Methods & Form Flashcards
All 13 cards in this deck
What genre is Romeo and Juliet?
Tragedy.
What poetic form is the Prologue written in?
A sonnet: fourteen lines ending in a rhyming couplet.
Which character speaks the Prologue?
The Chorus.
What form do Romeo and Juliet’s first fourteen lines together make in Act 1 Scene 5?
A shared sonnet.
What extended religious image runs through the lovers’ first conversation?
Pilgrims (palmers) and saints.
What device is “O heavy lightness! serious vanity!”?
Oxymoron (Romeo, Act 1 Scene 1).
Which device is at work when Juliet says “My grave is like to be my wedding bed”?
Dramatic irony: she will die for love of Romeo (Act 1 Scene 5).
What does Juliet see in her vision as Romeo leaves in Act 3 Scene 5?
Romeo looking like one dead in the bottom of a tomb: foreshadowing.
In what form do Sampson and Gregory open the play?
Prose, full of puns.
Which two birds do the lovers argue about at dawn in Act 3 Scene 5?
The nightingale (night) and the lark (morning).
What verse form do the noble characters mostly speak in?
Blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter.
Over roughly how many days does the action take place?
About four days.
What is usually named as Romeo’s fatal flaw (hamartia)?
His impulsiveness: he acts in haste.