Romeo and Juliet

The play’s the thingWherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.

(Shakespeare, Hamlet)

Catching the conscience, raising the consciousness, alerting an audience to the awareness of what it means to be human, fallible, vulnerable, subject to the twists and knots of life – these are all reasons for play-going, play-reading, play-acting.

The performance aspect of a play heightens our identification with the characters and their moral dilemmas. The choices – or lack of choices – facing characters become ‘real’ to us in the unfolding of the drama, and inform our understanding of the characters on stage, of the people who fill our lives, and, ultimately, of ourselves.

The ‘public’ themes have a private face, and the ‘private’ concerns of ordinary people have a universal resonance.

What do you think is meant by this comment?

Prior Knowledge Why might someone of your age empathise with the play’s main characters?

Have we seen similar themes, characters and events in modern fiction?

High School Musical

Disney's High School Musical made use of Romeo and Juliet's plot, placing the two young lovers in rival high school cliques instead of feuding families

What does the story of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ mean to us?

What do you think of these statements made by people when asked that question?

· Intensity and passion (young love which doesn’t last)· Youth· It has cultural relevance (we all know young people from different ethnic groups whose parents want to either arrange a marriage, or prevent a relationship)· The division and opposition of generations (the conflict between parents and children)· Girls finding their independence and standing up for themselves· Gang warfare· Young people having to carry the burden of ancient quarrels· Universal theme of love and passion

Baz LuhrmannRomeo + Juliet (1996)

Setting Verona + Mexico

Although the film isn't set against an Elizabethan backdrop, the social, religious and political aspects of Shakespeare's time certainly influenced the play.

Pearce explains the process: "When we started to describe the created world we considered Shakespeare's views on Verona. Inthe research we found that he was not historically or geographically accurate in his depiction of Verona. To Shakespeare and to Elizabethan audiences, Verona was a hot, sexy, violent, Catholic country.

So we needed to find a place that exists in an equivalent way for our audience. It didn't necessarily have to be naturalistic but we wanted it to ring true.

Mexico

There are textual facts in 'Romeo and Juliet' connected with Elizabethan society that exist in Mexico. For instance, during Shakespeare's time religion was involved in politics and there was a very small percentage of great wealth with a large population of poor. It was violent and peoplewere openly armed.

Baz Luhrmann interpreted all of these Elizabethan things in the context of the modern created world. In fact, much of this occurs in modern-day Mexico,

However…. This isn’t Mexico.

Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet is set in an non-naturalist setting.

As mentioned earlier, even to an Elizabethan audience Verona was a foreign and mysterious setting.

Having considered why the play is so popular to this day, why do you think both Shakespeare and Luhrmann chose to divorce their setting from their audiences everyday reality.

A Play for All Shakespeare’s Audience

During an interview, Luhrmann explains:"I've always wanted to do 'Romeo and Juliet'. The themes it explores, the tragedy that is born of a prohibited love in a world of learned hate is one of those primary myths that appeals to all people.

'Romeo and Juliet', like all of Shakespeare's plays touched everyone from the street sweeper to the Queen of England. Everything that's in the movie is in the play. Violence, murder, lust, love, poison, even drugs that mimic death - it's all in there.

"He is just such an extraordinary storyteller" says Luhrmann. "What I really loved is that he had this dilemma in terms of audience. He had to knock dead those people selling pigs, the prostitutes and the nobles because they were all in the same theatre. They had to have a different experience of the material but enjoy it equally.“

"That's what is so phenomenal about it - everyone can experience his work albeit in different ways. That's an incredible accomplishment. Everyone, from a child to an adult can have a very rich experience from 'Romeo and Juliet' and I think that's why it's still performed and why it's worth doing. Shakespeare had an amazing genius for capturing who we are and revealing it to us. My job is just to re-reveal it."

Structure The Prologue

What information is provided in the prologue? Summarise the information given with reference to the text.

What do you think is the function of the prologue?

What effect do you think this information has on the audience?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/romeo-and-juliet-prologue/9892.html

Consider this idea of fate: ‘the star-crossed lovers’. The pair are destined to die tragically as is revealed immediately in the prologue. What then might be said about the structure of the play?

The PrologueThe Sonnet

Rhythm

Come in and have a cup of coffee, Kate.

