Romeo and Juliet In Verona, Sampson and Gregory (Capulet servants) complain that they will not put up with insults from the Montague family. Abram and Balthasar (Montague servants) appear, and the four start quarrelling. Benvolio (Lord Montague's nephew) appears and tries to break up the quarrel, but Tybalt (Lady Capulet's nephew) appears and picks a fight with Benvolio. At length, officers try to break up the fight, even while Lord Capulet and Lord Montague begin to fight one another. The Prince of Verona (Escalus) appears and stops the fighting, proclaiming sentences of death to any that renew the fighting. At Montague's house, he, his wife, and Benvolio discuss how melancholy Romeo (Montague's only son) has been lately. Benvolio vows to find out why. Speaking with Romeo, Benvolio finds Romeo is in love with a woman who has sworn to stay chaste (Rosaline). Benvolio suggests pursuing other women, but Romeo refuses. Separately, Paris (a kinsman of the Prince of Verona) talks to Lord Capulet about wooing his daughter Juliet for marriage. Capulet responds that she is too young (nearly 14 years old) and must wait two years to marry, and then only to the man whom she chooses. Still, Capulet invites Paris to a party in the evening. Capulet's servant is sent to invite guests, but he can't read the list so he entreats Romeo to do so. Upon hearing of the party, Benvolio convinces Romeo to attend and compare his unattainable love Rosaline to more beautiful women to get his mind off Rosaline. At Capulet's house, Lady Capulet speaks to Juliet about her feelings for marrying Paris while Juliet's Nurse listens on, telling stories of Juliet's childhood. Juliet, although hesitant, promises to be courteous. Masked, Romeo, Mercutio, and Benvolio head to the Capulet party. Romeo is still depressed, saying he dreamt a fearful dream of an untimely death that will result because of the evening's events, but Benvolio just makes fun of him. At Capulet's house, the Montagues attend the party (in masks), Romeo spies Juliet, and he falls in love with her. Tybalt sees Romeo and takes up arms, but Lord Capulet attempts to calm him, though Tybalt vows to revenge Romeo's intrusion the next day. Juliet, too, falls for Romeo, but falls into despair when her Nurse informs her Romeo is a Montague, as does Romeo when he learns Juliet is a Capulet. While leaving the party, Romeo hides in the orchard while Mercutio and Benvolio call for him to come out of hiding and go home with them; yet he will not. After they leave, Romeo appears and speaks to Juliet under her window, saying "But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!" By and by they swear their love to one another. Juliet tells Romeo she'll send a messenger to him the next day to learn the details of their wedding. Having stayed up all night, Romeo visits Friar Lawrence's cell and tells him of this new love for Juliet. Although Lawrence is critical at first, Romeo eventually convinces him to marry them. In the street, Benvolio tells Mercutio that Romeo did not come home that night, and that Tybalt has sent the Montagues a letter challenging Romeo to a duel. Romeo appears and they tease him for hiding from them. Juliet's nurse and servant Peter appear and Romeo tells her to tell Juliet to go to the Friar's cell that afternoon to be married. The Nurse returns to Juliet and, though she skirts around the message, she finally tells Juliet the wonderful news. Soon, at the Friar's cell, he marries Romeo and Juliet, and Romeo plans to visit Juliet's bedroom that evening. At the street, Benvolio and Mercutio encounter Tybalt and Petruchio, leading to Tybalt and Mercutio fighting since Tybalt tries to pick a fight with Romeo, but he refuses. Romeo tries to break up the fight, but Tybalt slays Mercutio under Romeo's arm, then Tybalt flees. As Mercutio dies, he declares "A plague on both your houses," since he is only a friend of Romeo's and not his kinsmen. When Benvolio informs Romeo that Mercutio is dead, Romeo seeks out, fights, and slays Tybalt in revenge. Benvolio convinces Romeo to flee. The prince appears and Benvolio explains all to him, at which the Prince exiles Romeo for slaying Tybalt. At the Capulet's orchard, Juliet waits for Romeo when her Nurse appears and informs her of Mercutio and Tybalt's deaths, and Romeo's banishment.
