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Q

Explain the meaning of the quote: “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she. . . .
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars
As daylight doth a lamp; her eye in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.”
Why is it important?

A
  • this quote appears in the balcony seen where a romeo is hiding in the orchard and has just spotted Juliet above him on a balcony.
  • romeo imagines that Juliet is the sun, making the darkness daylight.
  • he personifies the moon “sick and pale with grief” and follows by saying Juliet, the sun, is far more beautiful and brighter.
  • romeo then compares Juliet to the stars and says she outshines the stars the same way as daylight overpowers a lamp. Her eyes shine as stars, bright enough that even the birds are convinced it is no longer night time.
  • why is it important?
  • play’s most beautiful and famous sequences of poetry
  • it is an example of the light/dark motif which is visible throughout the play. Most scenes are at very late during the night or very early in the morning and Shakespeare often uses contrast between night and day to show opposing alternatives in a given situation
    Theme: love
1
Q

Explain the meaning of the quote: “O Romeo, Romeo,
wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name,
Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.”
Why is it important?

A
  • in the balcony scene where Juliet is talk liking to herself about the day’s happenings, not realising that Romeo I is underneath and hears what she says
  • she asks why romeo must be called romeo and why he must be a Montague.
  • she wants romeo to refuse his father and refuse his name in order for them to be together without refusal from their families
  • however, she also says that if romeo will not, then all she wants is for romeo to swear he truly loves her, and she’ll change her own name and no longer be a Capulet
  • why is it important?
  • a major them in R&J is the tension between social and family identity-which is represented by a name- and one’s inner identity.
    Juliet believes that love comes from one’s inner identity and the feud is a product of the families’ family identity (name)
    -she thinks of romeo as an individual and notices her love for romeo is stronger than her hate of the name ‘Montague’ and she says that if he were not called romeo or Montague, he would still be the person she loved
    Theme: love and fate vs. choice and family
2
Q

Explain the meaning of the quote: O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you. . . .
She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate stone
On the forefinger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomi
Athwart men’s noses as they lie asleep.
Why is it important?

A
  • Mercutio is trying to get romeo to set aside his love sickness over romeo and come along to the feast
  • romeo says he is depressed because of a dream and Mercutio jumps into a description of Queen Mab, who is a fairy believed to bring dreams to sleeping humans.
  • the main point is that the dreams that Queen Mab brings are directly related to the person that dreams them (e.g. Lovers dream of love, soldiers dream of war)
  • however, while expressing this point, Mercutio falls into a wild bitterness and begins to explain dreams as being delusional and destructive.
    Why is to important?
  • stunning quality of its poetry and what it reveals about mercutio’s character.
3
Q

Explain the meanings of these quotes:

  1. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
    A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life,
    Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
    Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife. . . .
  2. O, I am fortune’s fool! . . .
  3. Then I defy you, stars.

Why are they important?

A
  1. Spoken by chorus in prologue
    - shows the lovers are “star-crossed” and fated to “take their lives” . Informs the audience that the lovers are destined to die tragically

Theme: fate vs. choice

  1. Spoken by Romeo after he kills Tybalt
  • shows that romeo sees himself as subject to the whims of fate
  • suggests that fate and “fortune” are responsible for Tybalt’s death, not Romeo

Theme: fate vs. choice

  1. Spoken by Romeo after learning about Juliet’s death
    - he opposes the destiny that he grieves but by defying fate, he brings it about as Juliet kills herself after Romeo’s suicide which fulfils the lovers’ tragic destiny.

Why are the quotes important?
Advance the theme of fate

4
Q

Explain the meaning: Three civil brawls bred of an airy word, by thee, old Capulet and Montague, have thrice disturbed the quiet of our streets
Why is it important

A

Three fights all because of a casual word by you, old Capulet and Montague. These fights have disturbed our streets three times

Why is it important?
shows past of feud

Theme: violence

5
Q

Explain the meaning: If ever you disturb our streets again, your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace
Why is it important?