There is a weak syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Syllables are weak or stressed in words, such as in the work technique or defeat.

Iambic Pentameter

Try this one yourself:

I went to town to see a girl I love.

Iambic Feet

Come in/ and have/ a cup/ of cof/fee

The weak/stressed pattern is called an iambic foot. The sentence above is made up of 5 iambic feet. These 5 beats are called pentameter

Now try to identify the weak/stressed syllables in this line and break it down into feet:

Shall I compare thee to a summers day?

Shakespeare and Iambic Pentameter

Shakespeare uses iambic pentameter a great deal in his poetry and in his plays.

Sometimes he exploits the rhythm to create special effects or to draw attention to certain words.

Try these lines from Macbeth. She should have died hereafter;

There would have been a time for such a word.

Rhyme

Rhythm and rhyme can be used to create sound images. Read the poem below and consider what image is being created.

Faster than fairies, faster than witches, Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;And charging along like troops in a battle, All through the meadows, the horses and cattle:All of the sights of the hill and the plainFly as thick as driving rain; And ever again, in the wind of an eye, Painted stations whistle by.

Rhyme Rhythm and rhyme can be used to create sound images. Read the poem below and consider what image is being created.

From a Railway Carriage Faster than fairies, faster than witches, Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;And charging along like troops in a battle, All through the meadows, the horses and cattle:All of the sights of the hill and the plainFly as thick as driving rain; And ever again, in the wind of an eye, Painted stations whistle by.

Now pick out all the rhymes.

Rhyme Rhythm and rhyme can be used to create sound images. Read the poem below and consider what image is being created.

From a Railway Carriage Faster than fairies, faster than witches, Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;And charging along like troops in a battle, All through the meadows, the horses and cattle:All of the sights of the hill and the plainFly as thick as driving rain; And ever again, in the wind of an eye, Painted stations whistle by.

Now pick out all the rhymes.

Shakespeare’s sonnets

Shakespeare’s sonnets are made up of:

• 14 lines• In three quatrains (a quatrain has four lines) • Followed by a couplet• Each quatrain has an a b a b rhyme

In his sonnets Shakespeare sets out to:• explore a chosen topic or theme in the three quatrains • and the couplet provides a conclusion or a twist on the theme.

The Prologue Step 1: Break it down into its 3 quatrains and couplet. Step 2: Identify its rhyming scheme.

Step 3: Write a brief description of what each quatrain is about.

Step 4: Has Shakespeare drawn your attention using rhythm and rhyme to any words in particular?

The PrologueA 1 Two house holds, both alike in dignity,B 2 In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, A 3 From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, B 4 Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. C 5 From forth the fatal loins of these two foes D 6 A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life; C 7 Whose misadventured piteous overthrows D 8 Do with their death bury their parents' strife. E 9 The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love, F 10 And the continuance of their parents' rage, E 11 Which, but their children's end, nought could remove, F 12 Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage; G 13 The which if you with patient ears attend, G 14 What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

Real Life Love

In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare creates a world of violence and generational conflict in which two young people fall in love and die because of that love. What is so striking about this play is that, despite its extraordinary setting, it has become the quintessential story of young love.

BUT!

Do you agree with his representation of young love?

Characterisation1. We first hear of Romeo from Benvolio in lines 118 on page 27. What impression are we given of him from what Benvolio says.

Romeo comes across as melancholy and insular. • He hides from Benvolio, rather than converse with him: ‘And gladly shunned

who gladly fled from me’ (1.i.129). He has been seen, ‘With tears augmenting the fresh morning’s dew’. In other words he cries early in the morning and adds to the mornings moist air.

• Montague also describes how, ‘Away from light steals home my heavy son’. Dark and light are recurring motifs in the play and are symbolic of joy and love and death and despair. ‘Heavy son’ reveals how Romeo is burdened with his thoughts.

It all seems rather dramatic and immature to react in such a fashion merely because a girl does not return his admiration.

Characterisation3. Love vs Hate: We meet Romeo on page 29. He appears to be in a right state. • What do his comments reveal about love and hate?O me, what fray was here? Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all. Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love.’

