Getting Acquainted with Shakespeare

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If you could take the ultimate field trip and visit Stratford-on-Avon, Shakespeare’s birthplace, you could still find buildings and scenes where he was born: the grammar school he attended; the nearby farmhouse home of Anne Hathaway, his wife; and the fine house and garden of Dr. John Hall, his son-in-law. Perhaps, like other visitors, you’d eat your bag lunch in Dr. Hall’s garden, surrounded by flowers that Shakespeare knew and loved. Of course, not all of Stratford is old and quaint; much of it is geared to the thousands of tourists who come each year to see William Shakespeare’s birthplace.

But let’s try to imagine it as it was in Shakespeare’s boyhood, a sixteenth – century English village surrounded by forests where deer wandered freely. Its meadows were dotted with wild flowers, and stately swans sailed along the River Avon. Like the other village lads, Shakespeare wandered through the woods and fields, acquiring early his love and knowledge of nature. That the beauty of the English countryside made a lasting impression on him is shown by his references in the plays to animals, birds, and flowers.

He was born in Stratford, probably on April 23, 1564, and christened on April 26. His father, John Shakespeare, was a prosperous glove maker. He was respected by his neighbors and held various town offices. His mother, Mary Arden, was from a good family and some fortune, having inherited considerable farm property.

As a young boy, William attended grammar school, where emphasis was on Latin grammar and not much else. Later, in London, he would learn French. For his plays, his reference books would be Ovid’s Metamorphosis (for mythology), Plutarch’s Lives (for his Roman history plays), and Holinshed’s Chronicles (for his English history plays). But in Stratford, he learned Latin grammar! In his boyhood, traveling players came to Stratford (as they did to Elsinore in Hamlet), and his introduction to drama came that way.

By the time he was eighteen, his formal education was long past. He had already assumed a man’s responsibilities, marrying in November 1582 Anne Hathaway, a woman eight years his senior. In May 1583, the first child, Susanna, was born. Two years later, Anne gave birth to twins, Hamnet and Judith, christened in February 1585.

Within a year or two, Shakespeare had departed for London to earn fame and fortune, leaving Anne and the family behind. It was not unusual for an actor to have his family with him, even on tours. The fact that Anne did not join her husband in London seems to indicate that she was a Puritan. Puritans believed that the stage and its actors did much to corrupt people’s morals. Actually, a few years later, Puritanism became so strong in London that the theaters were ordered closed. But when Shakespeare arrived there, playgoing was still a popular entertainment, enjoyed and sponsored by Queen Elizabeth herself.

By 1592, Shakespeare was an established actor in London, and he remained an actor throughout his career. His financial success came from his share of the gate (admissions),

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not from the sale of his plays that probably netted him only a few pounds each.

His early literary successes were with his narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, both dedicated to his wealthy patron, the young Earl of Southampton. In 1594, the theaters reopened after a temporary closing during a plague epidemic. From that time, Shakespeare concentrated his literary efforts on plays, producing thirty-seven by the time of his retirement in 1610.

Throughout his career, he was a member of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (later, the King’s Men), whose leading actor was Richard Burbage. Shakespeare lived quietly and gained a reputation as a polite, good-natured man and loyal friend. Investing his money wisely, he acquired much property in Stratford, including New Place, to which he eventually retired.

He died there on April 23, 1616. His only son having predeceased him, Shakespeare tried to leave his property intact for a male heir. However, neither daughter produced one. His greatest legacy, the plays, came down to us through the efforts of two actor friends who collected and published them after his death.

The Plays of William Shakespeare

The Comedies The Comedy of Errors

The Two Gentlemen of VeronaThe Taming of the ShrewLove’s Labour LostA Midsummer Night’s DreamThe Merchant of VeniceAs You Like ItMuch Ado About NothingThe Merry Wives of WindsorTwelfth NightThe Tragedy of Troilus and CressidaAll’s Well That Ends WellMeasure for Measure

The HistoriesKing Henry the Sixth, Part OneKing Henry the Sixth, Part TwoKing Henry the Sixth, Part ThreeThe Tragedy of Richard the ThirdThe Tragedy of King Richard the SecondThe Life and Death of King JohnKing Henry the Fourth, Part OneKing Henry the Fourth, Part TwoThe Life of King Henry the FifthThe Life of King Henry the Eighth

