Romeo and Juliet – Literary Examples

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