These lines from Romeo seem to foreshadow later events in the play as the families feud will result in the destruction of the two young lovers. The comment seems to suggest that they cannot be separated; to hate is to feel pain ‘brawling love’ and so often people relish in hate ‘loving hate’. • There is a literary technique used here, what is it and what effect do you

think it has? The use of oxymoron here suggests that Romeo is confused. The ‘chaos’ he describes, ‘feather of lead’, ‘bright smoke’ and ‘cold fire’ add to the sense of confusion. It also works to create a sort of nightmare state in which Romeo believes himself to be in because of his love for Rosaline.

For Romeo, love causes the, ‘Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms’

Why might this comment seem relevant later in the play?

Again, we could interpret this line as a form of foreshadowing. The ‘well-seeming forms’ are Romeo and Juliet, whose love is warped through the hate of others.

Act 1: iiRomeo’s Broken Heart

Francesco Petrarch (1304-74) was responsible for establishing certain ideas about love-relationships. He wrote more than 300 sonnets addressed to an idealized lady named Laura, with whom he had never even had a conversation. These sonnets were enormously popular, and poets in Shakespeare's day were still using Petrarch's sonnets as models. One key Petrarchan notion is that the lover's love for a beautiful woman is not returned and he suffers as if from a bad flu (freezes and burns).

“Yeah but that was back in the day……..”

Or is it???

Do you know of any popular songs about being crazy in love with someone who didn't know you existed?

Romeo

• Could we describe Romeo as a Petrarchan lover?

• Please provide examples from the text to support your answers.

Romeo

• Could we describe Romeo as a Petrarchan lover?

There is no other woman as beautiful than Rosaline: ‘The all-seeing sun/Ne’er saw her match since first the world begun’(1.ii.93-94).

Rosaline is out of Romeo’s reach, in fact even Cupid’s powers are powerless on her and she does not return his love:‘From love’s weak childish bow she lives uncharmed’ 1.i.210‘Out of her favour where I am in love’ 1.i.167

Characterisation

Benvolio and Mercutio’s efforts at making Romeo see sense further strengthens our suspicions that Romeo is rather immature and egocentric.

Homework

You should complete the questions on:

• Act 1: III• Act 1: IV

We will go over the answers as a class on Wednesday.

Act 1.iiiCharacterisation

1. What kind of character is the nurse? Go girl, seek happy nights to happy days’ (1.iii.107).

2. What does Juliet’s reply at the end of the scene tell us about her? Juliet: ‘I’ll look to like, if looking liking move./ But no more deep will I endart mine eye/Than your consent gives strength to make it fly’ (1.iii.97- 99).

3. Language: Lady Capulet’s attitude towards Paris.

Act 1.IVTheme

1. Language: Examine Romeo’s speech (107 – 113) noting the reference to fate. Does this add to our picture of Romeo’s character? Explain the image in the last two lines of this speech.

I fear too early, for my mind misgives

Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,

With this bright night’s reveals, and expire the term

Of a despised life closed in my breast,

By some vile forfeit of untimely death.

But he that hath the steerage of my course

Direct my suit. On lusty gentlemen. (1.IV.107 -113)

Act V

1. What important plot developments take place in this scene?

2. This scene is full of contrasts. Can you identify any of these?

Act VStructure and Theme

This is an important scene in revealing the theme of love and hate. The two emotions are presented in juxtaposition through the soliloquies of the characters Tybalt and Romeo.

Activities on page 74 - 75Love, hate and fateJuliet – Has she stuck to her word? Juliet: ‘I’ll look to like, if looking liking move./ But no more deep will I endart mine eye/Than your consent gives strength to make it fly’ (1.iii.97- 99).

Love, Hate and Fate

LOVE

Explain Romeo’s speech on first sighting Juliet (Act 1.V.45-52).

‘O she doth teach the torches to burn bright’ (…)

‘Light a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear; (…) ‘She shows a snowy dove trooping with crows’ (…) For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night’

Love, fate, hate

HateLook at the comments of Tybalt. How do they contrast with that of Romeo’s?

DISSONANCE - harsh sounds that are frequently introduced for poetic effect - b, d, p, k, hard g (like "God," not "George")For example. black cat

‘What dares the slave/Come hither, covered with an antic face,/To fleer and scorn at our solemnity? (…) To strike him dead I hold it not a sin.’

Juliet

Back to the Petrarchan sonnet…..

We discussed how Romeo was a Petrarchan lover.

Can the same be said of Juliet?Please find evidence from the text to support your answers.

