Romeo And Juliet
Theme/Quote Catalog Theme #1:
Antithesis
Quote #1:
“Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate, / O anything of nothing first created! / O heavy lightness, serious vanity, / Misshapen chaos of wellseeming forms! / Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, / Still walking sleep, that is not what it is! / This love feel I, that feel no love in this.” (I. i. 167174)
Context:
Romeo and Benvolio are speaking of Rosaline and Romeo’s sorrow when Romeo sees the blood from the fight in (I. i. 5674)
Lit. Device:
Hyperbole “This love feel I, that feel no love in this.” Effect:
The hyperbole combined with antithesis serves to illustrate Romeo’s unstable mood and foreshadow another fight in which Romeo loses his disposition. Such contradicting statements show his confliction and the exaggeration shows erratic behavior, forewarning and predicting potential outbursts.
Quote #2:
“My only love sprung from my only hate! / Too early seen unknown, and known too late! / Prodigious birth of love it is to me, / That I must love a loathed enemy.” (I. v. 136139)
Context:
Juliet has just been informed that her love is the son of her family’s greatest enemy.
Lit. Device:
Effect:
Quote #3:
“O serpent heart hid with a flowering face! / Did ever a dragon keep so fair a cave? /
Beautiful tyrant! Fiend angelical! Dovefeathered raven, wolvishravening lamb! / Despisèd substance of divinest show, / Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st. / A damnèd saint, an honorable villain! / O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell / When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend / In moral paradise of such sweet flesh? / Was ever a book containing such vile matter / So fairly bound? Oh, that deceit should dwell / In such a gorgeous place!” (III. ii. 7486)
Context:
Lit. Device:
Paradox “O serpent heart hid with a flowering face!”
Effect:
The use of oxymorons shows how paradoxical it is that Juliet’s husband is also the murder of her cousin.
Antithesis
Quote #1:
“Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate, / O anything of nothing first created! / O heavy lightness, serious vanity, / Misshapen chaos of wellseeming forms! / Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, / Still walking sleep, that is not what it is! / This love feel I, that feel no love in this.” (I. i. 167174)
Context:
Romeo and Benvolio are speaking of Rosaline and Romeo’s sorrow when Romeo sees the blood from the fight in (I. i. 5674)
Lit. Device:
Hyperbole “This love feel I, that feel no love in this.” Effect:
The hyperbole combined with antithesis serves to illustrate Romeo’s unstable mood and foreshadow another fight in which Romeo loses his disposition. Such contradicting statements show his confliction and the exaggeration shows erratic behavior, forewarning and predicting potential outbursts.
Quote #2:
“My only love sprung from my only hate! / Too early seen unknown, and known too late! / Prodigious birth of love it is to me, / That I must love a loathed enemy.” (I. v. 136139)
Context:
Juliet has just been informed that her love is the son of her family’s greatest enemy.
Lit. Device:
Effect:
Quote #3:
“O serpent heart hid with a flowering face! / Did ever a dragon keep so fair a cave? /
Beautiful tyrant! Fiend angelical! Dovefeathered raven, wolvishravening lamb! / Despisèd substance of divinest show, / Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st. / A damnèd saint, an honorable villain! / O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell / When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend / In moral paradise of such sweet flesh? / Was ever a book containing such vile matter / So fairly bound? Oh, that deceit should dwell / In such a gorgeous place!” (III. ii. 7486)
Context:
Lit. Device:
Paradox “O serpent heart hid with a flowering face!”
Effect:
The use of oxymorons shows how paradoxical it is that Juliet’s husband is also the murder of her cousin.