly better than verse even the worst poetic hack could write. Who knows, perhaps Shakespeare – with his boundless humor and heightened sense of the ridiculous – got a chuckle out of his little rhyme as some kind of self-deprecating joke.
Regardless of the original intent of the epitaph, however, it is time for us to right the wrong. Shakespeare deserves a better epitaph, one which pays a more appropriate tribute to his genius and honors his literary contributions to all mankind. Your assignment is to compose a more suitable epitaph for Shakespeare’s headstone now that the danger of grave robbers is over.
Please follow these assignment guidelines:
Write a minimum of ten lines. You may choose to use iambic pentameter, but it is not required except for Honors (Per. 1 & 5). If you choose to use iambic pentameter, you may write a minimum of six lines.
The first eight lines (or four, if using iambic pentameter) may be rhymed or unrhymed (blank verse), but you must end your poetic epitaph as Shakespeare ended a scene – with a heroic couplet (the last two lines must rhyme).
The tone of your epitaph must be Shakespearean (elegant and formal), paying serious honor to the literary contributions which Shakespeare made to the world. How you do this, however, is up to you. For example, you might choose to write your tribute using a metaphor, such as a golden pen. Or you could use a simile, comparing Shakespeare’s plays to the arias of heaven. Be as creative as you choose.
Once you’ve finished your poem, have another student in the class review it and provide feedback before writing a final version on the headstone template provided on the reverse side of this page.
Have fun with this!
When writing in iambic pentameter, you can use elisions (word contractions) to eliminate a syllable,
I need 6 lines of iamic petrameter about shakesphere at 9th grade level