Due Wednesday, January 2nd - Prologue

Directions:  Please listen to Mr. Pellerin recite the Prologue to Romeo & Juliet.  In this blog space, please post your initial thoughts.  Given what you learned in the documentary about how Shakespeare "broke the mold," what do you anticipate will be different about this tragedy compared with other plays?  What information does Shakespeare give us about the plot of the play in the prologue?  What do you notice about the form and structure? He seems to give away the ending.  What will happen in the end?  In your opinion, why would Shakespeare give away the ending?  This is a "live blog."  Engage with each other.

Prologue

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-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd 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.