A

The prince is declaring that if the streets are disturbed ever again, the loss of life will pay the price

Why is it important?

Foreshadowing because romeo is banished the next time, and Mercutio and Tybalt are killed as well.

This banishment also leads to the death of Romeo and Juliet.

Theme: fate vs. choice

6
Q

Explain the meaning: “ay mine own fortune in my misery”

Why is it important?

A

Said by Romeo when Peter asks if romeo knows how to read

He’s saying that his own fortune will be his misery

Why is it important?

Foreshadowing as he meets Juliet but then they both die

Theme: fate vs. choice

7
Q

Explain the meaning of the quote: “got hither and with unattainted eye, compare her face with some that I shall show, and I will make thee think thy swan a crow”
Why is it important?

A
  • benvolio says this to romeo after realising that Rosaline will be at the Capulet party. This is after peter’s appearance
  • he is telling Rimeo to go without a biased Leyte and look at the women Benvolio points out, and when he sees all the beauties of Verona, he’ll think the woman he think is as beautiful as a swan (Rosaline) is as ugly as a crow compared to them

Why is this important?
- romeo does meet someone new at the party and that begins the relationship of romeo and Juliet

  • theme: love and fate vs. choice
8
Q

“Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like a thorn”

A
  • this is said by Romeo after Mercutio says love is a tender feeling
  • romeo is saying that he thinks love is not tender, he thinks of it as rude, rowdy and rough and pricks like a thorn
  • theme: love
9
Q

I fear too early, for my mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night’s revels, and expire the term
Of a despisèd life closed in my breast
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.

A
  • said by Romeo on their way to the Capulet’s party. He feels doubtful but goes anyway
  • I have a feeling that this party tonight will be the start of something bad and will end in my death
  • “something hanging in the stars”: destined to happen
  • this is important because it foreshadows. The start of the party is when he meets Juliet and the relationship ends with both the exile of Romeo and the death of both Romeo and Juliet
  • theme: fate vs. choice
10
Q

Go ask his name: if he be married.

My grave is like to be my wedding bed.

A

Juliet says this to nurse when she sees Romeo at the party. She says that if romeo is already married, she’d rather die than marry someone else. She asks nurse to check him out. She is foreshadowing her own untimely death. Her grave does become her wedding bed as she dies on the day she is supposed to be married to Count Paris who is NOT Romeo!!
Theme: fate vs. choice

11
Q

O God, I have an ill-divining soul!
Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb:
Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale.

A

Said by Juliet on the morning that Romeo leaves for Mantua when Romeo is below Juliet under the balcony while Juliet is above and they are talking of whether they shall see each other again.
She thinks she sees Romeo dead as his face looks as pale as a tomb
This I’d foreshadowing as when she does see him again, he is dead next to her in her tomb

Theme: fate vs choice

12
Q

“Unhappy fortune”

A
  • said by Friar Lawrence when Friar John tells him that the letter that tells of Juliet’s ‘death’ did not reach Romeo because of quarantine
  • friar Lawrence is, here, blaming ‘unhappy fortune’
13
Q

“Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.”

A
  • said by romeo to a random serving man when first, he spots Juliet
  • her beauty is too good for this world, she is too beautiful to die and be buried
  • foreshadowing: she does die and is buried
  • theme: love
14
Q

“This trick may come to scathe you”

A
  • means this stupidity will come back to bite you
  • said by Capulet to Tybalt when Tybalt wants to start a fight with Romeo at the Capulet party
  • foreshadowing: Tybalt does end up fighting Mercutio because they came to the party and although Mercutio is stabbed under Romeo’s arm, Tybalt is killed by Romeo in the end.
15
Q

“My life is my foe’s debt”

A

Said by Romeo after realising Juliet is a Capulet

  • he is saying that his life is in the hands of his enemy
  • this is foreshadowing his death as he dies because of her. He thinks she is truly dead and kills himself.
16
Q

I fear too early, for my mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night’s revels, and expire the term
Of a despisèd life closed in my breast
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.

