Tuesday & Wednesday, Apr 8-9

1. Tuesday & Wednesday, Apr 8-9 • Today we will- • Complete a journal entry • Review our paraphrase of R&J Prologue • Perform a close reading of “Sonnet 18” • Begin reading R&J Act I, Sc I • Homework: • Read and complete the study guide for R&J Act I, Sci-iii • Membean

2. Journal entry: • Imagine the perfect summer day. It is early summer with just perfect mix of comfortable temperature and weather. Describe the details of that perfect day including images that appeal to the different senses: sight, touch, taste, smell, hearing. What is the overall feeling created by this perfect day?

3. Prologue Paraphrase 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. From forth the fatal loins of these two foesA pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life; Whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows Doth, with their death, bury their parents’ strife. The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love, And the continuance of their parents’ rage,Which, but their children's end, naught 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.  Two families, the same in almost every respect,In the town of Verona, Italy, where this play is set,Continue an old feud with new breakouts of violence,Involving and killing citizens outside the families.The son of one family and the daughter of the other,Having become lovers, commit suicide,Following a series of events that keep them apart.Their deaths cause the families to end the feud.The events that lead to their suicide,As well as the continuing feud between the families,(which nothing but their children’s death could end),Will now be performed on this stage for two hours.If you listen to the play attentively, any details youMissed in this introduction, will be explained as you watch the play.

4. Romeo and Juliet • After reading the prologue, what type of irony do you expect to encounter in the play?

5. Sonnet 18 • As always, begin by looking up words that you don’t know. • Quatrain 1: • What season of the year is dealt with in this sonnet? • What is being compared in the analogy? • Think back to your journal entry. Does it help you to understand why the analogy may be an effective comparison • What is the denotation (literal meaning) of temperate in line 2? How is this word appropriate to describe a day and a person?

6. Quatrain 1 continued… • What is the denotation of darling in line 3 in this context? • Now paraphrase the quatrain.

7. Quatrain 2 • In line 5, what is “the eye of heaven”? • What is the antecedent of the pronoun “his” in line 6? • How could the “eye of heaven” be dimmed? • How is the sun further personified in line 6? • Explain the two possible meanings of the word fair in line 7. • Paraphrase the second quatrain.

8. Quatrain 3 • What word signals a shift in the poem? • The speaker states that “thy eternal summer shall not fade.” Explain the metaphor. • How is death personified in line 11? • Explain the Biblical allusion in line 11. • What are the possible meanings for the words lines in line 12? • Paraphrase quatrain 3.

9. Couplet • Paraphrase the final couplet. • What does the final couplet reveal about the power of a literary work?

10. Theme • The theme of the a work, in this case a poem, is its implied view of life and human nature. It is the generalization about life at large that the piece leads the reader to see. • Write a theme statement for this sonnet: • In __(title)__, _____(author)___ (reveals, explores, illustrates, shows, etc.___ (Key aspect of theme) and how it (What does it show us on a universal level) ?

11. Structure • English (Shakespearean Sonnet) • 14 lines • 3 quatrains (abab, cdcd, efef) followed by a couplet (gg) • Iambic pentameter (5 iambs- 10 syllables per line)