Romeo and Juliet Comprehension Questions

Transcription

1 ENG1D Romeo and Juliet Comprehension Questions JOURNAL WORK: It is recommended that you work on these questions at home or during the silent Bell work block time. These will help with your comprehension and make you stronger. They are not evaluated, they are discipline. When they are checked, it is for learning skills and for feedback as a form of assessment for learning. You will have homework checks for responsibility and initiative. Assigned October 13 Decoding: 1. XII; xiv; 10 ; 15; 4 ; V; iii ; What are the first two words from each of the following citations: a) I. i.11. b) I.iv.105. c) II.ii.33. d) V.iii Decorate your writing journal with a title page for Romeo and Juliet and with the author's name. 3. Read through the Elizabethan Newspaper assignment and select your research topic and sign up before someone else takes your desire. Assigned October 14 Prologue: 1. What is the setting of the play? 2. What is the relationship between the two households? 3. What does Shakespeare mean by star-crossed lovers? 4. What does the Chorus ask of the readers/viewers in the last two lines? Why? Act I Scene One: 1. What families are involved with the brawl? How serious does it get? 2. Who is Benvolio and what is his involvement in the brawl? What does this say about his character? 3. What has Prince Escalus decreed will happen if civil strife does not end? 4. Who does Romeo love? 5. What is Benvolio s advice to Romeo? 6. There are nine (9) pairs of these contradictory words in I. i What literary device are these pair of words? Write out as many as you can find. The first has been done for you. loving v. hate 7. Use of allusion: An allusion is when a commonly known idea is used to bring out more meaning. It is used to make a comparison in a form such as a simile or a metaphor. It acts as a window to a bigger idea. In I. i Shakespeare refers to an allusion. What is it? Where did you find this helpful information? How does it add meaning to what Romeo is saying? Assigned October 15 Act I Scene Two: 1. What does Paris ask of Lord Capulet? 2. What are Benvolio s reasons for attending the party? What are Romeo s? Act I Scene Three: 1. Describe the relationship between Juliet and the Nurse. Give an example. 2. What is Juliet s reaction to her mother s news of Paris interest? Assigned October 16 Act I Scene Four: 1. How does Mercutio portray love? How is this important to the play? 2. Why does Romeo say my mind misgives/ Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,/ Shall bitterly begin his fearful date/ With this night s revels (lines )? Act I Scene Five:

2 1. What is Tybalt s reaction to Romeo s presence at the party? What does this say about his character? How does his behaviour relate to how he acts in Scene One? 2. What information upsets Juliet at the end of the scene? Act II Scene One: 1. Is Benvolio s motivation to find Romeo the same as Mercutio s? Why or why not? Act II Scene Two: 1. List three (3) objects that Romeo compares to Juliet. 2. List three (3) adjectives/images that Juliet uses to describe Romeo. 3. What are the plans that the two lovers make for tomorrow? Act II Scene Three: 1. What does Romeo confess? Why does it upset Friar Laurence? 2. Why does the Friar agree to the plan? Act II Scene Four: 1. What is the Nurse s reaction to Mercutio? 2. What plan does she make with Romeo? Act II Scene Five and Six: 1. Why is Juliet so anxious at the beginning of the scene? 2. How does the Nurse toy with Juliet s emotions upon her return? Give an example. 3. What advice does Friar Laurence give to Romeo in scene vi? 4. What can we guess happens at the end of the scene? Act III Scene One: 1. Does the weather have an effect on people, or was the heat just a ploy by Shakespeare to lay the foundation of the quarrel? 2. For whom is Tybalt looking? Why? 3. Describe how Mercutio is killed, and why he is critical of Romeo s actions? 4. Who kills Tybalt? Why? What is his punishment? Act III Scene Two: 1. Why is Juliet confused about who is dead? 2. What does Juliet order the Nurse to do? Why do you think Juliet does this? Act III Scene Three: 1. What reasons does the Friar give Romeo for he and Juliet s happiness? 2. What does the Nurse give to Romeo from Juliet, and why do you think Juliet sent it? 3. What does Friar Laurence tell Romeo to do at the end of the scene? Act III Scene Four and Five: 1. When is Paris and Juliet s wedding to take place? Why is the rushed marriage significant? 2. After spending the night with Juliet, Romeo leaves. Where does he go? 3. What does Juliet refuse to do? How does Capulet react? 4. What does the Nurse think Juliet should do now? Why is Juliet so upset by this? Act IV Scene One:

