Romeo and Juliet and the English Sonnet

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Romeo and Juliet and the English Sonnet
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On Comedy and Tragedy

• Thomas Heywood (a contemporary of Shakespeare)
  noted that Comedy beginneth sorrowfully, and
  endeth merrily, contrary to a tragedy.

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Shakespeares Oeuvre

• 37 plays
• (17 comedies 9 histories 11 tragedies)
• Romeo and Juliet is an early tragedy,
  1594 - 1596
• (with Titus Andronicus and Julius Caesar)
• 154 sonnets
• Two long poems
• One elegy

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Of Romeo and Juliet

• Of all Shakespeares tragedies, Romeo and
  Juliet depends most upon its poetry.In no other
  tragedy does Shakespeare use the imagery and the
  elaborated rhymed verse of lyric poetry to the
  extent he does in Romeo and Juliet.
• Phyllis Rackin,
  literary critic

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Why Study the Sonnet?

• Romeo and Juliet -- the skinny
• Total lines 3050
• Prose 15
• Blank verse 70 (!)
• Rhyme 15

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Come instance, instance

• Come Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen.
• Susan and she (God rest all Christian souls!)
• Were of an age. Well, Susan is with God
• She was too good for me. But, as I said,
• On Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen
• Then shall she, marry I remember it well.
• 1.3.17 22.

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Are there sonnets in the text?

• Yes how many?
• The opening prologue
• The first words between Romeo and Juliet 1.5.95
  -108
• The prologue of act 2

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Where did it come from?

• Credited to the Earl of Surrey in the 16th
  century perfected by Shakespeare.

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What are Shakespeares topics?

• love
• poetic theory
• the adversities of fortune
• death
• exaltation over friendship
• archetypal situations themes

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Shakespeares recurring ideas in his sonnets

• canker on the rose
• the rhythms of the seasons
• the regular rhythm of day and night
• the harmony and dissonance in music

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What are its characteristics?

• It has 14 lines
• It is in iambic pentameter tuh-DUH five times
  (unstressed/ stressed)
• It is divided into 3 quatrains and 1 rhyming
  couplet
• It utilizes the rhyme scheme
• abab cdcd efef gg

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How does it work?

• The three quatrains may present three examples
  and the couplet a conclusion
• OR
• The quatrains may make three metaphorical
  statements of one idea and the couplet an
  application
• - Lawrence
  Perrine

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What else?

• Sonnets always include figurative language, and
  they include imagery. In sonnets look for (and
  use)
• similes also with than, similar to, resembles,
  seems
• metaphors
• personification

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and

• paradox
• apostrophe
• allusions
• For imagery, remember the types. Make these
  examples literal.
• visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, gustatory,
  kinesthetic, organic

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(No Transcript)
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Sonnet 130

• My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun
• Coral is far more red than her lips red
• If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun
  
• If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
• dull grayish-brown

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• I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
  
• But no such roses see I in her cheeks
• And in some perfumes is there more delight
• Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
• mingled
• issues as a smell

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• I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
• That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
• I grant I never saw a goddess go
• My mistress, when she walks, treads on the
  ground.

19

• And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
• As any she belied with false compare.

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Sonnet Romeo and Juliet

• If I profane with my unworthiest hand
• This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this
• My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
• To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
• 
  (Romeo)

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• Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
• Which mannerly devotion shows in this
• For saints have hands that pilgrims hands do
  touch,
• And palm to palm is holy palmers kiss.
• 
  (Juliet)

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• Have not saints lips, and holy palmers, too?
• (R)
• Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayr
  (J)
• O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do!
• They pray grant thou, lest faith turn to
  despair. ( R)

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• Saints do not move, though grant for prayers
  sake. ( J )
• Then move not while
• my prayers effect
• I take. (R ) -- they kiss