Juliet falls into despair, realizing she would rather Tybalt dead than Romeo, but also that a banished Romeo is virtually dead. At the Friar's cell, he informs Romeo of the Prince's edict of banishment, putting him into despair. Romeo states he would rather be dead than banished. The Nurse arrives and tells Romeo that Juliet is sad too, but forgives Romeo. Still, Romeo pulls a dagger and tries to kill himself, but the Friar stops him and tells him to stay the night with Juliet, then flee to Mantua. At Capulet's house, he and Paris set the wedding date for Paris and Juliet to be three days hence. In Juliet's bedroom, Romeo says a tearful goodbye to Juliet. After he leaves, Lady Capulet appears and, while discussing Tybalt's death, states she will send a henchman to mantua to kill Romeo (though she never does). She then informs Juliet of her impending marriage to Paris. Juliet tells her parents she will not marry, but Lord Capulet commands it will be so. The Nurse, too, tells Juliet she should marry Paris. In private, Juliet decides to no longer trust the nurse and vows to kill herself if the Friar cannot find a way to save her from marrying Paris. At Friar Lawrence's cell, Paris informs the Friar of his upcoming wedding to Juliet. When Juliet arrives to see the Friar, Paris politely leaves. The Friar, hearing Juliet threaten suicide, tells her of a "distilled liquor" she can take to fake death. He explains the drug will keep her asleep and seemingly dead for 42 hours, during which she can be placed in the Capulet tomb. Then, when she wakes, Romeo can be there waiting for her to take her to Mantua. Friar Lawrence sends Friar John to Mantua with an explanatory letter for Romeo. Juliet returns to her father and apologizes for refusing to marry, causing her dad to move the wedding up to the next morning (two days early). In her bedroom, Juliet sends her mother and nurse away, then, after much worrying over the future, she drinks the vial of medicine and sleeps. Later in the early morning, all feverishly prepare for the wedding and Capulet sends the Nurse to wake Juliet. The Nurse wails upon finding Juliet "dead", summoning the others to find her and mourn. The Friar instructs all to prepare Juliet for her funeral. In Mantua, Romeo's servant Balthasar arrives and tells Romeo that Juliet is dead. Romeo vows to see Juliet in her tomb and poison himself there, buying the poison from a poor Apothecary who illegally sells it to Romeo only because he (the Apothecary) needs the money. At Lawrence's cell, Friar John reports he could not deliver the letter to Romeo since he (John) got stuck in a quarantined house while searching for Romeo. Friar Lawrence heads to the cemetery with a crowbar. At the tomb, Paris and his page arrive and Paris mourns Juliet's death. Paris hides when he hears Romeo and Balthasar approach. Romeo orders Balthasar to leave him alone, no matter what he hears. When Romeo opens the tomb, Paris steps out and tries to stop him by provoking him to fight. Romeo entreats Paris to simply walk away and not fight, but Paris forces Romeo to fight him, resulting in Romeo slaying Paris. In sorrow, Romeo lays Paris in the tomb, while Paris' page secretly leaves to call the watch. Romeo finds Juliet and mourns her death, then drinks his poison and dies. Outside the tomb, Friar Lawrence arrives and meets Balthasar who tells the Friar that Romeo has been in the tomb for one half hour. Lawrence enters the tomb and finds Romeo and Paris dead. Juliet then awakes and spots Romeo. The Friar, upon hearing noises outside flees, leaving Juliet with Romeo. Juliet tries to kill herself with Romeo's poison, but can find none, either in the vial or on Romeo's lips. In desperation, she stabs herself with Romeo's dagger. The watch arrives, having found Balthasar and the Friar. The Prince and Lord and Lady Capulet arrive and learn Paris, Romeo, and Juliet are dead (amazingly to them, Juliet seems to have been alive, and then newly dead again). Lord Montague arrives and reports that his wife has died of grief over Romeo's exile, then learns himself of Romeo's death. Capulet and Montague make peace and swear to never fight again. They vow to build solid gold statues of Romeo and Juliet and place them side by side so all can remember their plight.
