Romeo and Juliet - The Prologue
- Created by: _maddymaria
- Created on: 27-02-18 19:18
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- Romeo and Juliet - The Prologue
- "a pair or star-cross'd lovers take their life"
- They are so consumed by their love they stop acting as individuals
- By the end of the play, the lovers have power over their actions and have overcome the constraints of conflict but still could not fully escape to love happily
- The lovers cannot escape their destiny, their fate has already been written
- Elizabethan superstition and Shakespeare's belief in fate
- Poignant imagery
- "doth with their death bury their parents' strife"
- Death brings the start and end of the conflict - shows emotive/ power of love
- Prologues are common in Greek tragedy but unusual in Shakespeare's plays
- In sonnet form - 14 lines broken into 4 quatrains: 3 with 4 lines and the last with 2 lines
- Used for love poetry and in iambic pentameter
- Hints this play is about love - a popular form in 16th century, often explores themes as love in conflict
- Used for love poetry and in iambic pentameter
- "death-mark'd love"
- oxymoronic
- love cannot survive with/without death
- Even from the beginning, their love and romance has been tainted by the fact they are both going to die.
- The love they have cannot escape death
- Love is intertwined with hate - a paradox - love ends and starts hate
- Fate - no point delaying the truth
- "both alike in dignity"
- same social status - both upper class and noble so wealth is not a cause of the strife - curiosity for readers?
- setting the scene = gives away plot, lack of suspense, prepares audience for tragedy
- creates a sense of fate - provides audience with knowledge they they will die before the play has begun
- audience carry this knowledge throughout the play with opinions and expectations
- "from forth the fatal loins of these two foes"
- due to their family conflict, their children's love could never survive
- their love was doomed from the moment they were born
- Establishes themes of fortune and destiny to set out from the start that the lovers are involved in a tragedy.
- "civil blood makes civil hands unclean"
- this story is not a 'one off' conflict bringing about love. It is ongoing, current and unavoidable
- the love and hate is not just confined to families - it affects society - allows other threats to appear such as patriarchy in society and reputation
- "ancient grudge"
- ongoing, buried in their blood and history
- emotive
- "break to new mutiny"
- a new rebellion against very long conflict - love is the only thing strong enough to overcome it
- authority/ morality
- antithesis - an old grudge bringing about new problems
- "break to new mutiny"
- a new rebellion against very long conflict - love is the only thing strong enough to overcome it
- authority/ morality
- antithesis - an old grudge bringing about new problems
- pivotal moment
- establishes themes of fortune/ destiny /fate etc.
- allows for dramatic irony, lack of suspense but curiosity for how hate transforms into love
- outlines plot
- prepares for drama and destiny is determined
- sense of sympathy for protagonists from audience - death is inescapable
- LINKS TO THE REST OF THE PLAY
- "a pair or star-cross'd lovers take their life"
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