Romeo and Juliet
Forbidden Love and Family Loyalty
Who is William Shakespeare?
The Globe Theater
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Who is William Shakespeare?
• Born in 1564 to John and Mary Arden
Shakespeare
• 1582: Married to Anne
• 1583: Birth of Daughter Susanna
• 1585: Birth of twins: Judith and Hamnet
• 1587-1592: Established in London as
actor/playwright; first work Comedy of
Errors
Who is William Shakespeare?
• 1593: Begins writing sonnets (until 1597-ish)
• 1594-1596: Some more famous plays
Romeo and Juliet and Midsummer Night’s
Dream
• 1597-1608: Best known plays including the
rest of the tragedies
• 1599: The Globe Theatre built
• 1609: Publication of the Sonnets
• April 23, 1616: Shakespeare dies
His Works
• Poetry
o
o
The Sonnets
The Rape of Lucrece
• Plays
 Tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth
 Comedies: Much Ado About Nothing
 Histories: Richard III, Henry V
The Time Period
• Elizabethan Era
• The Renaissance
• Actors were men only
o
Men even played female
roles!
• Plays were one of the main source of
entertainment
Three Classifications of
Shakespearean Drama:
• COMEDY
• HISTORY
• TRAGEDY
Romeo and Juliet is a…
Tragedy
TRAGIC HERO
Qualities of a Tragic Hero:
• Possesses high importance or rank
• Exhibits extraordinary talents
• Displays a tragic flaw—an error in
judgment or defect in character—that
leads to downfall
• Faces downfall with courage and dignity
Act I Vocabulary Words
• adversary –opponent; enemy
• boisterous – noisily jolly or rowdy
• nuptial – having to do with marriage or a
marriage ceremony
• augmenting – adding to
• warrant – swear
• begot - born
Shakespearian Words
Act I
• dog – a man of low standing in society, no
one wants anything to do with him
• maidenhead - virginity
• bite my thumb – the ultimate insult (like
giving someone the finger)
• shrift - confession
• coz - nephew
BLANK VERSE
• Written like poetry
• But tells a story
• More free-flowing rules
o
doesn’t have a rhyme scheme or set number
of lines, etc.
• Iambic Pentameter
Iambic Pentameter
• Lines have a rhythm to them
• 10 syllables
• Pattern of stressed and unstressed
syllables
He JESTS at SCARS that NEV er FELT a WOUND
But SOFT! what LIGHT through YON der WIN dow BREAKS?
SOLILOQUY AND ASIDE
• Soliloquy - Long speech given by a
character while alone on stage to reveal
his or her private thoughts or intentions
• Aside - Character’s quiet remark to the
audience or another character that no one
else on stage is supposed to hear
DRAMATIC IRONY
• Irony—contrast between appearance and
reality
• Dramatic Irony—the audience or reader
knows something the character(s) does
not know
Act II Vocabulary
1. cunning - skillful, sly, clever
2. vile - repulsive, wicked, disgusting
3. predominant - having superior strength,
influence, or authority
4. unwieldy - hard to manage because of size or
weight
5. bounty - generosity, something given
generously
6. substantial - existing, real, not imaginary
7. imagery - word pictures, words that paint a
picture
Conflict
• External
o Man
o Man
o Man
vs. Man Example:
vs. Nature Example:
vs. Society Example:
• Internal
o Man
vs. himself Example:
Figurative Language
• Simile – comparison using “like”
or “as”
o
Her face is like a summer’s day…
• Metaphor – comparison by
saying one thing is another;
finding similarities in two
seemingly unalike things
o
“I am the East, and Juliet is the West…”
Figurative Language
• Pun – play on words
o
"Vandals destroyed many road signs. They really pulled out all the
stops."
• Alliteration - group of words that
begin with the same letter or
sound
o
desire doth in his deathbed lie
Foreshadowing
• A hint about what is to come in literature
or what the outcome of the conflict will be
Foil
• A character with qualities that are in sharp
contrast to another character, thus
emphasizing the qualities of each
• How is Mercutio a foil to Romeo?
Do Now
Assume that you write an advice column for
a newspaper or magazine. A modern day
Romeo (or Juliet) writes to you asking for
advice. He or she explains what happened
at the party and also mentions the family
feud.
1.Write what his or her letter says.
2.Write your response
Journal Entry
Write about a time when you've done
something wrong
and it's affected others around you.
• What did you do?
• How did it affect others?
• What consequences did you face?
• Did you resolve it?