R & J Acts 1 & 2 Flashcards
Link quotes to characters, context, theme and language use.
“A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life”
The prologue.
Chorus tells audience about the play before it starts.
“Star-crossed” - theme of fate
AO3 context: lots of Elizabethans believed in fate and the power of the stars over their lives.
“take their life” - ambivalence in meaning to suggest death as final outcome.
“The fearful passage of their death-marked love…”
The Prologue
Chorus tells audience about the play before it starts.
“Death-marked”: connected to theme of fate - an inescapable destiny.
Dramatic irony: The tension for the audience is the “fearful passage” of HOW the tragedy happens.
“whose misadventured, piteous overthrows doth with their death bury their parent’s strife”
The Prologue
Chorus tells audience about the play before it starts.
“Misadventured” “piteous” “Overthrows” - Shakespeare wnts audience to see R & J sympathetically and compassionately.
“bury their parent’s strife” - personification from sematic field of death to highlight theme of death and final resolution to the play.
“I do but keep the peace”
Act 1 Scene 1
BENVOLIO to Tybalt, as he tries to explain to him why he has drawn his sword to break up the servants’ fight.
Peace-maker and moderator.
Foil to Tybalt’s violent nature.
“What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word…”
Act 1 Scene 1
TYBALT to Benvolio, tying to provoke him to fight. Attacks him after he says this.
TYBALT suggested to audience as an antagonistic character - a dangerous character.
“hate” - key theme and strong language to convey strength of feeling.
“O brawling love, O loving hate”
Act 1 scene 1
ROMEO sees aftermath of the fight and, in his depressed mood about Rosaline’s rejection, thinks about the fine line between loving and hating. = key themes
Oxymorons used to suggest his confused and conflicted state of mind AND the fine line between love/hate.
He’s melancholy and dejected; presented first as a ‘lover’
“Younger than she are happy mothers made.”
ACt 1 scene 2
Paris to Capulet: Paris pursing an answer from Capulet to his ‘suit’. He wants to marry Juliet but Capulet wants to wait “two more summers” before she is “ripe to be a bride”.
AO3: even by Elizabethan standards, 13 was very young for marriage. Girls considered ‘owned’ by fathers and husbands - parts of business/status deals and they come with a dowry.
“But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart
My will to her consent is but a part”
Act 1 Scene 2
Capulet to paris on discssing his ‘suit’ of Juliet.
A good father? Wants Juliet to be loved, not just married as a business deal. Juliet’s “consent” is important to him.
“What lamb! What ladybird!…What, Juliet!”
act 1 scene 3
Nurse trying to call Juliet for her mother.
Affectionate terms of address - close relationship of nurse with Juliet.
Nurse established as comedic, hyperbolic character - shouting and yelling for Juliet.
“Well, think of marriage now; younger than you…are already made mothers”
Act 1 scene 3
Lady Capulat to Juliet
Encouraging her to consider Paris’ suit.
Commanding language; she assumes she has power to make this choice for Juliet (usual for the time).
Established as cold, business-like with Juliet. Unsympathetic.
“It is an honour I dream not of”
Act 1 Scene 3
Juliet to her mother.
IN responses to her mother’s question abpout how she feels about marriage.
Clever response with double meaning implied?
“honour” suggests she sees it as she should on the surface, but it could mean she does not think about it and she doesn’t want to.
“Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous and it pricks like a thorn.”
ACt 1 scene 4
Romeo to Mercutio
Suggests Romeo sees love as irritating and painful.
Dramatic irony: “pricks” might foreshadow the many knife deaths in the play to come caused by different loves, including Mercutio’s.
“Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down”
Mercutio to Romeo
Character established as extremely witty and good at verbal sparring.
Encourages Romeo to be more in control of his emotions and take charge of himself - not be ‘ruled’ by love but to make it submit to him. Challenges him.
“True, I talk of dreams, which are the children of an idle brain…”
Act 1 Scene 4
Mercutio to Romeo
Romeo says he “dreamed a dream tonight” which prompts Mercutio to a long and increasingly frantic and confused speech about Queen Mab.
Romeo silences him so Mercution reminds Romeo that they both talk of nothing if they talk about dreams.
AO3: dreams significant for Elizabethans as they believed they had power and could reveal omens.
“My mind misgives some consequence yet hanging in the stars…”
Act 1 scene 5
Romeo to Mercutio/Benvolio
Theme: fate and inescapable doom. Premonition of the future that will be set in motion when he falls for Juliet. Sense of impending danger.
