Saturday, July 19, 2008

What are some literary devices that Shakespeare uses in Act I, Scene 3 of Romeo and Juliet?

One literary
device
Shakespeare makes use of in Act I, Scene III is figurative
language
, such as puns. Since puns twist words, or
give more than one meaning to a word, they are a perfect example of using language in a
non-literal way, otherwise called using figurative language. We especially see 's Nurse making
puns in . For example, when asked how old Juliet is, Nurse makes a out of the
word "teen"
in the lines:

I'll
lay fourteen of my teeth--
And yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but
four--
She is not fourteen. (15-17)

What she is
literally saying here is that she's so certain that Juliet is thirteen, almost fourteen, that
nurse would bet "fourteen of [her] teeth" on it. However, she makes a further joke
saying that she actually only has four teeth. The word "teen" is a
pun
because literally it can be translated to mean
sorrow, but it can also refer to Juliet as a
teenager. Therefore, what Nurse literally says in line 16 is
"to my sorrow be it spoken, I have but four [teeth]," but she can also be saying,
"I confess to my teenager [Juliet] that I only have four
[teeth]."

A second literary device
Shakespeare makes use of in this scene is ; he especially uses
imagery to characterize . For example, Nurse calls him a "man
of wax," referring to a wax statue, meaning that his beauty is statuesque, he is very
handsome (80). Bothand Nurse add to his physical description by referring to him as a
"flower." Lady Capulet further portrays Paris's beauty when telling Juliet to consider
him at the ball that night, saying:

Read o'er the volume
of young Paris' face,
And find delight writ there with beauty's pen;
Examine
every married lineament,
And see how one another lends content. (85-88)


In saying this, Lady Capulet is telling Juliet to notice how
handsome Paris is, to notice how "beauty" has written on his face with her pen and how
all of the lines of his face work together well, creating balance and strength. Characterizing
Paris as a handsome, desirable man helps us to see later on that marrying Paris really would not
have been such a poor decision for Juliet to make.

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