Act 1

Take an opportunity to look over the whole of act one. A number of key themes have been introduced:

Youth and AgeLove

Hatred Fate

For each of these themes make a list of occasions when: • People talk about it, directly or indirectly• People’s actions tell you something about it• The language in the play contains images that refer to it.

Structure

Tragedy and Comedy

Shakespeare often juxtaposes tragedy/love in the play with comedy.

In Act 1: Scene I for instance, there is a punning exchange between Benvolio and Mercutio just before Tybalt arrives. Or the contrast between Act 1: Scene i in which Romeo is in a melancholy mood and Scene iii in which the Nurse’s rambling stories cannot be silenced. What effect do you think this might have on the audience?

Act 2:Scene 1

Consider both the themes and the structure of the play.

What is the purpose of Mercutio’s crude references?

To structure: To theme:

Act 2: IIThe Balcony Scene

Shakespeare and sentence structure.

‘He jests at scars that never felt a wound’

1. What does Romeo mean by this?

2. How would you order the words in this sentence so that it made more sense to you?

Identify the predicate and the subject. 3. The lion roared 4. He writes well 5. She enjoys going to the cinema 6. The girl in the blue dress arrived late

Echoes Task: Boys - Every time Romeo says the word 'love', you should echo the word.

Girls - Every time Juliet asks a question, you should echo the question.

What do they notice from this exercise about the type of language that Romeo and Juliet are using here?What is the difference between their choices of language?Why does Romeo choose to say the word 'love' so many times?Why does Juliet ask so many questions?What does this say about their characters?

Dramatic Techniques and Literary Techniques

Which dramatic technique is used by both characters in the opening of this scene?

What is its effect?

Assonance: vowel sounds.Read the scene again. What vowel sound is dominant? What emotion is described by the vowel sounds?

MotifsLight and Dark

Shakespeare uses light and dark imagery in this scene to describe the blossoming of Romeo and Juliet's romance.

Light represents the lovers as they see one another in the darkness of their troubles; darkness also as the shroud of secrecy; also light as lightning and therefore transitory and easily burnt out.

Task: Read over the balcony scene discussion and identify and evaluate any references made to light and dark.

Light

Juliet is the light that frees him from the darkness of his perpetual melancholia. In the famous balcony scene Romeo associates Juliet with sunlight, "It is the east and Juliet is the sun!" (2.2.3), daylight, "The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars/As daylight doth a lamp" (2.2.20-1), and the light emanating from angels, "O speak again bright angel" (2.2.26).

In turn, Juliet compares their new-found love to lightening (2.2.120), primarily to stress the speed at which their romance is moving, but also to suggest that, as the lightening is a glorious break in the blackness of the night sky, so too is their love a flash of wondrous luminance in an otherwise dark world.

Religious Imagery

Religious imagery is also used in this scene.

Task: Identify these images.Consider love and religion as a concept.

Question: What do you think is the effect of the religious imagery?

Juliet and RomeoThe development of Character

Romeo has noticeably matured in this scene. He has moved away from the melodramatic and melancholy expressions of love. His declarations of love are now in blank verse, which adds realism and a more natural quality to their love.

However, regardless of her youth, Juliet is clearly the more mature of the two.

Identify examples of Juliet’s maturity in the scene.

Romeo: ‘Love goes towards love as school boys from their books, But love from love, towards school with heavy looks’ (Act 2. ii. 159-160).

What do you understand from this line? What does it reveal about Romeo’s character?

Act 2: Scene 3 (2:3)Foreshadowing

1. Look closely at Friar Lawrence’s opening speech in this scene. Copy down any words or phrases which include examples of foreshadowing/dramatic irony.

2. What effect does Shakespeare have on his audience by using foreshadowing in his play?

3. Friar Lawrence’s last line in this scene is a warning to Romeo. Wisely and slow, they stumble those who run fast’ What does this mean? How is it another example of foreshadowing?

Act 2: Scene 3Character

1. Now look for oppositions in his speech. What do these balanced ideas reveal about the Friar’s character?

2. Identify the rhyming scheme used by Shakespeare. Having considered the Friar’s character. What does this pattern add?

3. When Romeo tells Friar Lawrence that he loves Juliet and not Rosaline, Friar Lawrence says: ‘Young men’s love then lies not truly in their hearts but in their eyes’. What does Friar Lawrence mean by this? Why might his comments continue to resonate with a modern audience?

