Benvolio's Elegy

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• Context beforehand: A fight between the 2 family members took place, resulting in the death of Tybalt and Mercutio. The Benvolio tells Romeo to leave before anyone catches him. • The mood: serious, horrific and dread as he recounts the events of the fight and death. • The mood is important because it shows the major effects of the family feud (i.e. Tybalt and Mercutio’s death) • Elegy is about a “bloody fray”, but leaves out parts of Mercutio’s insults to Tybalt. • Tries to provide a fair account of what happened, maintaining that Romeo behaved properly while Mercutio and Tybalt wanted to fight. Also how he did not have time to intervene, as it went by so fast. • Elegy: a mournful, melancholic or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead. • Elegy is also considered an epic poem: ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events • In the elegy, mention of Mercutio was left out and positive comments of Romeo’s behaviour, believed that Benvolio was homosexual. • Situation: Mercutio and Tybalt verbally and physically fight, resulting in the deaths. • Importance of passage: scene is considered the turning point of the play because it is where Romeo becomes exiled and the plan created by the Friar and the deaths come into play. • Structure: Component of elegy: dactylic hexameter followed by dactylic pentameter, with iambic pentameter for the second stanza/paragraph (from line 165) • Dactylic hexameter: meter used in an elegy, for the first line. Follows this pattern: — U | — U | — U | — U | — u u | — X (note that — is a long syllable, u a short syllable and U either one long or two shorts and X is an ancep (long) syllable). Example: Tybalt here slain, whom Romeo’s hand did slay! _ _ / _ _/_ _ / _ _ / _ u u / _ _ note that / is the breaks of “dactyls”, each syllable
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