Motifs in Romeo and Juliet Fall Semester Unit 2

Motif: A distinctive idea, image, word, or phrase that is repeated throughout the literary work.

Why do insignificant or mundane things take on significance when they are repeated?

Motif: Light and Dark/Day and Night

One instance of this motif is Romeo’s lengthy meditation on the sun and the moon during the balcony scene, in which he describes Juliet as the sun. Romeo uses figurative language to describe her as banishing the “envious moon” and transforming the night into day (2.2.4).

Motif: Light and Dark/Day and Night Friar Lawrence’s first speech refers to day and night, light and dark. “The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night” (2.3.1).

Motif: Light and Dark/Day and Night We see a third example in the last speech of the play, when Prince Escalus says that the morning sky is dark, fitting the mood of occasion: "A glooming peace this morning with it brings; / The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head" ( )"A glooming peace this morning with it brings; / The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head" ( ).

Motif: Dreams Marc Chagall: Over the Town (1918) Dreams (1939)

Motif: Dreams Mercutio mocks dreams in his Queen Mab speech as “children of an idle brain” ( ).

Motif: Dreams Romeo tells Juliet, “Oh blessed, blessed night! I am afeard, Being in night, all this is but a dream, Too flattering sweet to be substantial” ( ).

Motif: Dreams Just before he receives news that Juliet is dead, Romeo says, “If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep, My dreams presage some joyful news at hand” ( ).