William Shakespeare's classical play "The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet" begins with a prologue. Unlike most prologues this one is in the form of a sonnet. Sonnets usually consist of 14 lines, the prologue of "Romeo and Juliet" follows this structure. In this sonnet the 14 lines are divided up into 3 sections of 4 lines and the last section is made up of 2 lines. This sonnet uses three different methods to separate the 4 sections from one another. The first method is that the sections beging and end as sentences (at the end of the first 3 lines there are commas, but at the end of the fourth line of the section there is a full stop.) This is method is present in the first three sections. The next method that is applied is that each new sentence begins a different topic, moving the audience gradually through the storyline of the play avoiding confusion. The third method that is used is the use of rhyming couplets. These are used alternatively in the three sections, made of 4 lines so, for example the first line would rhyme with the third and the second with the fourth and so on. However in the last section (lines 13 & 14) the rhyming couplets are not placed alternatively, they are placed together. One reason for this is that there are only 2 lines. This could also highlight the end of the prologue.
I think that Shakespeare chose to use a sonnet, as the structure of the prologue in this play because he had already written sonnets previous to this so knew they would work and be sucessful. I also think the he chose to use a sonnet is because Romeo and Juliet is about love and this is what sonnets were used for. I think the last reason he may have used is sonnet is that when Shakespeare wrote this play (1600-1700) sonnets were a very popular form of poetry so people would have wanted to come and see his play. Just as the 1997 film "Romeo and Juliet" uses a news bulletin to present the prologue because modern audiences are used to information being interpreted this way, Shakespeare used a sonnet because his audience would be used to these.
