Act 1 — Romeo and Juliet — OCR GCSE English Literature J352
OCR GCSE English Literature · J352
Act 1
The plot, part by part
What you need to know
The Prologue, the street brawl and the Prince's warning, Romeo's love for Rosaline, Paris's suit, the Nurse and Lady Capulet on marriage,
Queen Mab, and the Capulets' feast where Romeo and Juliet meet and Tybalt is restrained.
What each scene establishes about character and theme, with key quotations.
Key quotations: 'Two households, both alike in dignity', 'A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life', 'Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?', 'I hate the word, / As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee', 'Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace', 'O brawling love! O loving hate!', 'My child is yet a stranger in the world', 'It is an honour that I dream not of', 'Some consequence yet hanging in the stars', 'O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!', 'Did my heart love till now?', 'If I profane with my unworthiest hand', 'You kiss by the book', 'My only love sprung from my only hate!'.
Form: the Prologue as a sonnet, the shared sonnet when the lovers meet, Romeo's oxymorons, and the shift from prose servants to verse.
OCR's question on this play is one essay, from a choice of two, for 40 marks: an extract-based question on the printed extract and the play elsewhere, or a discursive question on a view of the play, using at least two moments. Response (AO1) and language, form and structure (AO2) carry the most weight and equal weight, context (AO3) counts as the play shows it, and 4 marks are for vocabulary, sentence structures, spelling and punctuation (AO4). An extract-based answer that never leaves the extract, or a discursive answer built on one moment, cannot go above Level 3. Each worked paragraph and exam tip is labelled with the question it is for.
