The Prologue
Romeo and Juliet
What is the place setting of the play?
The
setting is in Verona,
which is in Italy.
What is the relationship between the
two households?
The
families engage in
continual feuding.
What does Shakespeare mean by
“star-cross’d lovers”?
The
lovers are doomed to die
by fate or forces of the
universe.
What happens to the lovers?
They
kill themselves as a
result of both fate (“death
marked love”) and the feud
(“parents’ rage”).
What is the subject matter for this
play?
The
play, of two hours’
duration, deals with the feud,
the deaths of the lovers, and
the impact of those deaths on
the two families.
What does the chorus ask of the
audience in the last two lines? Why?
The
chorus asks the audience to
listen patiently. Elizabethan
audiences were known to be
restless and rowdy if they were
not pleased with the play they
were watching.
How many lines are there? What
type of poem does Shakespeare use
for the prologue?
Shakespeare
uses the
sonnet form which consists
of 14 lines of iambic
pentameter; the rhyme
scheme is abab cdcd efef gg.
Identify examples of poetic language.
Rhyme
Imagery:
- “traffic of our stage”
Alliteration:
- “from forth the fatal loins of
these two foes”