The TragediesThe Tragedy of Titus AndronicusThe Tragedy of Romeo and JulietThe Tragedy of Julius CaesarThe Tragedy of HamletThe Tragedy of OthelloThe Tragedy of King LearThe Tragedy of MacbethThe Tragedy of Antony and CleopatraThe Tragedy of CoriolanusThe Life of Timon of AthensPericles, Prince of TyreThe Tragedy of CymbelineThe Winter’s TaleThe Tempest

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Handout OneOutlining “Getting Acquainted with Shakespeare”

1. When and where was Shakespeare born?

2. A. What was his father’s name and occupation?

B. What was his mother’s name?

3. How much formal education did Shakespeare have?

4. What lasting effect did Stratford and the surrounding countryside have on him?

5. Whom and when did he marry?

6. What were his children’s names?

7. Approximately when did he leave Stratford for London?

8. What might be the reason why his wife did not go with him?

9. How did Shakespeare become “well-to-do”?

10. What were his earliest literary successes?

11. What reference books did he use to write his plays?

12. How many plays did he write?

13. What was the name of the acting company of which he was a part?

14. What was his reputation in London?

15. When did Shakespeare retire and where did he go?

16. When did he die?

17. What was the eventual effect of Puritanism on the theaters?

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A Look at Shakespeare’s London

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You should realize that William Shakespeare was a literary genius, probably the greatest that England has produced. It in no way diminishes his greatness to say that he was also lucky enough to be born in “the right place at the right time.”

Consider his arrival in London, sometime between 1585 and 1592. His timing couldn’t have been better. In 1588, England routed her longtime enemy, Spain, with the defeat of the Spanish Armada. English people took nationalistic pride in that victory and pride made them eager to know more about their country’s history. What pleasanter way to learn history than by watching a drama? As could be expected, Shakespeare’s King Henry VI, Tragedy of King Richard III, and Life and Death of King John played to enthusiastic audiences.

The English were proud, too, of the exploits of such intrepid explorers as Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake, who traveled to the New World and brought back to London reports of riches and savages that sparked everyone’s imagination. The city itself became a leading center of trade. Foreigners of every description thronged its streets. Enterprising teachers offered quick courses in French, Dutch, Italian, and Arabic so Londoners could carry on business with the strangers in their midst. London’s diversity enabled a young person with intelligence and a receptive mind to learn much about foreign lands without ever leaving England. Of course, William Shakespeare did just that and became confident enough of his knowledge of the continent to set a number of plays in Italy.

To Shakespeare’s advantage, too, was the intellectual climate of his day, for England had now entered the Renaissance, which had begun earlier on the continent. People believed now that they had some freedom of choice, some part in shaping their own destiny. Echoing that belief, Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar,

The fault, dear Brutus, is notin our stars, / But in ourselves

In contrast to the Medieval World with its emphasis on the afterlife, the Renaissance offered some rewards here on earth. Science and learning became the pursuits of those fortunate enough to have leisure for them. Eloquence in speech was a sought-after skill: people believed that man’s use of speech to express thoughts and emotions set himself apart from the animals. Shakespeare gives the Renaissance view in Hamlet’s famous lines,

What a piece of work is man!how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty*!… in action how like an angel!in apprehension** how like a god!the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!

*capacity**understanding

Of course, Shakespeare himself with his “apprehension” of human nature, his awareness of the ideas of his era, and his eloquence of expression was bound to find favor with Elizabethan audiences.

He was fortunate, too, that his plays were enjoyed, not only by the “groundlings” who paid a penny apiece to watch them, but also by the

queen herself. Elizabeth loved the theater. She held firm ideas about both the plays’ subjects and presentations, but she was willing to pay for her theatergoing, providing money for costumes and props.

When plays were not presented at court for Elizabeth or her successor, James I, another theater enthusiast, they might be presented in innyards or – a little later – in theaters such as the famous Globe, The Theater, or the Swan. Presentations took place in midafternoon. Boy actors took the female parts. Props were few although costumes were elaborate. Obviously, the audience needed a good imagination and Shakespeare’s magnificent word pictures to make up for staging deficiencies.

Although sets and lighting were minimal, the actors were so skilled in their work that they made each performance convincing. Their greatest assets were a good memory and a strong, clear voice, but they were also expert fencers, dancers, even acrobats, and most had good singing voices. Knowing their audiences demanded realism, they often practiced slight of hand, using retractable knives to simulate stabbings. They wore bladders of sheep’s blood under their jackets so that, when stabbed, they would bleed copiously. And, in a scene that required putting out someone’s eye, the actors would allow a grape to fall to the floor at the proper moment.