3 1. How does Friar Laurence react to Paris visit? Why? 2. In what ways does Juliet demonstrate her feelings for Paris in this scene? 3. What does Juliet say she will do if the Friar cannot help her? 4. What are the instructions the Friar gives to Juliet? Act IV Scene Two, Three, and Four: 1. How does Juliet disguise her true feelings in scene ii? 2. What are the fears Juliet has about taking the potion? What is her back-up plan? 3. What is the purpose of scene iv? Act IV Scene Five: 1. What lines create an almost comic effect, while also increasing the dramatic tension? 2. What is the reaction of each of the characters to Juliet s death? 3. How does the Friar react when he shows up? (Remember he s in on the plan.) Act V and Post Reading 1. Describe Romeo s dream about Juliet. 2. What news does Balthasar bring, and how does Romeo react? 3. What would we call an Apothecary today? 4. What does Friar John fail to do in scene ii? What does Friar Laurence decide to do, as a result? 5. What prompted Paris to go visit Juliet s tomb on Thursday night? 6. Why does Romeo honour Paris last request? 7. What has happened to Lady Montague? Why? 8. What dramatic purpose is served by having the Page and the Watchman enter the tomb? 9. What symbolic action do the Montagues and the Capulets agree on to end the feud? 10. What role does chance and fate have in the play? List the events in which good and bad luck are influential to the outcome of the play. 11. How much were Romeo and Juliet in control of their own fate? What other factors beside fate influenced the outcome of the play? Match the characters with the characteristic: A. Montague B. Capulet C. Romeo D. Mercutio E. Benvolio F. Tybalt. G. Lady Capulet H. Nurse I. Paris J. Juliet K. Prince L. Rosaline Lovesick melancholy lighthearted sensible peaceable hotheaded matter-of-fact garrulous (gabby) beautiful wealthy handsome just hospitable easily angered bawdy pious Literary Devices and Poetic terms to know dramatic irony stanza aside simile pentameter comic quatrain soliloquy personification oxymoron metaphor pun couplet sonnet foreshadowing prologue

4 Quotes to know: where in the book is it, who said it, why, and to whom. my mind misgives/ Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,/ Shall bitterly begin his fearful date/ With this night s revels "O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you! / She is the fairies midwife, and she comes / In shape no bigger than an agate-stone / On the fore-finger of an alderman, / Drawn with a team of little atomies / Athwart men s noses as they lie." "Marry, that marry is the very theme/ I came to talk of. Tell me / daughter Juliet, how stands / your disposition to be married?" "Did my heart love till now? /foreswear it, sight! /For I ne'er saw true beauty /till this night." [s]ee what a scourge is laid upon your hate,/ That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love/...all are punishèd ( ) You kiss by th book. He jests at scars that never felt a wound. "Marry, that marry is the very theme I came to talk of. Tell me daughter Juliet, how stands your disposition to be married?" That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet. I will make thy swan a crow. My only love sprung from my only hate. A plague on both your houses! Be fickle, Fortune, For then I hope thou wilt not keep him long, But send him back. These times of woe afford no time to woo.

5 It was the nightingale, and not the lark, Then, window, let day in, and let life out. Hold, daughter, I do spy a kind of hope, which craves as desperate an execution as that is desperate which we would prevent. I think it best you married with the County. O, he s a lovely gentleman! O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?