4. Why does Friar Lawrence agree to marry the pair? Is this important to the plot? Why might it be described as ironic?

Homework

1. What is your impression of Friar Lawrence in this scene and why do you think this is?

In your answer you should comment on Shakespeare’s use of language and structure.

2. Read Act 2: Scene 6. In this scene the Friar offers us another view of ‘love’. Look at lines 9 – 15. What do these comments reveal about the Friar?

The Feud

The love of Romeo and Juliet is set in a context of hate.

Question: When were we first introduced to this feud?

Questions: Does the audience know how the feud began?

Question: Which character reminds us of the feud both in 1.I and 1.V?

Act 3, Scene 1 (3:1)

This scene occurs immediately after the marriage of Romeo and Juliet – which can account for Romeo’s wish not to fight Tybalt.

Themes: The contrast between love and hate is again explicit in this scene.

Wordplay Puns

• She got fired from the hot dog stand for putting her hair in a bun.

• No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.

• Mercutio: That dreamers often lie • Romeo: In bed asleep, while they do dream

things true.

Mercutio

• Mercutio: Consort? What dost thou make us minstrels? And thou makes minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords. Here’s my fiddle stick, here’s that shall make you dance’ (3.I.47-50).

• Mercutio (on being fatally wounded): ‘Ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man’ (3.I.100).

THE DOUBLE ENTENDREThe double entendre is a play on words one meaning of which is lewd:

Did you hear about the sleepy bride who couldn't stay awake for a second?

Language

Look at the beginning and the end of the scene. Can you identify where each of these language forms is used?

Blank verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter.

Prose has no rhyming or metric scheme and has the qualities of everyday language.

Function of Prose • •To make dialogue more realisticMany short, functional lines like “And I, my lord,” and “I pray you leave me” are written in prose to give the play a sense of realism. In some longer speeches, Shakespeare allowed the audience to identify more closely with his characters by using the everyday language of the time.

• •To create comic effectSome of Shakespeare’s low-class comic creations aspire to speak in the formal language of their superiors, but do not have the intelligence to achieve this and therefore become objects of ridicule. For example, the uneducated Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing attempts to use more formal language, but keeps getting it wrong. In Act 3, Scene 5, he informs Leonato that “Our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended two auspicious persons.” He means “apprehended” and “suspicious”.

• •To suggest a character’s mental instabilityIn King Lear, Lear’s verse deteriorates into prose as the play unfolds to suggest his increasingly erratic mental condition. We can also see a similar technique at work in the above passage from Hamlet.

Language used for Dramatic Effect

1. Explain how Mercutio tries to upset Tybalt in various ways. 2. Consider attitudes towards the lower classes. Why does

Tybalt call Romeo ‘villian’ and why does Romeo deny this? He also refers to Romeo as ‘my man’ and Mercutio challenges this. Why?

3. Identify whether characters refer to each other as ‘you’ (formal) or ‘thou/thee’ (informal).

4. Tybalt usually refers to Mercutio using ‘you’ but chances to ‘thou’ when he accuses him of consorting with Romeo. Why?

Act 3, Scene 1 (3:1) Figurative Language

‘That late thou gavest me, for Mercutio’s soul Is but a little way above our heads,

Staying for thine to keep him company.

Either though or I, or both, must go with him’ (Romeo 3:1)

Explain this image and its effect on the audience.

Romeo’s last words in this scene are: ‘O I am fortune’s fool!’ (Romeo 3:1).

What does he mean by this? What is the effect on the audience and how does it help reflect the themes in the play?

Patterns

An elaborate pattern is formed between Romeo and Mercutio. Can you identify this?

Patterns

An elaborate pattern is formed between Romeo and Mercutio. Can you identify this?

Antithesis is a counter-proposition and denotes a direct contrast to the original proposition.

Homework

Question: How does Shakespeare use dramatic devices in Act 3 Scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet in order to make it an interesting, exciting and pivotal scene?

Romeo and Juliet Character Development

• Working as a group, you are going to design and create posters for the classroom wall.

These posters are going to become very useful revision aids for when you come to write about Romeo and Juliet.

