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That line is well-known, but it’s a testament to how many great speeches we find in this play that this isn’t even Mark Antony’s most famous speech from Julius Caesar: that mantle must go to his ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen’ address (which we have analysed here).
This line features a couple of Shakespeare favorites: the trochaic inversion at the beginning of the line and the feminine ending. Romeo will compare Juliet's eyes to the stars, a familiar trope that has been passed off ever since as original by teen boys the world over.
As a prologue to the play, the Chorus enters. In a fourteen-line sonnet, the Chorus describes two noble households (called “houses”) in the city of Verona. The houses hold an “ancient grudge” (Prologue.2) against each other that remains a source of violent and bloody conflict.
- Summary of The Act I Prologue
- Structure of Romeo and Juliet Act I Prologue
- Literary Devices in Act I Prologue
- Analysis of Theact I Prologue
The prologue alludes to the end of the play in which both Romeo and Juliet lost their lives. It is only due to that loss that their “parents’ rage” ends. The lines also specifically address the audienceasking them to list with “patient ears” and find out how the events are going to play out.
These fourteen lines of the ‘Act I Prologue’ take the form of a traditional Shakespearean sonnet. This form, which became known due to Shakespeare’s mastery of it and fondness for it, is made up of three quatrains, or sets of four lines, and one concluding couplet, or set of two rhyming lines. The poem follows a consistent rhyme scheme that conform...
Shakespeare makes use of several literary devices in ‘Act I Prologue’. These include but are not limited to allusion, alliteration, and enjambment. The first of these, allusion, is the most prominent. This entire fourteen-line sonnet is one extended example of allusion. The lines all suggest what’s going to happen next, tap into themes that are elu...
Lines 1-4
In the first lines of the prologue to the famous play Romeo and Juliet the speaker, who is the “Chorus” addresses the audience. This person is all-knowing and has a full understanding of what is about to happen on stage. In the first line, the chorus tells the audience that it is in “Verona” a beautiful of “fair” city that the play is taking place. There are two major households in the city that have a long grudge between them. It has been at a standstill for a period of time but something ne...
Lines 5-8
These families each have a child who is going to be involved in bloodshed and death. It is from the “fatal loins” of the families that a “pair of star-cross’d lovers” emerge. This line is a great example of syncope. Additionally, the reader should take note of the phrase “star-crossed lovers”. Shakespeare coined this term in the ‘Act I Prologue’ which is now used frequently in everyday speech, novels, and movies.
Lines 9-14
In the third quatrain of the ‘Act I Prologue’, the speaker adds that these two children become lovers and commit suicide. It is their deaths that bring an end to the strife. It was only that which could possibly bring these families around and force them to realize what their feuding could result in. In the next lines, the chorus tells the audience to watch for the next “two hours” on the stage as the story of their lives, loves, and deaths play out. The audience should listen patiently and t...
- Female
- October 9, 1995
- Poetry Analyst And Editor
Shakespeare’s use of dramatic methods and language. You will need to think about how Shakespeare crafted his play – the dramatic devices, methods and techniques he employed and his use of...
Romeo and Juliet, for example, builds, in its opening scenes, a location that is characterized by specific customs and conflicts. The play creates this sense of place through references to “civil blood,” to maskers, to Lammastide, to bucklers, clubs, bills, and partisans.
The 5-act structure is a format of dramatic structure commonly used in classical and Shakespearean dramas. It expands the three-act structure by dividing the narrative into five parts: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.
