To think an English teacher should know the correct pronunciation of Glamis?

[susannahmoodie]

As in Thane of......?

Or is it now ok to say "glam-mis"??

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Glay-miss?

I'm rummaging around behind the sofa but still falling to find a shiny shit to give on how it's said.

No, actually, I think there are things we can rule out. There are lots of possible options, but that doesn't mean anything goes.

@ClearBlueWater - there is a whole body of study devoted to how Shakespeare's actors would have pronounced things, which is a slightly different question to how he would have pronounced things. However, Jay-kweez/Jaykz is one of the ones that without doubt because of the metre, rhyme, jokes, and other texts of the time with similar pronunciation.

That's why we know the pronunciation of Jaykweez - it's a result of scholarship, not guesswork.

Same with glams; someone above said it was possibly actually pronounced glamis. That is probably based on a bad quarto - basically early literary pirates going writing down what they think was said on stage and then selling it on to the public who were clamouring for a Shakespeare text they could reenact at home. If you're interested, try reading the bad quarto version of to be or not to be.

The second folio (and, actually, one of the bad quartos) makes it clear that the accepted pronunciation was either glaamz or glamz, but not glamis. Shakespeare didn't write this either - none of his scripts are extant - but it was written and published by people he knew well who also knew the plays well rather than some chancer selling stuff quickly out the back door.

Not all of the words in Shakespeare where their pronunciation is unclear have such solid scholarship behind them, but these two (Jaykweez and Glaamz) do.

I didn't know Macbeth had a Bad Quarto.

I think I need to go back to college so I can take a class with QuiteIrregular :)

You and me both, bath.

I think a teacher teaching Macbeth should be able to pronounce it properly.

If it was someone just reading the place name, then not necessarily. I, for example, totally ballsed up 'Alnwick' the first time I said it.

I could be totally wrong about this - it is not my area of specialism - but I thought Macbeth was notorious for having very few textual sources - the first folio being the copy text for most editions??

I have Folio 1 (1623) and Folio 2 (New South Wales) open. I'm hoping I've transcribed these correctly and not totally cocked it up as is my normal practice with quotes.

Folio 1:

Act 1, Scene 3
Mac. Speake if you can: what are you?

1. All haile Macbeth, haile to thee Thane of Glamis.
2. All haile Macbeth, haile to thee Thane of Cawdor.

Macb. Stay you imperfect Speakers, tell me more:
By Sinells death, I know I am Thane of Glamis,
But how, of Cawdor? the Thane of Cawdor liues

Act 2, Scene 2
Macb. Still it cry'd, Sleepe no more to all the House:
Glamis hath murther'd Sleepe, and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleepe no more: Macbeth shall sleepe no more.

Act 3, Scene 1
Enter Banquo.
Banq. Thou hast it now, King, Cawdor, Glamis, all,

Folio 2:

Act 1, Scene 3
Mac. Speake if you can: what are you?

1. All haile Macbeth, haile to thee Thane of Glamis
2. All haile Macbeth, haile to thee Thane of Cawdor.

Macb. Stay you imperfect Speakers, tell me more:
By Sinells death, I know I am Thane of Glamis,
But how, of Cawdor? the Thane of Cawdor lives

Act 2, Scene 2
Macb. Methought I heard a voyce cry, sleepe no more:
Macbeth does murther Sleepe, the innocent sleepe

Act 3, Scene 1
Enter Banquo.
Banq. Thou hast it now, King, Cawdor, Glamis, all,

Now meter was never my strong suit (and nor is this my period) but the witches in 1.3 and the passage in 2.2 scans with a double syllable, right? (Macbeth substituted for Glamis)??

As PPs have said, it is a bit loose and maybe less conclusive than I had thought looking at it... hmmmmm. Interested in thoughts?

[ However, any English teacher would know that pronouncing Glamis as 2 syllables would upset the metre. But then, if they've never read/seen Hamlet then how would they know that?]

Good point, Thane of Denmark probably mumbled it...

holly, I agree with your scansion and also thought there wasn't a Bad Quarto version, but like you, I'm not sure because it's out of my period.

I suspect the metre issue isn't that Banquo is saying it one way and the witches another, or anything like that, but simply that the metre isn't a good guide to the pronunciation because Shakespeare isn't precise enough with metre. Which is what you were arguing right out, wasn't it?

Have not read the full thread but people suggesting that pronouncing glamis as 2 syllables messed up the metre are barking. If you pay attention you'll realise that not all of Shakespeare's pentameters are perfect 10 syllables iambics - he stuck in extra unstressed syllables all the time! It's totally common to find 2 unstressed syllables as the first half of an 'iambus' - including in lines quoted to show that this is supposedly impossible!

Jeanne - Yes, I think an accurate summary would be "Actually, the more I look at it the less I seem to be certain which way it was said, but it doesn't seem clear-cut and I'm not even sure you can make a confident metrical argument". Which seems to be where I end up a LOT these days . (This may just be me wussing out).

Looking at other instances... Banquo's ghost addressing Macbeth for instance... just seems to muddy it further!

I am also mindful of the fact that this really, really doesn't matter that much and I should really be getting on with actual research rather than letting myself procrastinate wildly like this.

Good luck with 'actual research'.

I need some kind of supervisor who will yell at me to get on with it. My cat just isn't tough enough.

You know about the Academics' Corner? Someone will yell at you there.

Do some fucking work holly - does that help?

YANBU. I would expect someone teaching English at Secondary school level to be able to pronounce Glamis correctly. The fact the teacher couldn't would make me wonder just how well the class was being taught.

Yes, v late back to this, but I don't recall a "bad quarto" on either Greg or Pollard's lists. The shorter quarto is probably more "authorial", if that's what we're equating to good here, at least since the Folio appears to have additions by Middleton in the songs and the Hecate scenes (aptly for this conversation bcos they're in a drastically different metre.) Could be wrong, of course.

I played Jaques in my (American) high school's production of As You Like It. I was most definitely Jay-Kweez. I can still do the all the world's a stage speech.

(It was a girl's school. I'm tall. I always got men's parts.)

Oops, that would be girls' school.

Jeanne - I tell you I'm supposed to work and you tell me about Academics' Corner. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO RESIST THIS NEW DEVILISH TEMPTATION?!!

sneaks off to have a look

Compos - that's more like it!!

opens book

YANBU ideally teacher should know, like Chuka Umunna should now where Worcester is and how to pronounce it -

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28150247

Know of course - the irony! Hoist by my own potato.

Mmm.... this may have been mentioned already but Shakespeare screwed with the metre all the time. Not saying he did with the whole Glamis pronunciation argument that's going on here but anyone who knows Shakespeare knows this. So is it possible the teacher, who has never been taught the text themselves or seen it performed, thought that is what Shakespeare is doing to draw attention to it?
Think about Hamlet's most famous line 'to be or not to be; that is the question' if Shakespeare was sticking to his metre solidly at all times this line wouldn't exist.