The

Swan

play

house

1596

1. Mercutio's language is very complex in Scene 1. How does it change? What do you learn about the character from the way both the vocabulary and the form of the speech change?

2. Some readers find Juliet's speech at the beginning of Act II excessively sexual, especially for a fourteen year old. What is your opinion about the content of this speech? How does the language used compare with that Juliet uses earlier in the play?

3. Choose three or four lines form this reading which you find powerful. Why does each appeal so strongly to you, and how does each relate to the material you have already read in the play? Keep track of words and images that repeat from reading to reading. They will help you when you come to write your paper on Romeo and Juliet.

4. Don't Forget! Write a paragraph in which you explain, with apposite quotation from the play, what you have learned about your character in this reading.

This illustration of the Swan playhouse, 1596 comes from the Shakespeare Globe Theatre site at the University of Reading, England

(questions 2 above is adapted from Rex Gibson's writing prompts in the New Cambridge edition of Romeo and Juliet)