Romeo And Juliet: Stylistic Devices And Language Techniques In A Play

William Shakespeare uses a range of different stylistic devices and language techniques to explore and express the theme of love and passion. In this play, Shakespeare captured realistic elements of life as the young lovers experience the excitement of passion and the devastating effect of their loss. Romeo and Juliet’s characters reflect many features that make them look real to us. We also see the hand of fate strongly influenced by character in their circumstances.

Shakespeare also makes excellent use of personification throughout his play as well as puns and foreshadowing. At the start of Act II, Scene 3, the Friar, while tending towards his herb garden, says, ‘The grey-eyed morning smiles on the frowning night,/Check the east clouds with streaks of light;’ He is portrayed in the morning because he is described as smiling and the night is personified as frowning. Smiling and frowning acts are human actions that make the instance personification. In Act II, Scene 2, the famous balcony scene in which Romeo and Juliet profess their love to each other, there is another example of personification. Watching Juliet on her terrace, Romeo tells himself, ‘Two of Al Heaven’s fairest stars, /Having some business, ask her eyes / To shine in their fields until they come back.’ Romeo personifies the stars requesting the eyes of Juliet to shine in their location if they have to deal with other issues. This is also a picture instance. Romeo uses light pictures to portray Juliet.

Another literary device that is used in the play is dramatic irony. It’s a kind of irony in which the audience understands data not yet known to the one or more protagonists in the game. For example, Lord Capulet has no idea that Juliet has already secretly married Romeo when he arranges her marriage to Paris. In the popular balcony scene, another instance of dramatic irony happens. When Juliet, while standing on her balcony, professes her love for Romeo, she has no clue that Romeo is hiding in the garden. That’s why when he comes out of the bushes and says he loves her, she’s so amazed and a little embarrassed.

There are hundreds of literary examples of instruments used in Romeo and Juliet. There are a couple of them here. The Prolog is an instance of a sonnet, and therefore the Prologue’s last two lines are a pair. The servants of both houses use a lot of puns in Act 1, scene 1, especially in the first few lines between Sampson and Gregory, ‘No, for then we should be colliers/I mean, we are in choler, we’ll draw./Ay, while you live, draw your neck out o’ the collar.’ (lines 2-4). There is a perfect example of foreshadowing in Act 1, scene 5 when Juliet says, ‘…if he is married. My grave is like to be my wedding bed.’ Act 2, scene 2 (also known as the balcony scene also contains some very nice examples of literary instruments. In lines 28-29, Romeo utilizes a similar to compare an angel with Juliet when he says, ‘As glorious to this night, being o’er my head/As is a winged messenger of heaven.’ Furthermore, by the two primary characters, most of this scene is full of soliloquies.

Finally, Romeo and Juliet is an English literary tradition’s most renowned love tale. Love and passion is the powerful and most significant theme of the play, of course. The play focuses on romantic love, particularly the intense passion between Romeo and Juliet that springs up at first sight. Love is a violent, ecstatic, overpowering force in Romeo and Juliet that overcomes all other beliefs, loyalties, and feelings. Families (“Deny thy father and refuse thy name,” Juliet asks, “Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, / And I’ll no longer be a Capulet”); friends (Romeo leaves Mercutio and Benvolio after the feast to go to Juliet’s garden); and ruler Romeo returns to Verona for Juliet’s sake after being banished by the Prince for the pain of a death in 2.1.76–78. Love is the play’s overriding theme, but a reader should always remember that Shakespeare is not interested in depicting a pretty-up, delicate version of the emotion, the kind that poor poets write about, and whose poor poetry Romeo reads as Rosaline pins. Love in Romeo and Juliet is a violent, strong emotion capturing and catapulting people against their globe. The strong existence of love can be seen in the manner in which it is defined, or more appropriately the manner in which explanations of it fail to recognize its entirety continuously.

Overall, in Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare used language techniques and stylistic devices effectively to express the theme of love and passion. They are used primarily to define Juliet’s beauty, enabling the audience to envision what Juliet would look like. The story was made entertaining and easy to understand by these techniques. Additionally, these techniques help the audience comprehend the characters ‘ emotions and thoughts and give them positive emotions.