Actors began training early. Shakespeare, by the standards of his time, came to the profession late. He must have worked exceptionally hard to become a successful actor only a few years after he arrived in London.

That he was becoming a successful author at the same time is a tribute to his energy and genius.

Handout TwoOutlining “Shakespeare’s London”

1. What historic event took place at about the same time as Shakespeare’s arrival in London?

2. What effect did that event have on the English people?

3. Why was that effect to Shakespeare’s advantage?

4. What advantage was it to the young playwright that England had embarkedon an age of exploration and that London had become a center of trade?

5. How might have Shakespeare gained his knowledge of the French language?

6. How did the Renaissance affect people’s viewpoint of destiny or fate?

7. Why did people put so much emphasis on skillful use of language?

8. What role did Queen Elizabeth and her successor, James I, play in the life ofShakespeare and his fellow actors?

9. Name three early theaters.

10. Name three ways in which the presentation of plays in Elizabethan times differed from presentations today.

11. List at least five requirements for Elizabethan actors.

Words and PhrasesCoined by Shakespeare

Shakespeare is given credit as having been the first to use over 2000 words. Some of these words are derivatives of previously existing words and others are old words used in new ways. These are some examples:

amazementbanditassassinationbedroomblanket (verb)blushingbump (noun)cake (verb)compromisecourtshipdawn (noun)discontentdislocatedownstairsdrug (verb)dwindleembrace(noun)employerexcitementeyeballfarmhouseflawedfrugalgenerousgloomyglow

gnarledgrovelhint (noun)humor (verb)hurry (verb)impedeinvulnerablekissinglaughablelaunderleapfroglonelylove letterluggagemajesticmanagermetamorphizmisquotemoonbeammountaineernegotiatenumbobsceneodeoutbreakpedant

perusal pukeradiance rantshudder splittingstealthy submergeswagger switch (noun)tardiness threateninglytightly torturetraditional tranquilunaware unclogundress unrealvaried vastlywatchdog well-behavedwild-goosechase worthless

Try your hand at completing these famous phrases,

each from the works of Shakespeare.

1. not a _________ stirring

2. the primrose _________

3. Every dog will have his _______

4. There’s method in his ________

5. Neither a ____ nor a _____ be.

6. There’s the ______.

7. To thine own self be _______.

8. The ____ doth protest too much.

9. Something is rotten in the state

of _______.

10. It smells to _________.

11. breathe one’s _______

12. one fell ________

13. all the live-long _______

14. It’s _____ to me.

15. ______ the ice

16. the naked _______

17. _______ bedfellows

18. heart of _______

19. too much of a good ______

20. We have seen better _______

21. wear one’s heart on one’s _____

22. All that glitters is not _______.

23. eat us out of house and ______

24. give the _____ his due

25. The course of true love never

did run _________.

Romeo and Juliet:Twin Portraits

These two essays appeared in the October 1968 issue of CO-ED Magazine.

A beautifully romantic yet pitifully tragic motion picture will be released this month. The classic Romeo and Juliet will come to life on the screen, bringing with it all the sweetness and sadness that were in Shakespeare’s play.

Although most of the lines and scenes are straight from the Elizabethan master himself, famed Italian director Franco Zeffirelli has tuned the new film to today. Envisioning the tale as a contemporary story in which the life and love of a young couple are sacrificed to the outdated values of an older generation, Zeffirelli has centered his production on youth.

He cast as Romeo 17-year-old Leonard Whiting, whom he describes as “the kind of idealistic young man Romeo ought to be.” As Juliet, he chose 15-year-old Olivia Hussey, “classically beautiful – what Shakespeare would have wanted.” The supporting cast, headed by Michael York, is equally exciting.

Both Olivia and Leonard are the youngest performers ever to play Romeo and Juliet professionally. Leonard is bent on a career in theater and movies, while Olivia feels it’s is more important to be a woman.

But let’s stop a minute and change gears. Instead of writing about these young stars, CO-ED thought it best for them to talk for themselves.

“I had a relieved feeling when I knew my chances were gone.”by Olivia Hussey

It’s hard to believe that playing Juliet is something that was real. When I showed up for that first audition with director Franco Zeffirelli and there was a room filled with pretty blue-eyed blondes, I wanted to leave. I was so nervous I fluffed everything – and I only had eight lines to do. It was the death scene in the play and I just couldn’t remember anything. I had a sort of relieved feeling when I knew my chances were gone.