Characters The House of Capulet Juliet Capulet - her father Lady Capulet - her mother Tybalt - her cousin Nurse - to Juliet Peter - the Nurse s servant Cousin Capulet - Juliet s kinsman Sampson - servant to Capulet Gregory - servant to Capulet Clown - servant to Capulet Petruchio - Tybalt s friend The House of Montague Romeo Montague - his father Lady Montague - his mother Benvolio - his friend Balthasar - his servant Abram - Montague s servant The Court Escales - Prince of Verona Mercutio - his kinsman Paris - his kinsman, suitor to Juliet Page The Church Friar Lawrence - Franciscan priest Friar John - Franciscan priest The City Musicians, Gentlemen and Gentlewomen, Maskers, Top-bearers, Citizens and Officers of the Watch, Captain of the Watch Mantua An Apothecary
Date and Text Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was published in two distinct quarto editions prior to the publication of the First Folio of 1623. These are referred to as Q1 and Q2. Q2's title page called the play '"The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedie of Romeo and Juliet". Q1, the first printed edition, appeared in 1597, printed by John Danter. Because its text contains numerous differences from the later editions, it is labelled a bad quarto: the twentieth century editor T. J.B. Spencer described it as "a detestable text, probably a reconstruction of the play from the imperfect memories of one or two of the actors. The superior Q2 followed in 1599, published by Cuthbert Burby and printed by Thomas Creede. It is a much more complete and reliable text, and was reprinted in 1609 (Q3), 1622 (Q4) and 1637 (Q5). Its title page describes it as "Newly corrected, augmented and amended". Scholars believe that this text was based on Shakespeare's pre-performance draft, since there are textual oddities such as variable tags for characters and "false starts" for speeches that were presumably struck through by the author but erroneously preserved by the typesetter. Q2 contains 800 lines missing from Q1. Q2 also has an interestingly defective stage direction: it reads "Enter Will Kempe" instead of "Enter Peter" in IV,v,102. The First Folio text of 1623 seems to be based primarily on Q3, with some clarifications and corrections possibly coming from a theatrical promptbook. The greater part of Romeo and Juliet is written in iambic pentameter. However, the play is also notable for its copious use of rhymed verse, notably in the sonnet contained in Romeo and Juliet's dialogue in the scene where they first meet (Act I, Scene v, Lines 95-108), and that of the prologue. Adaptations of the Original There have been many adaptations of Shakespeare s original work, ranging from film, television, opera, musical theatre and ballet. The play Shakespeare s R&J, adapted by Joe Calarco, is about a group of Catholic school boys who steal a copy of Romeo and Juliet because all of Shakespeare's plays have been banned from their school, due to their lustful content. The boys then act out the play in a basement, and the power of the love story starts to take a hold of the boys playing Romeo and Juliet. The "forbidden kiss" then takes on a new meaning for them. West Side Story In 1957, the musical West Side Story debuted on Broadway, with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. This version of "Romeo and Juliet" updated the setting to mid- 20 th Century New York City and the warring families to ethnic gangs. West Side Story opened on the West End in London in 1958 and then was released as a film in 1961. Romeo and Juliet, directed by Baz Luhrmann - 1996 Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in the title roles, Luhrmann gave the famous tale a modern setting. The production uses Luhrmann's signature flamboyant colour and stylization. Besides the modernization it is notable for significantly tweaking the ending, so that Romeo and Juliet get a final scene alive together.
Themes The Forcefulness of Love Romeo and Juliet is the most famous love story in the English literary tradition. Love is naturally the play s dominant and most important theme. The play focuses on romantic love, specifically the intense passion that springs up at first sight between Romeo and Juliet. In Romeo and Juliet, love is a violent, ecstatic, overpowering force that supersedes all other values, loyalties, and emotions. In the course of the play, the young lovers are driven to defy their entire social world: families ( Deny thy father and refuse thy name, Juliet asks, Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, / And I ll no longer be a Capulet ); friends (Romeo abandons Mercutio and Benvolio after the feast in order to go to Juliet s garden); and ruler (Romeo returns to Verona for Juliet s sake after being exiled by the Prince on pain of death in II.i.76 78). Love is the overriding theme of the play, but a reader should always remember that Shakespeare is uninterested in portraying a prettied-up, dainty version of the emotion, the kind that bad poets write about, and whose bad poetry Romeo reads while pining for Rosaline. Love in Romeo and Juliet is a brutal, powerful emotion that captures individuals and catapults them against their world, and, at times, against themselves. The powerful nature of love can be seen in the way it is described, or, more accurately, the way descriptions of it so consistently fail to capture its entirety. At times love is described in the terms of religion, as in the fourteen lines when Romeo and Juliet first meet. At others it is described as a sort of magic: Alike bewitchèd by the charm of looks (II.Prologue.6). Juliet, perhaps, most perfectly describes her love for Romeo by refusing to describe it: But my true love is grown to such excess / I cannot sum up some of half my wealth (III.i.33 34). Love, in other words, resists any single metaphor because it is too powerful to be so easily contained or understood. Romeo and Juliet does not make a specific moral statement about the relationships between love and society, religion, and family; rather, it portrays the chaos and passion of being in love, combining images of love, violence, death, religion, and family in an impressionistic rush leading to the play s tragic conclusion. Love as a Cause of Violence The