QOUTES word-level analysis 2

"These violent delights have violent ends And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, Which as they kiss consume"

Friar Laurence, repetition of "violent" warns against excess, antithesis of pleasure and destruction, "fire and powder" simile suggests explosive passion, foreshadows the lovers' deaths

"O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!"

Mercutio, ascending tricolon intensifies outrage, reflects Verona's honour culture, sibilance conveys contempt and aggression

"Away to heaven, respective lenity, And fire-eyed fury be my conduct now!"

Romeo, fire metaphor reflects uncontrollable rage, fricative alliteration heightens anger, marks Romeo's transformation from lover to avenger

"O, I am fortune's fool!"

Romeo, personification of fortune highlights lack of control, presents Romeo as a victim of fate, tragic realisation

"Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;"

Juliet, repetition of imperative "come" conveys desire and urgency, light imagery idealises Romeo, shows Juliet's confidence

"O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face! Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave? Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical! Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!"

Juliet, oxymorons and antithesis reveal confusion and betrayal, appearance versus reality, religious imagery associates Romeo with sin and evil

"it is not yet near day: It was the nightingale, and not the lark, That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;"

Juliet, denial of reality, bird imagery symbolises love versus separation, "fearful" foreshadows tragedy

"More light and light; more dark and dark our woes!"

Romeo, paradox shows that daylight brings suffering, light and dark imagery reflects the lovers' reversal of reality

"O, how my heart abhors To hear him named, and cannot come to him To wreak the love I bore my cousin Upon his body that slaughter'd him!"

Juliet, dramatic irony, double meaning, deception of her parents, concealed love for Romeo

"But fettle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next, To go with Paris to Saint Peter's Church"

Capulet, fricative alliteration conveys anger, patriarchal authority, objectifies Juliet as property

"There she lies, Flower as she was, deflowered by him. Death is my son-in-law, Death is my heir;"

Capulet, personification of death as a lover, flower imagery symbolises innocence, patriarchal concern for inheritance

"shake the yoke of inauspicious stars."

Romeo, yoke metaphor presents fate as a burden, "inauspicious" suggests doom, tragic irony as suicide fulfils fate

"Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, And death's pale flag is not advanced there."

Romeo, extended military metaphor, death and beauty presented as rival armies, dramatic irony because Juliet is alive

"See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate, That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love."

Prince, antithesis of hate and love, divine justice, tragic irony, blame placed on the feud

"A glooming peace this morning with it brings; The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:"

Prince, pathetic fallacy, personification of the sun, light imagery reflects collective grief, tragic ending