Romeo&juliet notes

1. Romeo and Juliet Notes
The full title is:
The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet

2. • Iamb – contains one unstressed syllable and one stressed syllable.
(Sounds like “da DUM”)
between mature instead
Iambic pentameter – a meter that contains five unstressed syllables
followed by a stressed syllable. Pentameter means that one iamb is
repeated five times. (The Greek root penta- means five)
da Dum/da DUM/da DUM/da Dum/da DUM
Here’s much to do with love but more of hate.
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

3. • A Shakespearean sonnet:
• Is written in iambic
pentameter (10 syllables
per line)
• Consists of 14 lines
• Has an ABAB-CDCD-EFEF-
GG rhyme scheme
• Document similar end
rhymes with capital letters
Rhyme Scheme Practice (not a full sonnet):
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

4. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Shall I compare thee to a
summer’s day? (Sonnet 18)
William Shakespeare
Activity (15 min):
1. Document the rhyme
scheme. Each letter gets a
new color.
2. Mark stressed and
unstressed syllables.

5. Sonnet 18 Translation (10 min)
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

6. • Blank verse – unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter.
“My sword, I say! Old Montague is come
and flourishes his blade in spite of me.”
“Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,
One nickname for her purblind son and heir”
* Shakespeare
wrote his plays
primarily in blank
verse; while this
pattern forms the
general rule,
variations in the
rhythm prevent the
play from sounding
monotonous.

7. Family Shield Activity (20 min)
Self-Portrait Quote that
represents you
Write ’C’ or ‘M’Five things you
enoy
If you wrote ’C’ in
the lower right
corner, you are a
Capulet. Color the
the top left and
bottom right
corners red.
If you wrote ’M’ in
the lower right
corner, you are a
Montague. Color the
the top left and
bottom right
corners blue.
1. Draw self-portrait and
write your name in the
upper left corner.
2. Write a quote that
represents you in the
upper right corner.
3. Write five things you
enjoy in the lower left
corner.
4. Write a ’C’ or ’M’ in the
lower right corner.