for year 8 students analysing a novel

2. WHAT IS AN
EXCERPT?
01
IDENTIFY THE
EXPRESSIONS IN
THE EXCERPTS
BELOW:
02
STATE THE EFFECTS
OF THE
UNDERLINED
EXPRESSIONS IN
THE EXCERPTS.
03

4. An excerpt is simply a passage, or a segment taken from a
longer piece of text, such as a book, an article, a speech, or
an essay. It's usually created to provide readers with an idea
of what your work is about, by showcasing some of its
content in order to hook them. The following will examine
an excerpt from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.

5. BENVOLIO
Alas, that love, so gentle in his view,
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!
ROMEO
Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still,
Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!
Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?
Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.
Here is much to do with hate, but more with love.
Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
O anything, of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness! serious vanity!

6. The extract above shows a conversation between Romeo
and Benvolio, the cousin of Lord Montague and a friend to
Romeo. The two characters share their views about love.
Benvolio uses apostrophe as if he could see love in the eyes,
in his discussion, while Romeo uses metaphor to make a
direct comparison of love to ‘muffled still.’ He also proceeds
to use oxymoron to refer to love as being ‘brawling’ and
‘hate’

7. PARIS
Of honourable reckoning are you both;
And pity 'tis you lived at odds so long.
But now, my lord, what say you to my suit?
CAPULET
But saying o'er what I have said before:
My child is yet a stranger in the world;
She hath not seen the change of fourteen years,
Let two more summers wither in their pride,
Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.
PARIS

9. ROMEO
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
Be not her maid, since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.
It is my lady, O, it is my love!
O, that she knew she were!
She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?

10. The above extract shows Romeo’s expression of love for
Juliet, thereby using a personification in the third line of the
excerpt to command the element as if it were human, to
express his love for Juliet. Also, towards the last of the
extract, he also uses paradox to express his deductions.

11. Nurse
Jesu, what haste? can you not stay awhile?
Do you not see that I am out of breath?
JULIET
How art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath
To say to me that thou art out of breath?
The excuse that thou dost make in this delay
Is longer than the tale thou dost excuse.
Is thy news good, or bad? answer to that;
Say either, and I'll stay the circumstance:
Let me be satisfied, is't good or bad?