Romeo and Juliet

Question 1

What is the reference to astrology/occult in the Prologue?

Answer 1

star-crossed lovers

Question 2

What troubadour theme is most illustrated in this Romeo quote? “Why, then, O brawling love, O loving hate, O anything of nothing first create! O heavy lightness, serious vanity, Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms…

Answer 2

contradiction

Question 3

To whom is Romeo referring when he says, “… she hath Dian’s wit”?

Answer 3

Rosaline

Question 4

Who says this and in what context?

Answer 4

Romeo; He is comparing love to religion.
He is telling Benvolio he cannot forget Rosaline because it would be a heresy and Benvolio tells him to find someone else to love.

Question 5

Romeo says love makes him feel, “Shut up in prison”. That can be interpreted as a reference to what aspect of medieval culture?

Answer 5

Cathars

Question 6

What kind of humor is illustrated when the Nurse remembers Juliet’s age by recalling, “I laid wormwood to my dug?”

Answer 6

bodily interruption

Question 7

Who uses the following book metaphor for love? “read o’er the volume… book of love”

Answer 7

Lady Capulet

Question 8

In what scene do we get an example of carnival interruption?

Answer 8

The scene where Romeo and his friends cousins wear masks into the Capulet’s ball.

Question 9

What is meat by “bawdy innuendo” as theme in passage like the following? “… if love be rough with you, be rough with love! be rough with love”

Answer 9

wordplay
“inappropriate”
PG13 humor

Question 10

Mercutio mocks love by referencing what character from English folklore?

Answer 10

Queen Mab

Question 11

Identify the formal elements of the sonnet.
Line numbers:
Rhyme scheme:

Answer 11

Line numbers: 14 lines (4, 4, 4, 2)

Rhyme scheme: abab…cc

Question 12

In his famous speech, Romeo says, “Juliet is the sun.” In what sense is that the dominant symbol and theme of the play?

Answer 12

He is saying that Juliet is attainable, marriable, and natural. The sun is the opposite of the unattainable moon.

Question 13

Complete the statement, which is a dominant metaphor for Juliet, “My bounty is as boundless as the…”

Answer 13

sea

Question 14

Who speaks the following, and what theme does it represent? “Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, And vice sometimes by action dignified. [examining a flower] Within the infant rind of this weak flower Poison hath residence and medicine power.”

Answer 14

Friar Lawrence; alchemy, in nature you have forces that are good and bad depending on the situation.

Question 15

Who are “Laura, Cleopatra, Helen and Hero,” and who makes a reference to them and for what reason?

Answer 15

They are famous lovers and Mercutio makes a reference to them to mock Romeo and his romance.

Question 16

Who says, “Now art thou what thou art?” and why (in what context)?

Answer 16

Mercutio; he let’s Romeo know that he is still one of the guys because he can do body innuendo.

Question 17

When Juliet says, “Love’s heralds should be thoughts” what does it tell us about her character at this moment?

Answer 17

She is being romantic and feminine.

Question 18

Who says, “Beautiful tyrant! fiend and what archetype is represented?

Answer 18

Good- bad boy

Question 19

What is the symbolism in the following bird references? “It was the nightingale, and not the lark, That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear.”

Answer 19

lark=day, nightingale=night
lark= attainable, nightingale= unattainable
It shows contrast.
Troubadour

Question 20

What aspects of Juliet’s character do we see in this quote: “Or hide me nightly in a charnel-house O’er- covered quite with dead men’s rattling bones, With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls.”

Answer 20

Gothic imagination