I couldn’t believe it when I was called back. This time I had to do the balcony scene. That’s when I met Leonard Whiting. I thought, “Oh, he would make a nice Romeo,” but I knew I wouldn’t be playing with him even if he was lucky and got the part. Then it all happened and suddenly I was working in Italy.

Zeffirelli is a lovely man. He used to bully me and I would bully him back. We had a fight when he gave me a 75-year-old chaperone in Rome and stopped me from ever going out at night. Then he wouldn’t let me go swimming if the sun was out. He said one speck of tan would spoil everything. It was maddening to sit under an umbrella and watch other people in the water. But I found I would

rather have Zeffirelli say “you’re stupid” than for any other director to say “you’re wonderful.”

I was homesick all those long months. But I got to like it before I left. The Italians are friendly people and I learned the language pretty well before I came home to London. It was easier for me because I was born in Argentina. My father was an opera singer who did when I was two. I knew Spanish well when Mother brought my small brother and me back to England, and that helped later with other languages.

I learned the fundamentals of acting at the Italia Conti School in London. I was studying there when I went for an audition and then played two years on stage in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

Ever since I was very small, I have loved animals. I used to have a tortoise called Herbert and a guinea pig called Ding-a-Ling. Now I have a cat, Cindy, and a dog, Bidi. I like horses, too, but I never have much chance to ride.

I love jazz. Musicians like Jimmy Smith, Ramsey Lewis, Count Basie. I go to jazz clubs a lot in London but they wouldn’t let me do it in Rome. That’s when I had one of those fights.

I didn’t feel fifteen when I started playing Juliet. I think it’s because all girls think two years or more ahead of boys of similar ages. I have always mixed a lot with older people, too.

People ask me what fashions I like. I like leather gear and high boots. And informal clothes - the more informal, the better.

I like film work better than the stage even if I was treated in Italy sort of like a security risk. I would like to do many different kinds of stories. Wouldn’t it be lovely to make a film with Alain Delon [b.1935, French “mega-star and heartthrob].

Visiting America will be great fun. It’s what I’ve always wanted. I haven’t thought much about a Hollywood picture, but I wouldn’t mind. I don’t want to do another classic sort of role, not for a long time. Something very modern. Maybe even something with music.

“I Never Thought of Myself as a Romantic Author”by Leonard Whiting

Everybody thins that life must be totally different now that I had this great break in Romeo and Juliet. The great break is true enough and it was a wonderful opportunity. Especially since I never thought of myself as a romantic actor.

But what always puzzles me is the way people think and talk about Shakespeare. A sort of veneration [respect or awe inspired by the wisdom or talent of a person] cult. Above the world and above the clouds. I don’t think Shakespeare would have liked that. He must have been a very earthy, human

man along with his great dramatic gift. I think he would have liked the way Franco Zeffirelli often said to me that Shakespeare is such a genius that the biggest mistake is to make some kind of stone effigy of him. His work must pulsate with life.

When I first went to school and read Shakespeare, I was put off it by this kind of cold hero worship. All of us felt the plays were kind of stuffy. Zeffirelli was the first to really show me how exciting the plays can be. And how modern. The big passion stuff in Romeo and Juliet is so true to life today. I found you could play it from your own natural feelings. That’s the way Zeffirelli wanted it played. I think almost every school kid will go along with that and get a different slant about Shakespeare.

Every time anybody asks me what I think of teenage love, I feel like a 55-year-old sociologist. And that’s one part I couldn’t play for a while. In working in this film, the conclusion I came to is that teenage love, way down beneath, was almost the same three or four hundred years ago.I was wrong on other things, too. Romeo was no Casanova [(Giacomo Girolamo Casanova) lover, particularly one who is promiscuous and unscrupulous]. He was a boy in love – in love with one girl. He wasn’t as witty as Mercutio, and he wasn’t a swashbuckler [a swaggering or daring adventurer]. He was a pacifist really. He got in the way and almost by blind chance caused Mercutio’s death – and nearly went crazy.

It was Juliet who was the strong-willed one – willing to take a drug so she seemed dead and could be put in a tomb waiting for the reunion that never came.

It was a strange to jump for me from playing the Artful Dodger in the musical Oliver on the London stage to playing Romeo in a big Paramount film in Italy. I even told Zeffirelli when he picked me that he ought to think carefully before he made a final choice, especially as I was only seventeen. His answer was that seventeen by Shakespeare’s standards was leaning slightly to the old side.

