The Sonnet - Romeo and Juiet Act I Sc. 5

Saints do not move though grant for prayers' sake

Exercise 1 Understanding Romeo and Juliet's First Meeting

1)Examine the sonnet from Act I Sc. 5 of Romeo and Juliet presented below and try to determine the rhyming pattern. To do this read the last word of every line.
2)Then count the number of syllables per line.
3) Read a line out loud and say where you think the stress falls; is it on the first or second syllable?
4) The text is divided into 4 colored parts (the colors are arbitrary). The class should be divided into groups. Each group is responsible for paraphrasing one of the four sections of the sonnet. This should take around 20-30 minutes. Once the paraphrase is completed students should present it to the class.
5) Once you have heard all the paraprhases from your classmates in your groups consider what metaphors are used.
6) How are these conflicting metaphors reconciled?

Act I Scene 5

ROMEO [To JULIET] If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

JULIET Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

ROMEO Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

JULIET Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

ROMEO O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

JULIET Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.

ROMEO Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.

Watch this scene from Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 film version of Romeo and Juliet using Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1yIn5UNS1k

Exercise 2: The Picasso Effect and the Sonnet

The variable surface of the walls of a cave can act as bas-relief for cave paintings See the image of horses from the Chauvet caves in France discovered in 1994. The image is older than 30, 000 years: http://www.donsmaps.com/images/horse.jpg

One could wonder what possible underlying natural structure was used to construct this sonnet. See if you can identify it.

Answers to come...

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Romeo and Juliet Class Project - Instructions

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Nature, Art & Language

© All Copyright, 2007, Ray Genet

Introduction, Film Versions and Prologue

• Skills: Listening and Writing, Paraphrasing, Writing a summary, Writing paragraphs, Shakespeare in English, Participating in an academic seminar, Giving a professional presentation,Thinking laterally and creatively
• Language: similie, analogy, metaphor, as if, like, of, is analogous to,
• Scientific themes drawn from this exercise: The preservation of form beyond constituents, the importance of metaphor and analogy in science.

Let's begin!

Part 1

Read the prologue and answer the questions that follow

ACT I

THE 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-cross'd 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, 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.

***

Questions

1. How many lines are there?

2. How many syllables per line are there?

3. What is the rhyming pattern? (Look at the last word of each line).

4. What kind of poem is the prologue?

5. What does the prologue tell us?

6. Why does it tell us so much?

7. Work in pairs and paraphrase just one line of the prologue. Your teacher will assign a line to you

The Films

Watch two film versions of the prologue: Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 production and Baz Luhrman's 1997 version on Youtube.

Youtube links: Romeo and Juliet 1968 - To minute 1:13; Romeo+Juliet 1996 - To minute 2:34

After having watched them do the following tasks for homework:

A) Compare the treatment of the prologue in the two film versions. What is the same and what is different about them? Explain what you think were the intentions of the directors. Which one do you prefer and why?

Part 2. The Civil Brawl - Act 1 Scene 1

Part 3

B) In your own time watch the a film version of Romeo and Juliet. Most public libraries carry copies for lending. Do not be surprised if you find it difficult to understand. This is perfectly normal as even most English speakers have difficulty understanding the antiquated language of Shakespeare. The objective of this exercise is to try to get a general understanding of the 'gist' or what is essential in the play. Once you have done this :

Write a 2-3 paragraph summary of the main events of the play.

For details about paragraph structure see Sophie's World: Writing Paragraphs

Romeo and Juliet homepage

Nature, Art & Language

© All Copyright, 2007, Ray Genet