Romeo & Juliet Act IV Personification

Romeo & Juliet Act IV Personification Name__________________________________ Due Date_________

In the middle of your math exam, the batteries go dead on your calculator. You put it away in disgust, saying “This machine is out to get me.” This episode with the calculator presumes that the machine will react like a human being and wants revenge on you. In literature, authors often give human qualities to nonhuman things. This technique is called personification.

DIRECTIONS: The following underlined passages from Acts I-IV are examples of personification. On a blank word document ,copy the following page and state the nonhuman element and how it is given human characteristics. Then go back to the scene and look at the lines in context.

1. Lord Capulet (Act I, sc ii) speaking about the coming of Spring:

When well appareled April on the heel

Of limping Winter treads

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2. Romeo (Act III, sc ii) speaking of Juliet:

Arise fair sun and kill the envious moon

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3. Friar Lawrence (Act III, sc iii) comforting Romeo who has been banished:

Happiness courts thee in her best array

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4. Romeo (Act III, sc v) describing the sunrise to Juliet before he leaves her:

Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day

Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops

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5. Lord Capulet (Act IV, sc v) commenting upon Juliet’s “death”:

Death is my son-in-law, Death is my heir

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