themes of death and violence permeate Romeo and Juliet, and they are always connected to passion, whether that passion is love or hate. The connection between hate, violence, and death seems obvious. But the connection between love and violence requires further investigation. Love, in Romeo and Juliet, is a grand passion, and as such it is blinding; it can overwhelm a person as powerfully and completely as hate can. The passionate love between Romeo and Juliet is linked from the moment of its inception with death: Tybalt notices that Romeo has crashed the feast and determines to kill him just as Romeo catches sight of Juliet and falls instantly in love with her. From that point on, love seems to push the lovers closer to love and violence, not farther from it. Romeo and Juliet are plagued with thoughts of suicide, and a willingness to experience it: in Act III, scene iii, Romeo brandishes a knife in Friar Lawrence s cell and threatens to kill himself after he has been banished from Verona and his love. Juliet also pulls a knife in order to take her own life in Friar Lawrence s presence just three scenes later. After Capulet decides that Juliet will marry Paris, Juliet says, If all else fail, myself have power to die (III.v.242). Finally, each imagines that the other looks dead the morning after their first, and only, sexual experience ( Methinks I see thee, Juliet says,... as one dead in the bottom of a tomb (III.v.242; III.v.55 56). This theme continues until its inevitable conclusion: double suicide. This tragic choice is the highest, most potent expression of love that Romeo and Juliet can make. It is only through death that they can preserve their love, and their love is so profound that they are willing to end their lives in its defence. In the play, love emerges as an amoral thing, leading as much to destruction as to happiness. But in its extreme passion, the love that Romeo and Juliet experience also appears so exquisitely beautiful that few would want, or be able, to resist its power.
The Individual Versus Society Much of Romeo and Juliet involves the lovers struggles against public and social institutions that either explicitly or implicitly oppose the existence of their love. Such structures range from the concrete to the abstract: families and the placement of familial power in the father; law and the desire for public order; religion; and the social importance placed on masculine honour. These institutions often come into conflict with each other. The importance of honour, for example, time and again results in brawls that disturb the public peace. Though they do not always work in concert, each of these societal institutions in some way present obstacles for Romeo and Juliet. The enmity between their families, coupled with the emphasis placed on loyalty and honour to kin, combine to create a profound conflict for Romeo and Juliet, who must rebel against their heritages. Further, the patriarchal power structure inherent in Renaissance families, wherein the father controls the action of all other family members, particularly women, places Juliet in an extremely vulnerable position. Her heart, in her family s mind, is not hers to give. The law and the emphasis on social civility demands terms of conduct with which the blind passion of love cannot comply. Religion similarly demands priorities that Romeo and Juliet cannot abide by because of the intensity of their love. Though in most situations the lovers uphold the traditions of Christianity (they wait to marry before consummating their love), their love is so powerful that they begin to think of each other in blasphemous terms. For example, Juliet calls Romeo the god of my idolatry, elevating Romeo to level of God (II.i.156). The couple s final act of suicide is likewise un-christian. The maintenance of masculine honour forces Romeo to commit actions he would prefer to avoid. But the social emphasis placed on masculine honour is so profound that Romeo cannot simply ignore them. It is possible to see Romeo and Juliet as a battle between the responsibilities and actions demanded by social institutions and those demanded by the private desires of the individual. Romeo and Juliet s appreciation of night, with its darkness and privacy, and their renunciation of their names, with its attendant loss of obligation, make sense in the context of individuals who wish to escape the public world. But the lovers cannot stop the night from becoming day. And Romeo cannot cease being a Montague simply because he wants to; the rest of the world will not let him. The lovers suicides can be understood as the ultimate night, the ultimate privacy. The Inevitability of Fate In its first address to the audience, the Chorus states that Romeo and Juliet are star-crossed that is to say that fate (a power often vested in the movements of the stars) controls them (Prologue.6). This sense of fate permeates the play, and not just for the audience. The characters also are quite aware of it: Romeo and Juliet constantly see omens. When Romeo believes that Juliet is dead, he cries out, Then I defy you, stars, completing the idea that the love between Romeo and Juliet is in opposition to the decrees of destiny (V.i.24). Of course, Romeo s defiance itself plays into the hands of fate, and his determination to spend eternity with Juliet results in their deaths. The mechanism of fate works in all of the events surrounding the lovers: the feud between their families (it is worth noting that this hatred is never explained; rather, the reader must accept it as an undeniable aspect of the world of the play); the horrible series of accidents that ruin Friar Lawrence s seemingly wellintentioned plans at the end of the play; and the tragic timing of Romeo s suicide and Juliet s awakening. These events are not mere coincidences, but rather manifestations of fate that help bring about the unavoidable outcome of the young lovers deaths. The concept of fate described above is the most commonly accepted interpretation. There are other possible readings of fate in the play: as a force determined by the powerful social institutions that influence Romeo and Juliet s choices, as well as fate as a force that emerges from Romeo and Juliet s very personalities.