“O, She doth teach the torches to burn bright! “
Act 1 scene 5
Romeo on seeing Juliet for the first time.
Light imagery: she becomes all he can see and shines above all things to him.
exclamtory language emphasises the awe he feels.
“…this intrusion shall, now seeming sweet, shall turn to bitterest gall.”
Act 1 scene 5
Tybalt to himself.
He tries to get Capult to give permission for him to punish Romeo for gate-crashing, but Capulet forbids him from acting and is angered by Tybalt’s defiance. He’s promising he’ll make Romeo pay at a later time.
Foreshadowing/double meaning: the idea of poison being the outcome of Romeo being there in more ways than one.
“if I profane, with my unworthiest hand, this holy shrine…my lips, two blushing pilgrims…”
Act 1 scene 5
Romeo to Juliet
Religious language: used by both to talk in euphemism and flirt so that it seems more pure.
Juliet = holy shrine. Romeo’s felings are like a spiritual renewal.
Juliet able to match his verbal fencing and open to his advances.
“Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
that I should love a loathed enemy.”
Act 1 Scene 5
Juliet to herself.
After the nurse tells her who Romeo is.
Oxmorons again to show confusion and the fine line between love and hate.
“prodigious birth” “love/loathed”
sense of dread and shock.
“…in his mistress’ name, I conjure only to raise him up.”
Act 2 scene 1
Mercutio to Benvolio
Teasing about Romeo going off in a passion (he asumes seeking Rosaline) and using lots of sexual puns and innuendo which the audience would have enjoyed, perhaps especially the groundlings and lower-class audience members.
“It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!”
Act 2 Scene 2
Romeo about Juliet whist hiding in her garden.
Light imagery & symbolism: sunrise = new beginnings, hope and opportunity. LIght of his life/centre of his world.
“O Romeo Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?”
Act 2 Scene 2
Juliet’s first line of balcony soliloquy.
Frustration at Romeo being a Montague and focus on his name/family being the barrier.
“If they do see thee, they will murder thee.”
Act 2 Scene 2
Juliet to Romeo.
Juliet starts off very concerned about Romeo’s safety (Romeo not worried): thinking practically, not letting her feelings overtake reality.
“Farewell compliment. Dost thou love me?”
Act 2 Scene 2
Juliet to Romeo.
Surprising that Juliet is so forthcoming and direct? We see that Juliet is a affected by Romeo as he is by her. Suggests strength of her characters - she is leading.
“I have no joy of this contract tonight. It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden. Too like the lightening…”
Act 2 Scene 2
Juliet to Romeo.
She is restrained and sensible - less impetuous?
Simile of lightning - suggests something bright and powerful, like their love, but fades quickly and is very danagerous.
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,
And vice sometimes by action dignified
Act 2 scene 3
Friar Lawrence thinking about the properties of plants to heal and poison as he gather herbs.
Foreshadowing - motif of poison and the justification of his own actions: you can do bad things for good reasons?
The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,
Thy old groans ring yet in mine ancient ears.
Act 2 scene 3
Friar Lawrence to Romeo
Shows the warmth and closeness of relationship: Friar teases him but is also serious in his criticism of Romeo being fickle about love.
For this alliance may so happy prove
To turn your households’ rancor to pure love.
Act 2 scene 3
Friar Lawrence to Romeo (and himself?)
Justifies assisting Romeo by hoping it will end the fued.
NOTE: the rhyming couplets he speaks in throughout fail slightly here - maybe hints at how this hope will fail?
Of this day’s journey, and from nine till twelve
Is three long hours, yet she is not come
Act 2 scene 5
Juliet waiting for Nurse to return with word from Romeo.
Very impatient and mentions time repeatedly. Eager and impetuous here, not concerned about rashness as in act 2 scene 2.
I am the drudge and toil in your delight,
But you shall bear the burden soon at night!
Act 2 scene 4
Nurse to Juliet
Telling her how she needs to get to church and that she’ll arrange a ladder for Romeo to climb up later to her room.
Accepts her role in facilitating the illicit marriage and in helping them consummate it - language with lots of sexual innuendo “bear the burden”. Teasing her - finding it fun.
THEME?Context: fami;y relationships. closer to nurse than mother. Nurse not being very ‘adult’ or wise to guide Juliet.
