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This lesson focuses on the passages most frequently set in GCSE exams and provides detailed close reading analysis with model PEAL paragraphs. On Edexcel 1ET0 Paper 1, the Shakespeare question always gives you a printed extract and asks you to write about it and the play as a whole — so close reading of an extract is the central skill.
Edexcel note: Spend roughly half your time on the extract itself and half on the wider play. The mark scheme rewards an answer that moves confidently between the printed extract and the rest of the text.
"But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? / It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. / Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, / Who is already sick and pale with grief / That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she."
| Technique | Example | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Metaphor | "Juliet is the sun" | Elevates Juliet to a cosmic, life-giving force |
| Personification | "kill the envious moon" | The moon is jealous of Juliet's beauty |
| Light imagery | "what light through yonder window breaks" | Juliet is the source of light in Romeo's darkness |
| Imperative | "Arise, fair sun" | Romeo commands the sun to rise — he is so enraptured that he addresses the cosmos |
Point: Shakespeare uses cosmic imagery to present Romeo's love for Juliet as transcendent and all-consuming. Evidence: Romeo declares "It is the east, and Juliet is the sun." Analysis: The metaphor identifies Juliet not merely with beauty but with the sun itself — the source of all light and life. The definite article "the" (not "a") suggests she is the only sun, the only source of meaning in Romeo's universe. The east is where the sun rises, so Juliet's appearance at the window is presented as a new dawn — the beginning of Romeo's true life. The subsequent personification of the "envious moon" as "sick and pale with grief" makes even celestial bodies inferior to Juliet. Link: This cosmic imagery contrasts sharply with Romeo's earlier Petrarchan clichés about Rosaline (1.1). Where his language for Rosaline was borrowed and conventional, his language for Juliet is original and vivid, suggesting that his love has become genuine. An Elizabethan audience would also recognise the sonnet tradition of praising the beloved through astronomical comparison, but Shakespeare takes it further — Romeo does not merely compare Juliet to the sun; he states that she is the sun.
"A plague o' both your houses! / They have made worms' meat of me. I have it, / And soundly too. Your houses!"
| Technique | Example | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Repetition | "A plague o' both your houses" (said three times) | Hammers home the moral message; the feud is to blame |
| Metaphor | "worms' meat" | Graphic, physical — he is already imagining his body decomposing |
| Inclusive blame | "both your houses" | Neither family is innocent; the feud itself is the villain |
| Choric function | Mercutio speaks the play's moral verdict | He articulates what the audience feels |
Point: Shakespeare uses Mercutio's final words to indict the feud as the true cause of tragedy. Evidence: Mercutio repeats "A plague o' both your houses" three times. Analysis: The triple repetition creates a ritualistic, curse-like effect — Mercutio does not merely express anger but pronounces judgement on both families. The possessive "your" separates Mercutio from the feud — he is not a Montague or Capulet but an outsider destroyed by their conflict. The word "plague" is particularly powerful: it invokes the deadliest force in Elizabethan life (the bubonic plague killed thousands), suggesting that the feud is a disease infecting the entire city. Link: Structurally, this moment is the play's turning point — the last comic character dies, and the play becomes irreversibly tragic. Mercutio's curse functions as a choric judgement, articulating the Prologue's message: "civil blood makes civil hands unclean." His blame of "both" houses anticipates the Prince's final verdict: "All are punished."
"An you be mine, I'll give you to my friend; / An you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets, / For, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee."
| Technique | Example | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Conditional | "An you be mine" / "An you be not" | Juliet's identity as his daughter is conditional on obedience |
| List / asyndeton | "hang, beg, starve, die" | Rapid, brutal — no connectives, no pause for thought |
| Monosyllabic diction | "hang, beg, starve, die" | Each word hits like a blow — simple, violent, final |
| Possessive language | "I'll give you to my friend" | Juliet is property to be given away |
Point: Shakespeare presents Capulet's rage as an exposure of the violence inherent in patriarchal authority. Evidence: Capulet threatens Juliet: "hang, beg, starve, die in the streets." Analysis: The asyndetic list of monosyllabic verbs creates a brutal, staccato rhythm that mirrors Capulet's uncontrolled rage. Each verb is an escalation — from poverty ("beg") to starvation to death — yet they are delivered without hesitation, suggesting that Capulet would rather see his daughter perish than have his authority challenged. The phrase "I'll give you" treats Juliet as an object to be transferred between men, while "ne'er acknowledge thee" threatens a complete erasure of identity. Link: This scene reveals the dark truth behind Capulet's earlier apparent reasonableness (1.2: "My will to her consent is but a part"). Shakespeare suggests that patriarchal "generosity" lasts only as long as the daughter obeys — when challenged, it transforms into tyranny.
"Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again. / I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins / That almost freezes up the heat of life."
| Technique | Example | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Soliloquy | She speaks alone | Emphasises her isolation — no one is there to support her |
| Oxymoron | "cold fear" that "thrills" | Fear is both chilling and electrifying |
| Physical imagery | "freezes up the heat of life" | Fear is so intense it mimics the potion's effect — life imitating the false end |
| Dramatic irony | "God knows when we shall meet again" | The audience knows she will next wake in a tomb |
Examiner's tip: Juliet's soliloquy in 4.3 is her most courageous moment. She faces her fears — of waking too early in the tomb, of suffocating, of going mad among the bones — alone, without any support. This is the moment that most clearly demonstrates her growth from obedient child to independent woman.
When analysing the printed extract on the Edexcel paper:
"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."
| Technique | Example | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Sonnet form | 14 lines, iambic pentameter, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG | Announces the play in the form of love poetry |
| Antithesis and wordplay | "civil blood makes civil hands unclean" | "Civil" means both 'civilised' and 'of the city' — the feud corrupts both |
| "Star-crossed" | Astrological compound adjective | Establishes fate as the play's framing device |
| "Fatal loins" | Euphemism for sexual reproduction | Biology and destiny are fused |
| "Take their life" | Early Modern ambiguity | Means both 'receive life from' and 'end one's own life' |
Point: Shakespeare's Prologue frames the entire play as a tragedy whose outcome is both known and ambiguous — fated yet produced by human choice. Evidence: The Prologue introduces the lovers as "a pair of star-crossed lovers" who "take their life." Analysis: The compound adjective "star-crossed" invokes Elizabethan astrology — the stars literally cross one another, and the lovers' destinies are crossed by them. Yet "take their life" is deliberately double-edged: in Early Modern English it means both 'receive life from' (the lovers take life from the "fatal loins" of their feuding parents) and 'end their own life' (the tragic suicides). Shakespeare builds the play's central ambiguity into a single phrase — are the lovers doomed by cosmic design or by their own actions? The sonnet form itself is analytically significant: by framing the play as a sonnet, Shakespeare places the tragedy inside the tradition of love poetry, preparing the audience to see love as the play's subject even as violence dominates its action. Link: The Prologue's sonnet form echoes forward to the shared sonnet of Act 1 Scene 5, so that the lovers' first meeting speaks the play's own form back to it. Structurally, the Prologue establishes the play's central tension: the audience watches knowing the outcome, and every scene of joy is therefore overshadowed by the catastrophe we know is coming.
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