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You will need to block quote the quotation.
STEPS:
- Introduce the quotation in your paragraph.
- INDENT twice to start copying the quotation. Include the character's name before his/her dialogue. For each
line of the quotation, indent twice.
- If the character's dialogue goes BEYOND one line long, indent an extra time so that the second, third, and
all following lines UNDER the character's name, so that there is a "hanging indent" (see the example to understand what this
means.
- It is not important to keep the line breaks exactly as they appear in the original text: just allow
the computer to naturally go to the next line.
- When you get to the end of the quotation, include the information about where the quotation occurred in the
text. Here's the formula for that:
Open parentheses + author's name + Act # in Roman Numerals + period + Scene # + period + line number(s) +
Close parentheses
Example: (Shakespeare II.3.2-4) = Shakespeare's play, Act 2, Scene 3, lines 2-4
5. Place a period at the END of the quotation after the close parentheses.
6. Continue your paragraph with analysis of the quotation, but DO NOT INDENT. What you say next should
be at the LEFT MARGIN of the page.
See below for an example.
When Juliet’s
Nurse is looking for Romeo to pass a message from her lady to him, she asks the young men on the street where to find Romeo. Instead of giving her a straight answer, the young men toy with her for a little while:
NURSE: … Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I may find
the young Romeo?
ROMEO: I can tell you; but young Romeo
will be older when you have found him than he was when you sought him: I am the
youngest of that name, for fault of a worse.
NURSE: You say well.
MERCUTIO: Yea, is the worst well?
very well took, I’faith; wisely, wisely.
NURSE: If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with yo
(Shakespeare II.4.99-113).
One would think that Romeo would want
to identify himself immediately to the servant of this woman who he apparently loves so much.
Instead, he shows off for his friends a bit, demonstrating just how immature he really is.
In Othello, Iago is known for his honesty. However, this could not be
further from the real truth about his character. In the following quotation,
he is trying to make Cassio “feel better” about having lost his post after a drunken brawl. In reality, Iago is the one who incited the brawl, in order to cause Cassio to lose his reputation:
IAGO:
As I am an honest man, I thought you had received some bodily wound; there is more sense in that than in reputation. Reputation is an idle and most false imposition:
oft got without merit, and lost without deserving: you have lost no reputation
at all, unless you repute yourself such a loser. What, man! there are ways to recover the general again: you are but now
cast in his mood, a punishment more in policy than in malice, even so as one would beat his offenceless dog to affright an
imperious lion: sue to him again, and he’s yours (Shakespeare II.3.269-279).
Though Iago is telling Cassio not to
worry about Othello’s opinion about Cassio, Iago is actually pleased with this turn of events because it has lead to
his own promotion to lieutenant, the original cause for all of Iago’s mischief.
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