I have always lived in London, in Camden Town. I’m from an average English family, not used to having much money and not finding it matters that much if you have a little more. I had some very intensive coaching for Romeo and I needed it.

I used to sing with a group called the Four Tunes when I was twelve. I liked it then, but I wouldn’t like it now. There’s so much more in acting. I want to get back to the stage sometime soon and learn a lot more than I know now.

One thing that most people misunderstand is that acting is a job just like anything else. For a film, you have to get up at six like you might be going to a factory. You have got to keep in shape to make it. I love parties, but it knocks me out if I stay up late if there is work the next morning.

One other thing. It would have been harder if somebody other than Olivia had been playing Juliet. She was a big help. We understood each other and got along perfectly, even though we had spats.

The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet

Source of PlotShakespeare borrowed the plot from Arthur Brooke’s long poem The

Tragicall Hystory of Romeus and Juliet (1562), an Italian story that Brooke found in a French translation by Boisteau. It is probable that Shakespeare also read a prose version of Boisteau’s story by William Painter (The goodly History of the true and constant love between Romeo and Julietta) in the second volume of his Palace of Pleasure (1567). There was, too, a play on the story (since lost) which Brooke mentions in his Preface To the Reader (“the same argument lately set forth on stage”) and Shakespeare may have seen it. This is only guesswork, however, and it has to be remembered that for Shakespeare to be familiar with it, the play to which Brooke refers must have kept the stage for at least twenty years.

Time and time again, Shakespeare built great works of art out of the well-known stories of his day, which only seem “Shakespearean” to us because we do not know his minor contemporaries.

What is more important is Shakespeare’s treatment of the plot. As usual, he took somebody else’s story and gave it new life and new beauty. But since he follows Brooke’s poem very closely, his divergences therefrom have all the more significance. They were evidently deliberate. For the sake of convenience, his chief alterations are put under separate headings.

Compression of TimeShakespeare compresses the nine months’ action of Brooke’s poem into

less than five days (see Timeline p25), in the interests of swiftness, power, and unity of action. Although swift when its time is analyzed, the play is not so swift in its general impression. Juliet tells Romeo that their love is “too rash, too unadvised, too sudden” and

This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath,May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.

When they next day meet, therefore, the audience has the impression that there has been a delay, but the delay, in fact, is only a matter of hours. The Nurse tells Romeo that she angers Juliet “sometimes” and tell her “that Paris is the properer man”; she speaks as if she has known Romeo a long time, and, according to Juliet, has praised him “above compare so many thousand times,” yet, in fact, she has known him for only a couple of days. It seems as if Romeo has been banished longer than a day when he has had time to take such note of shops and shopkeepers round about. Above all, the growth of the character of Juliet from girl to woman has the strongest effect in lengthening the time-sense. And at the end, after being crossed in love for four days, Romeo talks of “this world-wearied flesh.”

Development of CharactersIt would be a mistake to think that the borrowing of the outline of the story

in any way detracts from Shakespeare’s genius. The plot is the least important part of a play. Shakespeare’s great artistic power is in the characterization. A story with a “realistic” plot has no life if the characters are wooden, but a crude plot becomes alive when living people inform it [to give character or essence to]. Shakespeare was often very careless in his plots; it is in his use of the plot that he shows his imagination.

The plot of Romeo and Juliet is no exception. It is very thin at its central point, and the amount of coincidence is incredible. Apart from the use of a drug producing death that is not death, it is unnatural that when Juliet is found “dead” in the bed none of the household should suspect suicide, that no one should want to find out the cause of her death, and that no one should see the empty vial and the dagger at her side. (Shakespeare appears to have forgotten these.) But things like this have little weight. Romeo and Juliet is one of the world’s greatest platys because Romeo and Juliet are what Shakespeare has made them.

Shakespeare takes two years off Juliet’s age. According to Brooke, “Scarce saw she yet full sixteen years.” It may seem to many that an older girl would have been more credible. Presumably the alteration was to throw into relief her development from an obedient girl to a self-assured heroine – the younger she is to begin with, the more noticeable is the fullness of her character at the end. It should be remembered also that on Shakespeare’s stage, the part would be acted by a boy of about this age.

Two important people developed by Shakespeare from mere names into characters of his own are Mercutio and the Nurse. They are both outside the main line of progress of the play, but have a bustling vitality in their own right. The are introduced for contrast [foils] – Mercutio with Romeo, and the Nurse with Juliet – and also for wit and comic relief.

