Literary Devices in Romeo and Juliet

"But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?"

Romeo's "What light through yonder window breaks" speech while looking at Juliet's window.

Romantic love versus family responsibility

"She'll not be hit / With Cupid's arrow. She hath Dian's wit,"

When Sampson asks Gregory if the law is on their side if he starts a fight with the Montagues

a contrast between what is expected to happen and what actually does

Mercutio versus Benvolio

a character who evolves through the play

Romeo and Juliet

Montagues versus Capulets

Something that sounds wrong, but is actually true - “My only love sprung from my only hate.”

[Enter CAPULET, his WIFE, JULIET, TYBALT, NURSE, and all the GUESTS and GENTLEWOMEN]

lineament/content; lies/eyes; lover/cover; pride/hide

when the audience knows something that one or more of the characters in the story do not.

"If love be blind, it cannot hit the mark"

abab cdcd efef gg

Tybalt's role

a contrast between what is said and what is meant

"My bounty is as boundless as the sea, / My love as deep; the more I give to thee,"

"Romeo! Humors! Madman! Passion! Lover!" - an adj. phrase expressing a quality/characteristic

"I am too sore enpierced with his shaft / To soar with his light feathers; and so bound"

"O brawling love, O loving hate, O anything, of nothing first created!"

Juliet's long speech to the nurse after finding out about Tybalt's death

a phrase not taken literally - “Nay, if our wits run the wild goosechase, I am done."

"Juliet is the sun"

"I fear, too early; for my mind misgives / Some consequence yet hanging in the stars"

"For never was a story of more woe / Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."

14 line poem with a particular rhyme scheme.

Verona, Italy and Mantua, Italy

"With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls"

a character who does NOT change within a story

“Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears, / Or shut me nightly in a charnel-house,"