Romeo and Juliet NotesThe full title is:

The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet

• 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?

• 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.

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.

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.

• Blank verse – unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter.

“My sword, I say! Old Montague is comeand 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.

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.