Tybalt is another character developed by Shakespeare, and again the dramatic reason is the same, for contrast with Romeo.

The events of Shakespeare’s plays depend on the characters of the people in them, not on an arbitrary fate: it was the nature of Mercutio and Tybalt that caused Romeo’s banishment.

ConstructionThere is, in Romeo and Juliet, no sub-plot. The construction is simple

and straightforward, without any side issues from the main track. After Act I our whole attention is focused on the love of Romeo and Juliet.

The way Shakespeare speeds up the action gives dramatic concentration. It emphasizes the suddenness of the love of Romeo and Juliet, love at first sight, aroused in a moment and soon to be opposed. The audience should realize the power of their mutual love to reverse the previous trend of their life, when Romeo was in love with someone else and Juliet was unaffected by love.

The climax, the marriage of hero and heroine, comes early in the play. Act III, scene i is the turning point, and thereafter the fortunes of Romeo and

Juliet go downhill until the catastrophe in the last scene. Mercutio’s witty tongue was getting him more attention than Romeo’s so he is removed, and at the same time his death provides a reason for Romeo to take Tybalt’s life and so run himself into banishment. The two duels are Shakespeare’s means of bringing these events about.

In any play there is a clash of personalities or of wills. It is this that makes the play. Notice the clash in this play between age and youth, between Capulets and Montagues in general, which itself contrasts with the passionate love of two of the young members of these houses, between the Prince and these rebellious families, and, in particular, between Romeo’s affected [artificial] love for Rosaline and his real love for Juliet, between the love of Paris and of Romeo for Juliet, between Mercutio and Tybalt, Romeo and Tybalt, Juliet and her parents (and later her nurse), and between Romeo and his friends owing to his absorption in love, especially between Mercutio’s wit and Romeo’s. Contrast is the fundamental principle in Shakespearean drama, and the student should notice how the play is constructed to bring about such contrasts.

There is very little comic relief in Romeo and Juliet. The garrulous [pointlessly or annoyingly talkative] chatter of the Nurse and the talk of the musicians after they have found that they are not wanted are the only examples in the play of more than a line or two. Mercutio’s witty repartee is on a higher plane than the Nurse’s common gossip.

Much in the play depends on coincidence, but particularly in the last two scenes: the Friar’s letter never reached Romeo, Paris happened to come to the tomb at the same time as Romeo, and Romeo kills himself only a few minutes before Juliet awakes. The greater element of chance in Romeo and Juliet makes the events seem less related to the character of the principals than in Shakespeare’s lesser plays. Their fate is not so much caused by their own actions and characters.

As usual in Shakespeare’s plays there is little attention to detail. The effect of the Friar’s potion was to wear off after “two and forty hours” (a most exact time – not “about two days”), yet Juliet is asleep after fifty hours and the Friar, who expected her to awake after forty-two hours and might well have made sure by being there before, fails to arrive until some eight or nine hours later than this.

But students should remember that details like this, which are noticed when one reads the play, comparing passage with passage, would go unnoticed by the audience in the theater. Shakespeare constructed his plays without regard for gritty little details, but with much regard for their general pattern.

It is but seldom that Shakespeare uses a Prologue (or Chorus). Shakespeare’s usual method is to set the scene for the audience in the conversation of minor characters before the principals enter, which makes the play seem more real. He follows this method here, too, and the Prologues to Acts I and II are not really necessary.

Atmosphere and ThemeThe theme of Romeo and Juliet is a consuming love. It is a story of hatred

overcome by that love, old hate versus young love, taking no thought for the past or the future, and this love ends in “love-devouring.”

The atmosphere is one of passion and swiftness, full-blooded passion and rash swiftness. Consuming love calls for haste – “Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds.” “From nine till twelve is three long hours.” The whole play is in a hurry – speed into marriage, speed into banishment, speed back to Juliet, speed in another quarter to get Juliet married to Paris, speed to kill whoever steps in the way and speed to commit suicide when life suddenly seems not worth living. Romeo’s haste makes him happy in marriage, and immediately thereafter unhappy in his banishment. Romeo and Juliet is a play of whirlwind and storm, full of angry feud, tremendous passion, and sudden death.

