Shakespeare's plays are master classes in literary devices - they're everywhere because the plays are written in poetry. In R&J perhaps the most significant device is paradox - check the following scenes for references containing paradoxes: 1.1.115-130 (Benvolio's response to Lady Montague) 1.1.160-180 (Romeo's discourse to Benvolio about "love") 3.2.70-85 (Juliet's response to the news Romeo has killed Tybalt) Another "device" that the play is well known for is its co-mingling of sex and death (echoed by the Elizabethan use of "die" as a euphemism for an orgasm). There are numerous passages where "grave" and "marriage bed" are put together - see 1.5.134-135 Juliet: If he be married, My grave is like to be my wedding bed. 3.2.130-136 Juliet: But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed...I'll to my wedding-bed, and death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead! 3.5.199-200 Juliet: Or if you do not, make the bridal bed in that dim monument where Tybalt lies" 4.5.33-40 Friar Lawrence: Come, is the bride ready to go to church? Capulet: Ready to go but never to return - O son the night before your wedding day, Hath Death lain with thy wife...Death is my heir, My daughter he hath wedded. See also Romeo's final lines before he kills himself Finally, Romeo speaks very figuratively about love, and about Juliet. He makes numerous metaphors for both - see Act 1 for metaphoric language on love, Act 1 (the party) and Act 2 (the balcony scene) for metaphors about Juliet.

Lots of puns.

- Metaphors - Paradoxes - Foreshadowing