Insults & Iambic Pentameter

Shakespeare's Recipe for Insults
To construct a Shakespearean insult, combine one word from each of the three columns below, and
preface it with "Thou." (And you thought the comments on your papers were bad!)
Column 1 Column 2 Column 3
artless base-court apple-john
bawdy bat-fowling baggage
beslubbering beef-witted barnacle
bootless beetle-headed bladder
churlish boil-brained boar-pig
cockered clapper-clawed bugbear
clouted clay-brained bum-bailey
craven common-kissing canker-blossom
currish crook-pated clack-dish
dankish dismal-dreaming clotpole
dissembling dizzy-eyed coxcomb
droning doghearted codpiece
errant dread-bolted death-token
fawning earth-vexing dewberry
fobbing elf-skinned flap-dragon
froward fat-kidneyed flax-wench
frothy fen-sucked flirt-gill
gleeking flap-mouthed foot-licker
goatish fly-bitten fustilarian
gorbellied folly-fallen giglet
impertinent fool-born gudgeon
infectious full-gorged haggard
jarring guts-griping harpy
loggerheaded half-faced hedge-pig
lumpish hasty-witted horn-beast
mammering hedge-born hugger-mugger
mangled hell-hated joithead
mewling idle-headed lewdster
paunchy ill-breeding lout
pribbling ill-nurtured maggot-pie
puking knotty-pated malt-worm
puny milk-livered mammet
qualling motley-minded measle

ank onion-eyed minnow
reeky plume-plucked miscreant
roguish pottle-deep moldwarp
ruttish pox-marked mumble-news
saucy reeling-ripe nut-hook
spleeny rough-hewn pigeon-egg
spongy rude-growing pignut
surly rump-fed puttock
tottering shard-borne pumpion
unmuzzled sheep-biting ratsbane
vain spur-galled scut
venomed swag-bellied skainsmate
villainous tardy-gaited strumpet
warped tickle-brained varlet
wayward toad-spotted vassal
weedy unchin-snouted whey-face
yeasty weather-bitten wagtail
Get thee gone, thou wayward rump-fed pumpion, and make thine insults!
Copyright © 2001 by The Folger Shakespeare Library
"I am a pirate with a wooden leg": Stomping Iambic
Pentameter
January 2005
Gregory Taylor teaches English at Hillside Junior High School in Boise, Idaho.
This lesson may be used before reading any Shakespeare play or sonnet.
Click here to view standards used in this lesson plan.
Title page detail, Newes from sea, 1609 (anonymous).Students will learn the basics of iambic
pentameter by studying the rhythm of blank verse orally, aurally, visually, and kinesthetically.
This lesson will take one class period.
1. Using the attached document as an overhead template, review the idea of meter. Be sure to explain
the idea of "feet", the smallest repeating ryhthmic units (in Shakespeare's case, the iamb is the metrical
foot.) Also teach the word "iamb", a foot of two syllables with an unstressed syllable followed by a
stressed syllable.
2. Introduce the term "iambic pentameter". Have the students puzzle out the meaning through
morphological analysis of the component parts "meter", "iambic" and "penta" - a five foot metrical line
of weak followed by strong syllables.

3. Have students repeat a line of five "I am"'s with the emphasis on the "am" syllable. Explain that this is
one way to remember the iambic rhythm. Practice saying some sentences that begin with "I AM" in a
weak-STRONG pattern: "I AM a great student; I AM going to be nice to my little brother."
4. To really feel the iambic rhythm, get students up on their feet and say the next line, "I am a pirate
with a wooden leg," dragging their wooden legs on the unstressed syllables and stepping strongly on
the stressed syllables. Have students draw parentheses around the iambs and note that some divide in
the middle of words: meter is about sound, not spelling.
5. Have students read some lines from the play you will be reading.
6. Finally, have students write their own iambic pentameter lines in pairs, as a conversation. Use the
last two sentences on the handout as an example. After a few minutes, have some of the pairs perform
their conversations. Be sure they understand how the meter works in this blank verse.
Can students explain and demonstrate iambic pentameter? Can they write proper lines of blank verse?
Can they begin to see and understand some of the uses of meter in Shakespeare's writing?
Tickling the Brain
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January 1999
Jeff Schober teaches at the Baker Road Alternative School in a suburb of Buffalo, New York. The
school has approximately 80 at-risk students, grades 9-12, and few go on to higher education. Mr.
Schober teaches American history and Shakespeare and co-authored a book about the Buffalo Sabres.
This activity is an introduction and overview of the action in Much Ado About Nothing.
Click here to view standards used in this lesson plan.
Ursula, "She's lim'd, I warrant you."; Henry Fuseli, 1803, engraving.Today students will improvise a few
scenarios which relate to the plot of Much Ado About Nothing. They should have no previous
knowledge of the playóthey have not read any scenes or learned character names. This activity will
force them to think about broad happenings they will read about, so when they begin the play they will
have a base of expectations. This activity should be completed in one 40-minute period.
1. Divide students into groups of four or five. Each group will be called to the front of the room and
asked to improvise one of the following scenarios written on the board:
A) Two people of the opposite sex, A and B, dislike one another and are constantly bickering. Show
them taunting one another, then have B leave. Some friends enter. Have the friends convince A that B
is really attracted to A. Deal with the matter of whether A believes them and why he (or she) would.
B) A different couple, X and Y, are very much in love. Create a scenario showing their affection for
one another. Have X leave and friends enter. The friends have to do something to cause Y to want to
break up with X.
2. Play this improvisation game as many times as necessary, depending on the number of groups you
have.

3. When everyone has had a chance to act, write the names of two students who played A and B on
the board. Have students copy this into their notebooks, then cross out the students' names and write
Beatrice and Benedick. Do the same thing for X and Y, crossing out the students' names and inserting
Hero and Claudio.
4. In the remaining class time have the students copy the scenarios into their notebooks. Their
homework is to write a one-page fictional story which addresses one of the scenarios.
5. Collect the homework at the start of the next class period, distribute copies of the character map
for Much Ado About Nothing included in the handout section below, and hand out copies of the play.
Did students understand the scenarios they were asked to improvise? If they asked pointed questions
which went beyond the material you covered, this is a good indication that the activity has triggered
their brain. A true measure of how the lesson went should be reflected in their written assignment.
Ideally they will be creative while still following the plot discussed in class.
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Copyright © 2001 by The Folger Shakespeare Library