Romeo and Juliet Introduction (Book)

Shakespeare uses a large variety of poetic forms throughout the play. He begins with a 14-line prologue by a Chorus in the form of a Shakespearean sonnet. Like this sonnet much of Romeo and Juliet is written in iambic pentameter, with ten syllables of alternating stress in each line. However, the most common form used is blank verse, a more fluid, nonstructured approach, although Shakespeare uses this form less often in this play than in his later plays.

In choosing forms, Shakespeare matches the poetry to the character who uses it. Friar Laurence, for example, uses sermon and sententiae forms, and the Nurse uses a unique blank verse form that closely matches colloquial speech. Each of these forms is also moulded and matched to the emotion of the scene the character occupies. For example, when Romeo talks about Rosaline earlier in the play, he uses the Petrarchan sonnet form. Petrarchan sonnets were often used by men at the time to exaggerate the beauty of women who were impossible for them to attain, as in Romeo's situation with Rosaline. This sonnet form is also used by Lady Capulet to describe Count Paris to Juliet as a handsome man. When Romeo and Juliet meet, the poetic form changes from the Petrarchan (which was becoming archaic in Shakespeare's day) to a then more contemporary sonnet form, using "pilgrims" and "saints" as metaphors.Finally, when the two meet on the balcony, Romeo attempts to use the sonnet form to pledge his love, but Juliet breaks it by saying "Dost thou love me?" By doing this, she searches for true expression, rather than a poetic exaggeration of their love. Juliet uses monosyllabic words with Romeo, but uses formal language with Paris.

Other forms in the play include an epithalamium by Juliet, a rhapsody in Mercutio's Queen Mab speech, and an elegy by Paris. Shakespeare saves his prose style most often for the common people in the play, though at times for other characters, such as Mercutio.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare%27s_Works/Tragedies/Romeo_and_Juliet#Language