‘Romeo and Juliet’ – The prologue
Complete the following tasks using the prologue to ‘Romeo and Juliet’.
You can annotate the sheet but please write full responses in your exercise
books.
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whole misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
1. How many lines does the prologue have?
2. Which lines rhyme with each other? (Give the line numbers and the
rhyming words, e.g line1 rhymes with line 3; ‘dignity’ and ‘mutiny’)
3. How many syllables does each line have?
4. Use a coloured pen to highlight all the words to do with love.
5. Use a different coloured pen to highlight all the words to do with
violence.
6. Use another colour to highlight the words to do with family.
7. Create a table with three columns, labelled ‘love’, ‘violence’ and ‘family.
Write the words you have found into each column.
8. What, if anything, is surprising about the number of words in each
column? Talk about all three columns.
9. A piece of writing with this rhyme pattern and number of syllables and
lines is called a Sonnet.