Love Between Romeo and Juliet Act 1

Question 1

Act 1 quotes

Answer 1

JULIET:

‘Good pilgrim, hand too much’
‘You kiss by the book … Saints’
‘My grave is like to be my wedding bed’

ROMEO:

‘Snowy dove trooping with crows’
‘Did my heart love ‘till now?’
‘O brawling love, O loving hate’

Question 2

Analyse ‘Good pilgrim … hand too much’

Answer 2

• Quick-witted to respond to Romeo’s comments very quickly
• Representative of the immediate connection she has with Romeo - fate, always meant to be together
• They both share a sonnet, which are typically poems to express love
• Positive impact on Elizabethan audience - they are united

Question 3

Analyse ‘You kiss by th’ book … Saints’

Answer 3

• Their passion has led to a divine experience as Romeo kisses expertly
• Their love has been elevated to a religious, transcendental power and status - Saints are holy religious figures

Question 4

Analyse ‘O brawling love, O loving hate’

Answer 4

• Multiple oxymorons highlight the INEFFABLE nature of love (contradictions) - as well as emotional conflict in his mind
• Encapsulates the tumultuous emotional landscape of Romeo, paradoxical nature of his feelings
• ‘Brawling’ is reflective of the violence in the opening scene
• Diacope of ‘love’ demonstrates the symbiosis of love and hate
• Irregular rhyming couplets represent the unpredictability of love - setting him up as the tragic, Petrarchan hero

Question 5

Analyse ‘With Cupid’s arrow, she hath Dian’s wit’

Answer 5

• Uses Greek mythological imagery to compare Juliet to a goddess
• Hyperbolic metaphors are used to connote his hamartia of falling in love too quickly

Question 6

Analyse ‘Did my heart love ‘till now’

Answer 6

• Rhetorical question which completely invalidates his distraught emotions from Scene 1
• when he ‘locked himself in fair daylight’
• He is very immature and unrealistic in love
• Elizabethan audience finds this humorous, yet a modern audience finds this shocking and shallow

Question 7

Analyse ‘Snowy dove trooping with crows’

Answer 7

• Clichéd images of peace and purity - she is described as superior to other women
• Romantic idealisation intensifies his love. Juliet is described as gentle and vulnerable - easily harmed by the surrounding violence
• Verb ‘trooping’ displays the image of violence and militarisation - the conflict is always surrounding them
• Underscores intense infatuation
• ‘Crows’ juxtaposes the purity of a ‘Dove’, as crows symbolise dullness and death, alluding to the duality of love and death