Prologue
Some vocabulary you need to know:
Prose vs. poetry
Blank verse
Iamb - stressed/unstressed
Iambic pentameter - five feet
Sonnet - 14 lines, 3 quatrains, ending with a rhyming couplet
Prose
Blank verse
Rhyming verse
Sonnet
Song
PROLOGUE
1 Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
5 From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
10 And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
Answer the questions below about the Prologue:
Which phrase tells us that the two families are of equal class?
Where does the play take place?
Write down the words that connotate violence or conflict.
What kind of phrase is line 5?
What is the subject and verb in line 6?
Is the verb in line 6 transitive or intransitive?
What kind of clause is line 7?
What is the verb that goes with the subject "passage" in line 9?
How long will the play be?
Why do you think Shakespeare tells us the ending in the prologue?