Understanding Poetry and Romeo and Juliet Test

Read the following poem. Then, using a scantron, answer the following questions.

Gary Soto

Oranges

The first time I walked

With a girl, I was twelve,

Cold, and weighted down

With two oranges in my jacket.

December. Frost cracking

Beneath my steps, my breath

Before me, then gone,

As I walked toward

Her house, the one whose

Porch light burned yellow

Night and day, in any weather.

A dog barked at me, until

She came out pulling

At her gloves, face bright

With rouge. I smiled,

Touched her shoulder, and led

Her down the street, across

A used car lot and a line

Of newly planted trees,

Until we were breathing

Before a drugstore. We

Entered, the tiny bell

Bringing a saleslady

Down a narrow aisle of goods.

I turned to the candies

Tiered like bleachers,

And asked what she wanted -

Light in her eyes, a smile

Starting at the corners

Of her mouth. I fingered

A nickle in my pocket,

And when she lifted a chocolate

That cost a dime,

I didn’t say anything.

I took the nickle from

My pocket, then an orange,

And set them quietly on

The counter. When I looked up,

The lady’s eyes met mine,

And held them, knowing

Very well what it was all

About.

Outside,

A few cars hissing past,

Fog hanging like old

Coats between the trees.

I took my girl’s hand

In mine for two blocks,

Then released it to let

Her unwrap the chocolate.

I peeled my orange

That was so bright against

The gray of December

That, from some distance,

Someone might have thought

I was making a fire in my hands.

How might readers determine that this poem'ssetting is from an earlier era in time?
The woman in the shop accepts an orangeas payment.
A boy bought candy for a girl.
The price of the chocolate was ten cents.
The girl’s house has a porch light.
What does the speaker do to impress hisgirlfriend?
He takes her out to dinner.
He takes her to a candy shop.
He buys her chocolate.
He gives her an orange.
How old is the speaker when he first "walks"with a girl?
twelve
sixteen
fourteen
an adult age
How much money does the speaker have tospend on his date?
ten cents
fifteen cents
five cents
nothing

At the time the incident takes place, the speaker’s attitude toward the girl is—
romantic and eager to please
passion and a bit jealous
affectionate but superior
shy and frightened
The imagery of the breath in lines 6-7 and the breathing in line 20 stresses—
the coldness of the day
the speaker’s nervousness
the speaker’s poor health
the girl’s hunger
The imagery of the orange in lines 50-55 is—
ironic because readers would not expect a twelve-year old to enjoy eating fruit
paradoxical because he still has the orange after he gave it to the saleslady
symbolic because it represents the brightness of the boy’s mood
sarcastic because the boy really wanted a chocolate, not an orange.

Understanding Romeo and Juliet

Prologue:

The purpose of the Prologue is

characterize the protagonists.
provide a timeframe for the audience.
provide cultural and historical background information.
to introduce the plot of the play.

Act I, Scenes i-ii:

What literary device is used when Benvolio says, “…an hour before the worshiped sun / Peered forththe golden window of the East, / A troubled mind drove me to walk abroad…” (I.i.114-116)?

Simile
Allusion
Personification
Paradox

Use the following quote to answer questions 10 and 11.

Romeo describes his love for Rosaline as “a smoke raised with fume of sigh; / Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes. / Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers’ tears. / What is it else? A madness most discreet, / A choking gall, and a preserving sweet” (I.i.184-189)?

What literary device is used within this passage?
Simile
Allusion
Personification
Paradox
Why does Romeo describe love in such a manner?
Romeo compares love to fire.
Romeo finds the idea of love confusing.
Romeo finds the idea of love hurtful.
Romeo finds the idea of love nourishing.

Think about Capulet’s character when answering questions 12 and 13.

What are Capulet’s plans for his daughter’s future with Paris?
As head of the household, Capulet demands Juliet to marry Paris.
Capulet plans to have Juliet married to Romeo.
Capulet plans to have Juliet marry Paris as soon as possible.
Capulet plans to wait two more years before Juliet marries, and he leaves it up to Juliet to make the final decision.
What is Capulet’s attitude toward his daughter, Juliet?
Capulet has a rude attitude toward Juliet.
Capulet is a caring, concerned, and/or protective father.
Capulet is not fond of his daughter.
Capulet is submissive toward Juliet.

Act I, Scenes iv-v:

Use the following remark given by Romeo to answer question 14.

During a dialogue with Mercutio, Romeo states, “Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, / Too rude and boisterous, and it pricks like thorn” (I.iv.26-27).

What literary device is used in Romeo’s remark?