Motifs Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text s major themes. Light/Dark Imagery One of the play s most consistent visual motifs is the contrast between light and dark, often in terms of night/day imagery. This contrast is not given a particular metaphoric meaning light is not always good, and dark is not always evil. On the contrary, light and dark are generally used to provide a sensory contrast and to hint at opposed alternatives. One of the more important instances of this motif is Romeo s lengthy meditation on the sun and the moon during the balcony scene, in which Juliet, metaphorically described as the sun, is seen as banishing the envious moon and transforming the night into day (II.i.46). A similar blurring of night and day occurs in the early morning hours after the lovers only night together. Romeo, forced to leave for exile in the morning, and Juliet, not wanting him to leave her room, both try to pretend that it is still night, and that the light is actually darkness: More light and light, more dark and dark our woes (III.v.36). Opposite Points of View Shakespeare includes numerous speeches and scenes in Romeo and Juliet that hint at alternative ways to evaluate the play. Shakespeare uses two main devices in this regard: Mercutio and servants. Mercutio consistently skewers the viewpoints of all the other characters in play: he sees Romeo s devotion to love as a sort of blindness that robs Romeo from himself; similarly, he sees Tybalt s devotion to honour as blind and stupid. His punning and the Queen Mab speech can be interpreted as undercutting virtually every passion evident in the play. Mercutio serves as a critic of the delusions of righteousness and grandeur held by the characters around him. Where Mercutio is a nobleman who openly criticizes other nobles, the views offered by servants in the play are less explicit. There is the Nurse who lost her baby and husband, the servant Peter who cannot read, the musicians who care about their lost wages and their lunches, and the Apothecary who cannot afford to make the moral choice, the lower classes present a second tragic world to counter that of the nobility. The nobles world is full of grand tragic gestures. The servants world, in contrast, is characterized by simple needs, and early deaths brought about by disease and poverty rather than duelling and grand passions. Where the nobility almost seem to revel in their capacity for drama, the servants lives are such that they cannot afford tragedy of the epic kind. Love and Hate The love of Romeo and Juliet is threatened by a society full of hate. Juliet fears for Romeo s safety at the hands of her kinsmen: If they do see thee, they will murder thee. The hateful, hate-full, honour code that governs the feuding mafiosi of Verona will destroy Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio, Tybalt and Paris. Love, in Verona s masculine society, is about domination. The macho servants of Capulet joke about sex in violent, aggressive terms. The selflessness of Romeo and Juliet, equal in love, and willing to die for each other, is in strong contrast to the hate that fills Verona.