Poster • Your poster should trace the development of

Romeo or Juliet through the play.

• What are they like at the beginning• Their first meeting • The balcony scene• On finding out he has been banished.

( Remember to include DETAILED close analysis of the language)

Act 3: Scene 5The key to this scene is in what each character knows: • Capulet thinks he knows why his daughter is upset (over Tybalt’s death). • Lady Capulet knows as little as her husband.• Juliet knows about her marriage to Romeo, but cannot tell her parents. • Juliet doesn’t know, for some time, about her parent’s plan for her to marry Paris. • The nurse knows, at this point, Juliet’s secrets.

Only the audience has a full understanding of what is going on. In the scene Juliet speaks ambiguously – with one meaning for the person to whom she speaks and another to herself and the audience. 1. What is this dramatic technique called?2. Find an example and explain both its meanings.

Act III. Scene 5Point Evidence Technique, analysis and explanation

Motifs

Antithesis – a balanced contrast - References to a growing ‘dark’ strengthen the impression of impeding tragedy and contrast with earlier images of hope.

ThemeThe lovers are victims of their own fate, a destructive force which is never far removed from the audience’s consciousness.

Juliet fears that she will never again see Romeo. References such as this increase the sense of foreboding in the play.

Theme Juliet asks fate to change its mind.

Act III. Scene 5Point Evidence Technique, analysis and explanation

Motifs

Light and Dark

Juliet: O now be gone; more light and light it grows.

Romeo: More light and light, more dark and dark our woes’ (35-36)

Antithesis – a balanced contrast - References to a growing ‘dark’ strengthen the impression of impeding tragedy and contrast with earlier images of hope.

ThemeThe lovers are victims of their own fate, a destructive force which is never far removed from the audience’s consciousness.

O god, I have an ill-divining soul!/ Me thinks I see thee, now thou art so low,/As one dead in the bottom of a tomb’ (III.5.54-56)

Juliet fears that she will never again see Romeo. References such as this increase the sense of foreboding in the play and increase the audiences sympathy for Juliet through the use of dramatic irony.

Theme Juliet asks fate to change its mind.

Be fickle, fortune;/For then I hope thou wilt not keep him long,/But send him back.

Her futile requests lead the audience to feel yet more sympathy for Juliet

Point Evidence Technique, analysis and explanation

Capulet shows great affection for his daughter and hopes that she will have a good future.

Earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she, / She is the hopeful lady of my earth.

Act I.2.15-16

Here earth has been personified. It may be suggesting that Capulet’s other children have died.

He believes that she grieves over the death of her cousin, Tybalt and marrying Paris will make her happy.

Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender/ Of my child’s love. I think she will be ruled.

Act III.4.12-13

Capulet believes that his daughter will obey his authority and do as he asks of her.

He is angry when Juliet refuses to marry Paris.

Hang thee young baggage, disobedient wretch!

Act III.5.160

Capulet informs Juliet that if she refuses to marry Paris she can ‘hang, beg, starve, dies in the streets’

Act III.5.193

Baggage is an Elizabethan word for a shameless or promiscuous woman. The hard constants used in this line add to Capulet’s anger at this point. Capulet unwittingly in his refusal to listen to Juliet sets the lovers fate.

Capulet grieves over his daughter’s death.

‘Death lies on her like an untimely frost/ Upon the sweetest flower of all the field’ (28 – 29)

Act IV.5

As rich shall Romeo by his lady lie, / Poor sacrifies of our emnity Act V.3

A simile is used here to suggest that Juliet’s death is sudden and brings a chill. The audience is encouraged to feel sympathy for Capulet, who only strived to do the best by his daughter.

The use of the word ‘our’ reveals that he is in no doubt that the feud is the cause of their deaths.

Juliet’s Character Development

Study these short extracts from the scene:

Lines 60 - 64, 116 – 123, 205 – 211, 234-241

How do you think Juliet has changed from the girl we met in Act 1: Scene 3?

Act 4: Scene 31. Which of the following is not one of Juliet’s anxieties about taking the potion?• Romeo will not receive word of the plan in Mantua.• She may suffocate in the foul air of the tomb.• The mixture may not work at all.• Friar Lawrence may be concealing his role in her marriage.