Even when things are going well there is a sense of impending tragedy in the air, a grim foreboding that makes happy folk mistrust their happiness. The first Prologue speaks of “A pair of star-cross’d lovers” before the play proper starts. The first scene of the play shows how affairs are like powder waiting for a match, and there are those only too glad to bring one. There is a nameless dread before Romeo has ever set eyes on Juliet, and after they have met, both have a presentiment that their love shall end in disaster. Romeo comes to marry Juliet with a challenge to fate on his lips – “Then love-devouring death do what he dare.” And Juliet, as she looks on Romeo (alive) for the last time, admits:

O God, I have an ill-divining soul!Methinks I see them, now thou art belowAs one dead in the bottom of a tomb.

These hints of tragedy increase the suspense (and the irony) of the play.The great majority of Shakespeare’s scenes (apart from those in the

Histories) are set in places abroad, a device that of itself gave them a romantic coloring. But the local color [the presentation of the features of a particular locality and its inhabitants in writing] of all his plays is that of Elizabethan England, whether the story is one of Italy, Egypt, or Denmark. Nowadays we should demand strict accuracy in scenery, costumes, and topical references, but then, for the playwright and the audience alike, the life and spirit of a play mattered more than strict accuracy in local color. “it is the spirit which giveth life.” People saw in the drama a reflection of their own life and experience; its appeal was in no way analytical or educational, but human.

Further, in those days people were untraveled and uneducated, and anachronisms [a misplacing of persons, objects or customs] would not strike a false note in an age more familiar with stories than with their setting. Only a very few privileged persons could know (by travel or study) what Italian cities were really like, so that the incongruity of the local color would pass unnoticed.

Romeo and Juliet takes place nominally in Verona (one scene in Mantua). Although pomegranate trees and ducats are mentioned, we are never really very far from the England Shakespeare knew. The local color is essentially Elizabethan.

Capulet is represented as “the great rich Capulet,” but his household is that of a regular Elizabethan lord of the manor – small enough, indeed, for Lord and Lady to be at hand immediately when the Nurse calls them from their daughter’s bedroom. The kitchen staff is unable to cope with the great occasion, and the Nurse helps in the pantry and the Lord stays up all night and sees that there are enough dry logs for the fire.

On the wedding morning, the bridegroom is to go early to awake the bride with music and take her to church for the ceremony, the Elizabethan way of doing things.

There were no tombs such as that in Act V, scene iii, in Shakespeare’s England. This massive vault is not due to a sudden desire for Italian local color, however, it is simply that the scene could not have been represented otherwise.

Some people say that the hot days and moonlit nights, and, above all, the impetuous passion, give the play an Italian setting. But are there not hot days and moonlit nights in England? As for full-blooded passion, in Shakespeare’s plays this is by no means reserved for men and women of Italian, or an other, race.

StyleRomeo and Juliet is very different from Shakespeare’s later plays in

containing so much rhyme, much of it alternate rhyme. The introduction of the passages in sonnet form (e.g. the first words between Romeo and Juliet) is also an indication of an early play. The sonnet was, however, a recognized medium for the language of love in Elizabethan England and is, therefore, not unfitting in this particular place.

The normal line in Shakespeare’s plays is a blank verse iambic pentameter [unrhymed lines of ten syllables (five feet) with an unstressed/stressed pattern]. There is much variation, however, making the verse more interesting to listen to and the dialogue more adapted to different characters. But there is not so much variation in the line of Romeo and Juliet as in those of later plays, and most of the lines are end-stopped [marked by a logical pause], another sign that it is an early play.

Graphic and figurative language abounds, and the richness, vividness, and variety of the imagery is to be noted. Nowhere in Shakespeare is there more lovely poetry than in Romeo and Juliet, nowhere is there more warmth and beauty and tenderness than in Act II. The similes and metaphors have that sense of surprise and yet of fitness which characterizes the imagery of a genius.

Not only is there beauty n the imagery of the poetry, but the sound of many passages comes “like softest music to attending ears” (notice the beautiful alliteration I this very passage, giving the “silver-sweet” sound of which it is speaking). Alliteration is often used with onomatopoeic effect, for example the deadness of the d’s in “Then love devouring death do what he dare.”

In Elizabethan times punning was extremely popular, and punning is second nature to nearly every character in the play. Much of the point of this witty repartee is lost on a modern audience. Indeed, it is not necessary for the

modern audience to understand the exact point of Mercutio’s jokes, so long as the general fun and frolic and nonsense comes over.