A.Motif of time

B.Double entendre

C.Simile

D.Pun

Act II, Scenes i-ii:

When Romeo describes Juliet’s arrival on the balcony, what literary device is used when he says, “What light through yonder window breaks? / It is the east, and Juliet is the sun”?
Metaphor
Personification
Pun
Simile

Read the following remark made by Romeo (when speaking to Juliet) to answer questions 16 and 17:“With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these wall; / For stony limits cannot hold love out, / And what love can do, that dares love attempt. / Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me” (II.ii.66-69).

What are the two “stony” limits that separate the lovers?
Juliet’s kinsmen and her chastity
Juliet’s kinsmen and Romeo’s limited love
The literal stone wall and Juliet’s chastity
The literal stone wall and Juliet’s kinsmen
What literary device is portrayed?
Motif of light vs. dark
Personification
Pun
Simile

Act II, Scene iii:

Use Friar Lawrence’s soliloquy to answer question 18.

Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye,
The day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry,
I must up-fill this osier cage of ours
With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.
The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb;
What is her burying grave that is her womb,
And from her womb children of divers kind
We sucking on her natural bosom find,
Many for many virtues excellent,
None but for some and yet all different.
O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:
For nought so vile that on the earth doth live
But to the earth some special good doth give,
Nor aught so good but strain'd from that fair use
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;
And vice sometimes by action dignified.
Within the infant rind of this small flower
Poison hath residence and medicine power:
For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;
Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.
Two such opposed kings encamp them still
In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will;
And where the worser is predominant,
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.

What is the main idea when comparing herbs/plants to humans?
Both plants and humans are children.
Both plants and humans are composed of good and evil.
Both plants and humans come from the earth.
Both plants and humans die.

Act III:

What is Benvolio’s role throughout the play?
Fighter
Lover
Peacemaker
Rioter
Who can be considered Benvolio’s foil?
Romeo
Tybalt
The Nurse
Montague
How is the quote “ask for me to-morrow and you shall find me a grave man” an example of a pun (III.i.94-95)?
The word “grave” can refer to a burial site and can be defined as “serious.”
The word “grave” can refer to a burial site and can be defined as “death.”
The word “to-morrow” can refer to the next day and can refer to the marrow of Mercutio’s bones.
The word “to-morrow” can refer to the next day and can be defined as “essence.”

Read the dialogue between Juliet and Lady Capulet to answer question 22.

[Tybalt has been killed and Juliet hears of Romeo’s banishment. Enter LADY CAPULET.]

LADY CAPULET
Why, how now, Juliet!
JULIET
Madam, I am not well.
LADY CAPULET
Evermore weeping for your cousin's death?
What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?
An if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live;
Therefore, have done: some grief shows much of love;
But much of grief shows still some want of wit.
JULIET
Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.
LADY CAPULET
So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend
Which you weep for.
JULIET
Feeling so the loss,
Cannot choose but ever weep the friend.

In effect, what consequence occurs from Lady Capulet’s misinterpretation?
Lady Capulet believes Juliet hates Tybalt.
Lady Capulet believes Juliet is crying for Romeo.
Lady Capulet believes Juliet is crying for Tybalt.
Lady Capulet believes Juliet loves Romeo.

Act IV:

How does fate create problems for the lovers in Scene ii after Juliet feigns submission to her father?
Capulet moves the wedding from Thursday to Wednesday.
Capulet moves the wedding from Wednesday to Thursday.
Capulet plans the wedding between Juliet and Paris.
Capulet plans the wedding for Juliet and Romeo.

Act V:

What does the Prince mean when he says “All are punished” (V.iii.295)?
All three families (Capulets, Montagues, and the Prince) are punished because they have all lost family members.
All three families (Capulets, Montagues, and the Prince) are punished because they have been killed by the Prince.
The wrongdoers of the play have been sentenced to death and therefore have been punished.
The wrongdoers have been sentenced to prison and have therefore been punished.

Determine the literary term used in each quote.

“Oh, let us hence. I stand on sudden haste. / Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast” (II.iii.93-94):
pun
metaphor
time
light vs. dark
“Sad hours seem long. / Was that my father that went hence so fast?” (I.i.154-155):
pun
metaphor
time
light vs. dark
“Here’s much to do with hate but more with love” (I.i.168):
allusion
paradox
personification
oxymoron
“…kill the envious moon, / Who is already sick and pale with grief…” (II.ii.4-5):
allusion
paradox
personification
pun
“You have dancing shoes / With nimble soles. I have a soul of lead” (I.iv.15-17):
allusion
paradox
personification
pun
“She’ll not be hit / With Cupid’s arrow. She hath Dian’s wit” (I.i.203):
paradox
personification
pun
allusion
“I fear too early, for my mind misgives / Some consequence yet hanging in the stars / Shall bitterly begin his fearful date / With this night’s revels, and expire the term / Of a depised life closed in my breast / By some vile forfeit of untimely death” (I.iv.108-113):
personification
foreshadowing
light vs. dark
metaphor
Paris is “a flower. In faith, a very flower” (I.iii.80):
fate
simile
light vs. dark
metaphor

Identify the speaker of each quote.