2. Why is this ironic? 3. What is revealed about Juliet’s character through her

soliloquy? 4. What is the effect of the use of rhetorical questions? – On the audience– Reveals about Juliet’s character

Rhetorical Questions

• The question "Can you do anything right?" is asked not to gain information about the ability of the person being spoken to, but rather to insinuate that the person always fails.

• They can suggest dialogue or an internal conflict.

Act VScene 1

1. What news does Balthasar bring Romeo?2. What do you think Romeo means when he says, “I

defy you, stars!”? (line 24) Hint: Think back to the Prologue.

3. Who does Romeo visit before he leaves? Why? What does he purchase?

4. Why doesn’t the apothecary want to give it to Romeo? Why does he consent?

5. What poison does Romeo say he gave to the apothecary? Why does he think it is poison?

Foils • In fiction, a foil is a character who contrasts with another

character (usually the protagonist) in order to highlight particular qualities of the other character.

• The action in Romeo and Juliet involves two carefully balanced groups of characters.

For instance, at the head of each of the feuding families is a lord and a lady. Juliet has a cousin and Romeo has a cousin. However, many of these characters also contrast.

• Task: Can you identify the pairs and the contrasts? Use a table like the one found on p. 297 of the play to record your pairs.

Survey Homework

•http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9XDSQVH

Adaptations The Killers

Rome and Juliet

• http://www.sanjuan.edu/webpages/mikeberry/resources.cfm?subpage=49094

Act 4: Scene 5Act 5: Scene 1

The language of Death

• We have already witnessed how love is presented through language in the play.

• We have also established that many of the characters in the play have a different interpretations of love.

• Similarly to love, death is presented as multifaceted.

• Task: complete the activities on page 286. This task focused on imagery and should give you a great deal of text to analyse.

• Task 2: Return to 4.5. Read through the play as a group of four complete task 2 on page 284.

ROMEO:

Why I descend into this bed of death, / Is partly to behold my lady's face;

ROMEO:

Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,

Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth,

Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,

And, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food!

Death and Love

• The family tomb becomes a symbol of both birth and death. It is, on the one hand, the womb from which Juliet should emerge alive — and hope be born anew. However, the tomb is also a dark and fateful vortex that consumes life, light, and hope.

Light and Dark In his final speech, Romeo once again uses light and dark imagery to describe Juliet as she acts as a source of light in the darkness of the tomb. "her beauty makes / This vault a feasting presence full of light."

Such images simultaneously make the audience all the more aware of how close the lovers come to finding joy — making their end in darkness all the more tragic.

For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes

This vault a feasting presence full of light.

Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr'd

Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,

Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:

Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet

Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,

And death's pale flag is not advanced there.

METAPHOR a comparison of two unlike things which are connected by one similarity:

Her eyes are jewels; You are my sunshine; “All the world’s a stage.”

SIMILE a comparison of two unlike things using ‘like’ or ‘as’:

She is like a rose; “So are you to my thoughts as food to life.” “Death lies on her like an untimely frost.”

PERSONIFICATION is a figure of speech that gives an inanimate object or abstract idea human traits and qualities, such as emotions, desires, sensations, physical gestures and speech:

The flowers were suffering from the intense heat; Death smiled; The sun waved to the moon.

OXYMORON a figure of speech that combines two contradictory terms:

Cruel love; deafening silence; pretty ugly; alone together

HYPERBOLE deliberate exaggeration of a person, thing, quality, event to emphasise a point external to the object of exaggeration; intentional exaggeration for rhetorical effect:

These books weigh a ton; I could sleep for a year; I would rather die than eat that.

Romeo: Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,/ O anything of nothing first create! /O heavy lightness, serious vanity, / Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms! / Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health.

(Act I, scene 1)

Type(s) of figurative language: OXYMORONAnalysis: The oxymorons show contradictions in love: Romeo “loves” Rosaline but she does not feel the same.

Tragedy

Shakespeare was a highly educated man and widely read. He had read Aristotle, who wrote in the 4th Century BC.

Aristotle wrote that the tragic hero in a play had in some way to bring about his own downfall. He discussed the concept of hamartia or tragic flaw, which has influences tragedians to this day.

For Aristotle, tragedy did not involve accident but was brought about by some flaw in the character.

Tragedy

Character flaw explained: If a character walked under a ladder and is killed by a falling brick, that may be unfortunate but it is not tragic. It was an accident.