In a good play the style naturally reflects the character of the person speaking, and even the same man in two different moods may speak in two different ways. Contrast the airy tone of Mercutio’s famous “Queen Mab” speech (I.iv), light as a soap bubble, with the staid speeches of the Prince and Friar Laurence – or even Benvolio. Look at Capulet’s long speech in Act I, scene ii, and contrast this with his jerky, disjointed speech when his temper is up (III, v), or when he is fussily hurrying about giving orders for the wedding feast (IV, iv).

Nearly one-eight of Romeo and Juliet is in prose. When prose is used in Shakespeare’s plays it is for a definite purpose. Prose is invariably the language of comic characters and characters of lower social position. This was a literary convention at a time when literature was aristocratic and the chief characters in plays (as in life) were kings and nobles. Scenes in which the lower orders of society figure are a contrast; these people live on a lower plane of feeling than the main characters, and thereby emphasize the height of the feeling of the main characters, and the contrast in the medium of expression, prose instead of verse, is in perfect keeping.

In Act I, scene i the servants talk in prose and those of noble family in verse, and this distinction is kept throughout the play. Sometimes the reason for prose is a lower pitch of feeling without a lower social position in the speaker, for example the jocular talk of Benvolio, Mercutio, and Romeo in Act II, scene iv. But when Benvolio and Mercutio have gone, Romeo thinks of Juliet and tells the Nurse in verse of the plans he has made to marry her. In the following scene the Nurse (who probably speaks in verse anywhere only owing to her close association with Juliet) alternates between verse and prose according to the tone of her speech – whether it is concerned with the matter in hand or is just bantering prattle from nurse to child. Similarly in III.i the emotional pitch determines whether prose or verse shall be the medium. In the last act, the Apothecary and the Watch no doubt speak in verse because they are caught up in great events. Juliet always speaks in verse.

Formal communications (e.g. the list of people invited to Capulet’s mask) are, of course, in prose.

Dramatic IronyIn Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare makes full use of dramatic irony – the

difference between the situation as known to the audience and a supposed by the characters of the play or by some of them. The basis of dramatic irony is ambiguity of meaning. A remark may have a surface meaning for the characters in the play but an added significance for the audience. The double meaning may be intended by the speaker or just casual. The secrecy of the marriage of Romeo and Juliet lends itself to dramatic irony. When Lady Capulet is denouncing Romeo, Juliet appears to agree with her, but her phrases are double-edged:

Ay, madam, from the reach of these hands:Would none but I might venge my cousin’s death!

Indeed, I never shall be satisfiedWith Romeo, till I behold him – dead –Is my poor heart so for a kinsman vex’d.

When Romeo has fallen in love with Juliet, Mercutio imagines that he is still moping for Rosaline.

Ah, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that RosalineTorments him so that he will sure run mad.

Similarly, Lady Capulet imagines that Juliet is upset owing to Tybalt’s murder (III.iv.11). The Nurse tells Juliet of a “bloody piteous corse [corpse],” and Juliet thinking it must be Romeo’s exclaims, “And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier! [stand on which a corpse or coffin is placed]” Little did she think when she spoke these words that they would be made true. In answer to Juliet’s words to him, “O, thinks’t thou we shall ever meet again?” Romeo says, “I doubt it not.” So it was, but not in the sense he meant it.

Lady Capulet plans her revenge on Romeo by “an unaccustm’d dram, that he shall soon keep Tybalt company,” and so does it fall out, but not by her ordering.

Time Line

Sunday The play opens with a street brawl at nine o’clock in the morning. Romeo and Juliet first meet at a party the same night. After the party, Romeo gets into Capulet’s garden and from the ground talks to Juliet at her window.

Monday They are married in the afternoon. Thereafter, Romeo kills Tybalt and is banished, but he defies the law to spend thenight with Juliet. Late that night, old Capulet arranges Juliet’s marriage with Paris for Thursday morning.

Tuesday As dawn breaks, Romeo leaves Juliet. He has no sooner

gone than Juliet is told by her parents that she is to marry Paris, and in despair she goes to Friar Laurence’s cell. Late that night the wedding is advanced to take placethe next morning. Before she goes to sleep, Juliet takes the Friar’s draught.

Wednesday At early dawn, Juliet is discovered “dead”, and is taken toto the family tomb late in the day.

Thursday Romeo hears of Juliet’s death and buys poison.

Friday During the very early morning, while it is still dark, Romeocomes to the tomb, and the rest of the play takes place before full dawn.