“I will bite my thumb at them, which is a disgrace to them, if they bear it.”
“Part fools! / Put up your swords. You know not what you do.”
“What, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word, / As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee. / Have at thee, coward!”
“O heavy lightness, serious vanity, / Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms! / Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, / Still-waking sleep…”
“My child is yet a stranger in the world. / She hath not seen the change of fourteen years. / Let two more summers wither in their pride / Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.”
“Thou was the prettiest babe that e’er I nursed. / An’ I might live to see thee married, once, / I have my wish.”
“It [marriage] is an honor that I not dream of.”
“Well, think of marriage now. Younger than you / Here in Verona, ladies of esteem / Are made already mothers.”
“Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, / Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.”
“…I talk of dreams, / Which are the children of an idle brain, / Begot of nothing but vain fantasy, / Which is as thin substance as the air / And more inconstant than the wind…”
“I fear too early, for my mind misgives / Some consequence yet hanging in the stars / …But he that hath the steerage of my course, / Direct my sail.”
“I would not for the wealth of all the town / Here in my house do him disparagement. / Therefore be patient. / Take no note of him.”
“Patience perforce with willful choler meeting/ Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting. / I will withdraw, but this intrusion shall / Now seeming sweet, convert to bitterest gall.”
“Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, / Which mannerly devotion shows in this, / For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch, / And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.”
“My only love sprung from my only hate! / Too early seen unknown, and known too late! / Prodigious birth of love it is to me, / That I must love a loathed enemy.”
“But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? / It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”
“O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name. Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, / And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.”
“With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls, / For stony limits cannot hold love out, / An’ what love can do, that dares love attempt. / Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me.”
“Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, / And vice sometimes by action dignified. / …Two such opposed kings encamp them still, / In man as well as herbs—grace and rude will.”
“In one respect I’ll thy assistant be, / For this alliance may so happy prove / To turn your households’ rancor to pure love.”
“Oh, let us hence. I stand on sudden haste.”
“Wisely and slowly. They stumble that run fast.”
“Why, is not this a lamentable thing, grandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these ‘pardon me’s,’ who stand so much on the new form that they cannot sit at ease on the old bench?”
“Why, is not this better now than groaning for love? Now art thou sociable. Now art thou Romeo. Now art thou what thou art—by art as well as by nature…”
“Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence’s cell. / There stay a husband to make you a wife.”
“I pray thee, good Mercutio, let’s retire. / The day is hot; the Capulets, abroad; / And if we meet we shall not ‘scape a brawl, / For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.”
“Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee / Doth much excuse the appertaining rage / To such a greeting…I do protest I never injured thee, / But love thee better than thou canst devise, / Till thou shalt know the reason of my love.”
“O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!”
“Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.”
“Oh, I am fortune’s fool!”
“I beg for justice, which thou, Prince, must give. / Romeo slew Tybalt. Romeo must not live.”
“And for that offence / Immediately we do exile him [Romeo] hence. / …Let Romeo hence in haste, / Else, when he’s found, that hour is his last.”
“Come night. Come, Romeo. Come thou day in night, / For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night/ Whiter than new snow upon a raven’s back / …And when I shall die, / Take him and cut him out in little stars, / And he will make the face of heaven so fine / That all the world will be in love with night / And pay no worship to the garish sun.”
“Ah, welladay! He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead! / We are all undone, lady, we are undone! / Alack the day! He’s gone, he’s killed, he’s dead!”
“Dove-feathered raven, wolvish-ravening lamb! / …A damned saint, an honorable villain!”
“‘Romeo is banished.’ / …There is no end, no limit, measure, bound, / In that word’s death.”
“Hence ‘banished’ is banished from the world, / And world’s exile is death. / …‘Banished’! O Friar, the damned use that word in hell.”
“Thy Juliet is alive, / For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead— / Thou art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee, / But thou slew’st Tybalt— / there art thou happy. / The law that threatened death becomes thy friend / And turns it to exile—there art thou happy.”
“But that a joy past joy calls out on me, / It were a grief so brief to part with thee. / Farewell.”
“…Doth she not give us thanks? / Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought / So worthy a gentleman to be her bride?”
“Talk not to me, for I’ll not speak a word. / Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.”
“…Beshrew my very heart, / I think you are happy in this second match, / For it excels your first…”
“If, rather than to marry County Paris, thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself, / Then is it likely thou wilt undertake a thing like death to chide away this shame, / That copest with death himself to ‘scape from it. / And if thou darest, I’ll give thee remedy.”
“By holy Laurence to fall prostrate here / To beg your pardon. / Pardon, I beseech you! / Henceforward I am ever ruled by you.”
“Send for the county.