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The Sonnet
Context and Language Videos
Act 1,
Scene Prologue
Lines 1-14

An explanation of the sonnet form in the prologue of myShakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. 

[Before the real action of the play begins, a single actor (referred to as a chorus) comes to the front of the stage to deliver this introductory prologue to the play]

Chorus

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,
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.
Video Transcript: 

RALPH: This prologue is a formal poem. It’s in the form of a sonnet which was primarily used in romance poetry and was even more popular in Shakespeare’s time than romance novels are today. 
SARAH: The typical sonnet features a speaker describing his love for someone, and takes advantage of a complex traditional structure. 
RALPH: A sonnet has three four-line stanzas and a rhyming couplet. This sonnet has a typical rhyming scheme: 
SARAH: dignity, scene, mutiny, unclean … 
RALPH: foes, life, overthrows, strife …
SARAH: love, rage, remove, stage … 
RALPH: and finally: attend, mend. 
SARAH: In addition, you may have noticed that in the 3rd stanza, with our modern pronunciation, love and remove do not rhyme, but apparently they did in Shakespeare’s England.