Activities What caused the feud in the first place? We know from the prologue that the Capulet and Montague families have been feuding for many years ("From ancient grudge break to new mutiny"). However, Shakespeare never tells us the reason for this feud. Allow the students to talk together in groups of 5/6 about the possible reasons why these two families are constantly at war. Prepare a short scene where you present the beginning of the feud between Capulet and Montague, and what the cause of it was. Show to the rest of the group. Sonnets The term sonnet is derived from the Italian word sonetto meaning little song. By the thirteenth century, the term sonnet had come to signify a poem of fourteen lines with a strict rhyme scheme and logical structure. The English Sonnet Sonnets were introduced by Thomas Wyatt in the early 16th century. His sonnets, and those of his contemporary the Earl of Surrey, were chiefly translations from the Italian of Petrarch and the French of Ronsard and others. While Wyatt introduced the sonnet into English, it was Surrey who gave them the rhyme scheme, meter, and division into quatrains that now characterizes the English sonnet. Sonnets were all essentially inspired by the Petrarchan tradition, and generally treat of the poet's love for some woman; the exception is Shakespeare's sequence where it is believed the first 126 were addressed to his patron, the Earl of Southampton. Soon after the introduction of the Italian sonnet, English poets began to develop a fully native form. These poets included Sir Philip Sidney, Michael Drayton, Samuel Daniel, the Earl of Surrey s nephew Edward de Vere, 17 th Earl of Oxford and Shakespeare. The form is often named after Shakespeare, not because he was the first to write in this form but because he became its most famous practitioner. The form consists of three quatrains and a couplet. The couplet generally introduced an unexpected sharp thematic or imagistic "turn" called a Volta. The usual rhyme scheme was a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g. In addition, sonnets are written in iambic pentameter, meaning that there are 10 syllables per line, and that every other syllable is naturally accented. Here is the prologue of Romeo and Juliet as an example: Two households, both alike in dignity, (a) In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, (b) From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, (a) Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. (b) From forth the fatal loins of these two foes (c) A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life; (d) Whole misadventured piteous overthrows (c) Do with their death bury their parents' strife. (d) The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love, (e) And the continuance of their parents' rage, (f) Which, but their children's end, nought could remove, (e) Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage; (f) The which if you with patient ears attend, (g) What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend. (g) Have a go at writing your own Sonnet, trying to keep to the traditional structure and rhyme scheme shown above. Remember, fourteen lines, ten syllables per line and keep the iambic pentameter.
Imagination and Role Play As the teacher, read aloud the following to the class prior to viewing the play: In your hometown there are two families. Both of these families are very highly respected and wealthy. However, they have been feuding for many years. Recently, there have been two major incidents of fighting in the streets, and both members of the families and innocent bystanders have been killed. The police have had to intervene to restore order each time. It is mid-day on a hot summer's day. You are in a place which is equivalent to the centre of town. Put the children into groups of six and allow them to decide on the following roles: two family members of the "Griffiths" family (one of the feuding families). two members of the "Williams family (the other feuding family). two people of the town who are not part of the feud (neutral bystanders). Tell the children to create a short scene based on this scenario with the following questions and thoughts in mind: What will happen when the two families meet in the centre of town? What will be the reaction of the other people in the town? Why did the feud start? What has caused this incident today? Do you want to create another public display of the family s hatred for each other? How will your family members respond to your actions in the town? Students will need to find some interesting ways to address the other people involved in the roleplay. They ll also need to discuss ways to prevent conflict from happening. It is important that the children think about what their character will do and say. Once they start the exercise, stress the importance of staying in character until the teacher freezes the action and/or becomes an observer listening to the various smoldering fires! Developing the exercise by questioning the character s motives. In order to encourage the children to think more deeply about the characters actions, you may wish to question them about why they behave in this way towards each other. Some questions to consider: Do you know the reason for your family s feud? Are you just following orders? What do you hope to achieve from this constant fighting? Are you prepared to die for your family s cause? Is there any way other than fighting that would help to end the feud?
Exploring the language The language of Romeo and Juliet is rich in its many uses. Countless are the puns and sexual connotations; imagery is prevalent throughout; and the use of the oxymoron enhances the reader s experience of the many references to contrasts, and the confused nature of love and the teenager. What is an oxymoron? An oxymoron is a type of paradox that combines two terms ordinarily seen as opposites, such as Milton's description of God in Paradise Lost as 'Dark with excessive bright.' Simply put, oxymoron is the combination of words which, at first view, seem to be contradictory or incongruous, but whose surprising juxtaposition expresses a truth or dramatic effect, such as, cool fire, deafening silence, or wise folly. The use of oxymoron in Romeo and Juliet is numerous, particularly in Romeo s first scene where he dwells on his love of Rosaline:... O loving hate, O any thing of nothing first create! O heavy lightness, serious vanity, Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms, Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health (Act 1 Scene 1) Complete the oxymoron Here are some of the uses of oxymoron contained in Romeo s speech. It may prove useful to let the children complete the phrase to aid their understanding of what an oxymoron is. Loving Sick Cold Bright Serious Feather Misshapen chaos of Heavy Why not try and have a go at writing your own oxymoron, or even trying to include some when you write your own sonnet (see page 8).