Romeo and Juliet - Form, structure and language test questions - Edexcel

1

Read the prologue from Act 1 of Romeo and Juliet and answer questions 1-5 below.

Prologue
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 foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life,
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-marked love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which but their children's end could 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.

What type of play is Romeo and Juliet?

2

Why did Shakespeare begin his play with the prologue?

3

'Death-marked love' is an example of what?

4

'A pair of star-crossed lovers'. What does Shakespeare's imagery show in this example?

5

Why does Shakespeare address the audience in the prologue?

6

Read the prologue from Act 2 of Romeo and Juliet. Answer questions 6-8 below.

Prologue
Now old desire doth in his deathbed lie,
And young affection gapes to be his heir;
That fair for which love groaned for and would die,
With tender Juliet matched is now not fair.
Now Romeo is beloved and loved again,
Alike bewitched by the charm of looks,
But to his foe he must complain,
And she steal love's sweet bait from fearful hooks.
Being held a foe, he may not have access
To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear,
And she as much in love, her means much less
To meet her beloved anywhere.
But passion lends them power, time means, to meet,
Tempering extremities with extreme sweet.

'...love groaned for' is an example of what?

7

Why has Shakespeare repeated the word 'foe'?

8

Which semantic fields are apparent in this prologue?

9

Read the extract from the end of Romeo and Juliet and answer questions 9-10 below.

PRINCE
A glooming peace this morning with it brings.
The sun for sorrow will not show his head.
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things.
Some shall be pardoned and some shall be punished,
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

'Glooming peace' is an oxymoron. What does it show?

10

Why did Shakespeare end his play with a rhyming couplet?