quatrain | Act I scene ii – Capulet’s speech to Paris in lines 13-34 |
sonnet | the Prologue to Act I |
blank verse | see flashcards |
antithesis | Act I scene i – Romeo about Rosaline: Here’s much to do with hate, but more to do with loveAct I scene v – Juliet about Romeo: My only love sprung from my only hate! |
pun | Act I scene iv – Romeo to Mercutio: You have dancing shoes/with nimble soles; I have a soul of lead |
Couplet | Act I scene ii – Benvolio to Romeo: But in that crystal scales let there be weighed / Your lady’s love against some other maid |
Oxymoron | “loving hate””Wise fool” |
Soliloquy | Act II scene ii – Juliet speaking to the heavens about Romeo |
Aside | Act II scene ii – Romeo’s comment about Juliet’s speech to the heavens: she speaks./ O, speak again, bright angel, for thou artRomeo about Juliet’s soliloquy: Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this? |
lyric poetry | Sonnet in prologue for Act I |
simile | Act II scene ii – Juliet to Romeo: I have no joy of this contract tonight. It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;/ Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be/ Ere one can say it lightens |
hyperbole | Act II scene ii – Romeo to Juliet: Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye/ Than twenty of their swords! |
Internal rhyme | Act I scene ii – Lord Capulet to Paris: But saying o’er what I said before! |
monologue | Act I scene iv – Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech |
dramatic irony | Mercutio and Benvolio are unaware that Romeo no longer loves Rosaline |
assonance | Act II scene ii – Juliet to Romeo: O gentle Romeo/ If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully |
alliteration | Act III scene i – Romeo: This day’s black fate on more days doth depend |
external conflict | Act III scene i – Mercutio and Tybalt’s fight |
internal conflict | Act III scene ii – Juliet’s dilemma over whether or not to love or hate Romeo for killing Tybalt |
Verbal Irony | Act III scene v – Juliet to Lady Capulet: O’ how my heart abhors/To hear him named and cannot come to him,/To wreak the love I bore my cousin/Upon his body that hath slaughtered him! |
Cosmic irony | Act III scene i – Romeo after killing Tybalt: O, I am fortune’s fool |
Aubade | Act III scene v – Juliet to Romeo: Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day./It was the nightingale, and not the lark |
image | Act III scene v – Juliet to Romeo: Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low,/As one dead in the bottom of a tomb. /Either my eyesight fails, or thou lookest pale |
Climax | Act III scene i – Romeo’s killing Tybalt |
Anachronism | Act III scene iii – Romeo to the Friar: As if that name,/ Shot from the deadly level of a gun,/ Did murder her |
Metaphor | Act IV scene v – Lord Capulet to Lady Capulet: Upon the sweetest flower of all the field |
Paradox | Act III scene ii – Juliet’s response that Romeo has killed Tybalt: O serpent heart, hid with a flow’ring face!/ Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave? / Beautiful tyrant! Fiend angelical! |
Allusion | Act III scene ii – Juliet’s soliloquy: Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,/ Towards Phoebus Lodging! Such a wagoner/ As Phaeton would whip you to the west/ And bring in cloudy night immediately |
Personification | Act IV scene v – Lord Capulet to Paris and the Friar: Death is my son-in-law, Death is my heir;/ My daughter he hath wedded |
Metonymy | Act III scene iii – Friar and Romeo: “O, then I see that madmen have no ears” “How should they, when that wise men have no eyes?” |
Apostrophe | Act III scene v – Juliet after Romeo has left her: O Fortune, Fortune! All men call thee fickle |
Romeo and Juliet – Literary Examples
August 24, 2019