Far right image: "Shakespeare's Figures Of Speech." Barnes & Noble. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2013.
Middle image: "Romantic Movie Moments Romeo and Juliet (1968)." Romeo and Juliet (1968). N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2013.
Far left image: "Romeo and Juliet / Shakespeare." नेपाली साहित्यको विद्युतीय पुस्तकालय. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2013.
Middle image: "Romantic Movie Moments Romeo and Juliet (1968)." Romeo and Juliet (1968). N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2013.
Far left image: "Romeo and Juliet / Shakespeare." नेपाली साहित्यको विद्युतीय पुस्तकालय. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2013.
Figurative Language
For the figurative language we reviewed the different terms and then we selected three examples from Romeo and Juliet to explain the figures of speech. See the link below for the website we used to get the terms from.
Metaphor1. "But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun."
-Romeo 2. "If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this: my lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss." -Romeo 3. "Good King of Cats, nothing but one of your nine lives, that I mean to make bold withal, and, as you shall use em hereafter, dry-beat the reads of the eight." - Mercutio |
Explanation1. Romeo is comparing Juliet's beauty to the sun.
2. To be dramatic Romeo refers to Juliet's hand as a holy shrine, and he compares his lips as "two blushing pilgrims." 3. Mercutio is comparing Tybalt to Tybert from a fable who was the named King/Prince of Cats. Mercutio wants to kill one of Tybalt's nine lives (he says this because cats supposedly have nine lives) and then beat the other eight out of him. |
Simile1. "True, I talk of dreams; which are the children of an idle brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy; which is as thin of substance as the air,"
-Mercutio 2. "Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs; being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes; being vexed, a sea nourished with loving tears." -Romeo 3. "As if that name, shot from the deadly level of a gun, did murder her, as that name's cursed hand murdered her kinsman." -Romeo |
Explanation1. Mercutio compares dreams to the air and how fast they can change like the course of the wind.
2. Romeo compare love to the sighs of lovers, smoke and and an ocean made of the lovers tears. 3. Romeo compares the way that Juliet says Romeo's name to a bullet as if it were killing her, and Romeo just killed Juliet's kinsman. |
Personification1. "Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face."
-Juliet 2. "He lent me counsel and I lent him eyes." -Romeo 3. "The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night, checkering the eastern clouds with streaks of light, and fleckled darkness like a drunkard reels from forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels." -Friar Lawrence |
Explanation1. It is night outside and it is so dark out that Juliet can not be seen like their is a mask over her.
2. Romeo personifies love by saying that he lent love his eyes in return for finding him a new lover. 3. The Friar talks about how the smiling morning is replacing the frowning night as if the darkness was a drunk person trying to get out of the way of the sun. |
Irony1. "Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man."
-Mercutio 2. "But in that crystal scales let there be weighed your lady's love against some other maid that I will show you shining at the feast, and she shall scant show well that now shows best." -Benvolio 3. "We still have known thee for a holy man.-" -Prince |
Explanation1. Dramatic irony, the characters are all surprised when Mercutio is dead because none of them think that he is actually going to die, and that maybe he is joking.
2. Situational irony, the reader has read about Romeo's sadness over Rosaline, and now Benvolio thinks that he will be able to find someone more beautiful than her at the feast for Roemo. 3. This is ironic because the Friar told the Prince all the things he did wrong and the Prince has a bunch of reasons to be suspicious of the friar and he still considers him to be a holy and virtuous man. |
Apostrophe
1. "I will kiss thy lips. Haply some poison yet doth hang on them to make me die with a restorative. Thy lips are warm!"
-Juliet 2. "Alas, that love, so gentle in his view, should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!" -Benvolio 3. "Oh, look! Methinks I see my cousin's ghost seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body upon a rapier's point. Stay, Tybalt, stay!" -Juliet |
Explanation1. Juliet is talking to Romeo, who is deceased, so this is an apostrophe because she is talking to Romeo like he can hear and understand what she is saying.
2. Benvolio is talking to Romeo about love, as if love was alive and had a physical appearance that could look nice. 3. Juliet is in her room thinking out loud and thinks she sees her newly buried cousin, and tells him not to hurt Romeo even though he is dead. |
Paradox
1. "Haply some poison yet doth hang on them to make me die with a restorative."
-Juliet 2. "Under love's heavy burden I do sink." -Romeo 3. "If love be rough with you, be rough with love." -Mercutio |
Explanation1. This is a paradox because a restorative is a medicine or other substance that restores health, and Juliet wants the poison to kill her. However, when her words are looked at closely, she means that she wants poison on Romeo's lips to kill her and restore her to him with death.
2. Love is supposed to make people light and happy, and make them feel as if they have no burdens at all. This is a paradox because on first thought, one would not think of love as a heavy burden, but if one thinks about this statement, love can be quite a heavy burden if the one that you love doesn't love you back. 3. If you think about it, how can you be rough with love? This is a paradox because if you read into the quote it basically means that if the one that you love doesn't return the feelings, then forget about him/her. Don't love that person any more! Forget love! |