A
  • said by Romeo on their way to the Capulet’s party. He feels doubtful but goes anyway
  • I have a feeling that this party tonight will be the start of something bad and will end in my death
  • “something hanging in the stars”: destined to happen
  • this is important because it foreshadows. The start of the party is when he meets Juliet and the relationship ends with both the exile of Romeo and the death of both Romeo and Juliet
  • theme: fate vs. choice
17
Q

Go ask his name: if he be married.

My grave is like to be my wedding bed.

A

Juliet says this to nurse when she sees Romeo at the party. She says that if romeo is already married, she’d rather die than marry someone else. She asks nurse to check him out. She is foreshadowing her own untimely death. Her grave does become her wedding bed as she dies on the day she is supposed to be married to Count Paris who is NOT Romeo!!
Theme: fate vs. choice

18
Q

O God, I have an ill-divining soul!
Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb:
Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale.

A

Said by Juliet on the morning that Romeo leaves for Mantua when Romeo is below Juliet under the balcony while Juliet is above and they are talking of whether they shall see each other again.
She thinks she sees Romeo dead as his face looks as pale as a tomb
This I’d foreshadowing as when she does see him again, he is dead next to her in her tomb

Theme: fate vs choice

19
Q

“Unhappy fortune”

A
  • said by Friar Lawrence when Friar John tells him that the letter that tells of Juliet’s ‘death’ did not reach Romeo because of quarantine
  • friar Lawrence is, here, blaming ‘unhappy fortune’
20
Q

“Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.”

A
  • said by romeo to a random serving an when first, he spots Juliet
  • her beauty is too good for this world, she is too beautiful to die and be buried
  • foreshadowing: she does die and is buried
  • theme: love
21
Q

“This trick may come to scathe you”

A
  • means this stupidity will come back to bite you
  • said by Capulet to Tybalt when Tybalt wants to start a fight with Romeo at the Capulet party
  • foreshadowing: Tybalt does end up fighting Mercutio because they came to the party and although Mercutio is stabbed under Romeo’s arm, Tybalt is killed by Romeo in the end.
22
Q

“My life is my foe’s debt”

A

Said by Romeo after realising Juliet is a Capulet

  • he is saying that his life is in the hands of his enemy
  • this is foreshadowing his death as he dies because of her. He thinks she is truly dead and kills himself.
23
Q
ROMEO (to Juliet in the tomb) 
I still will stay with thee;
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again: here, here will I remain
With worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest,
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh.
(5.3.6)
A

Fate vs. choice
This is when Romeo finds Juliet ‘dead’ in her tomb and he makes a CHOICE to kill himself, instead of letting fate do it.
He brings about his own fate

24
Q

Romeo! O, pale! Who else? what, Paris too?
And steep’d in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour
Is guilty of this lamentable chance!

A

Said by Friar Lawrence when he arrives at the tomb to find Romeo and Paris dead.
Instead of blaming himself, he blames fate

25
Q

FRIAR LAURENCE
I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest
Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep:
A greater power than we can contradict
Hath thwarted our intents.
(5.3.8)

A

Said by Friar Lawrence when Juliet wakes up. He says someone more powerful (fate or God) have disturbed the plans they had arranged. Again, he is blaming fate, other than himself

26
Q

ROMEO
I have night’s cloak to hide me from their eyes,
And but thou love me, let them find me here.
My life were better ended by their hate
Than death proroguèd, wanting of thy love.

A

Said by Romeo. He says he has darkness to hide him from Juliet’s relatives. If she doesn’t love him, then he says that he’d rather to he relatives find him and kill him than live without Juliet’s love. This is foreshadowing. He commits suicide in the end because of this exact reason

27
Q

ROMEO Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes;
Being vex’d a sea nourish’d with lovers’ tears:
What is it else? a madness most discreet,
A choking gall and a preserving sweet.
(1.1.7)

A

Suggests that Romeo knows more of the sort of love in books than in real life.
Theme: love