Whereas if a character, having been warned not to walk under a ladder, then insists that nothing will happen to him and is consequently killed by a falling brick, then that is tragedy. Basically, a flaw in his character (his unwillingness to listen to the advice of others) caused his own death.

Romeo and JulietTragedy?

Are Romeo and Juliet flawed characters.

What does Shakespeare suggest is the cause of their tragic ends?

Mistakes and Mischance

There are a number of coincidences in the play, all unfortunate.

Working with a partner, list as many of these unfortunate happenings as you can.

Structure

Previously we have discussed Consider the structure of the play and Shakespeare’s juxtaposition of comedy and tragedy, hope and despair. Why has Shakespeare done this?

• Identify events in these scenes that warrant hope and despair?

• These shifts from hope to despair, reprieve, and new hope, serve to emphasise the tragedy when the final hope fails and both the lovers die at the end.

Structure Tragedy

Aristotle, in his definition of tragedy, stated that at the end of a tragedy there had to be what he called catharsis, a cleansing or purifying of emotions in the audience after the huge build up to the final catastrophic climax.

The death at the end of the play provide relief from the tensions of the drama. Is there retribution and redemption at the end of Romeo and Juliet?

Redemption

The last few lines of the play may seem anticlimactic. However, rather than ending with the deaths of Romeo and Juliet, it ends with the triumph of love.

Although we have had a variety of representations of love throughout the play, it finally demonstrates loves ability to heal old wounds, and to create piece and harmony.

Themes

• Love and Hate

• Fate, Chance and Foreboding

• DARKNESS AND LIGHT IS NOT A THEME BUT A MOTIF – A RECURRING IMAGE WHICH COMES TO REPRESENT SOMETHING ABOUT THE THEME OR THE CHARACTERS SITUATION IN THE PLAY.

Answers to questions on drama should address relevantly the central concern(s)/theme(s) ofthe text and be supported by reference to appropriate dramatic techniques such as: conflict, characterisation, key scene(s), dialogue, climax, exposition, dénouement, structure, plot, setting, aspects of staging (such as lighting, music, stage set, stage directions . . .), soliloquy, monologue . . .

1. Choose a play in which a main theme is made clear early in the action.

Show how the dramatist introduces the theme and discuss how successfully he or she goes on to develop it.

2. Choose a play which explores the theme of love in difficult circumstances.

Explain how the dramatist introduces the theme and discuss how in the course of the play he/she prepares you for the resolution of the drama.

3. Choose a play in which an important part is played by one of the following: crime, punishment, retribution.

Show how the dramatist explores the issue and discuss its importance to your understanding of character and/or theme in the play as a whole.

4. Choose from a play a scene which you find amusing or moving or disturbing.

Explain how the scene provokes this response and discuss how this aspect of the scene contributes to your understanding of the play as a whole.

5. Choose a play in which the dramatist creates tension at the beginning or at the end.

Explain how the tension is created and discuss how it contributes to an effective introduction or conclusion to the play.

6. Choose from a play a scene in which tension builds to a climax.

Explain how the dramatist creates and develops this tension, and discuss the extent to which the scene has thematic as well as dramatic significance.

• Choose a play in which a main theme is made clear early in the action.

• Show how the dramatist introduces the theme and discuss how successfully he or she goes on to develop it.

• Introduction - William Shakespeare’s play ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is a play in which the main themes of love, hate and fate are made clear early on in the action.

• Shakespeare introduces the theme of love through the sonnets structure.( Introduces us to setting, characters and their fate and the dramatists aim).

• The themes of hate are also presented through the rhyming scheme and the rhythm. (iambic pentameter and the stress on certain words).

• Word choice ……• Theme is developed later in the play…..

Themes Love

In the play love develops and transforms the characters of Romeo and Juliet.

For Romeo, love causes the, ‘Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms’

What is Romeo like as a character at the beginning of the play?

Romeo as a Petrarchan Lover Romeo is, at the beginning, a rather tiresome character. He is melancholy with love. He speaks in the elaborate language of love, fashionable at the time of the plays production.

He regards Rosaline as beyond all women in beauty: ‘The all-seeing sun / Ne’er saw her match since the world begun’

Romeo is very much in love with the idea of being in love.

Why the, O brawling love, O loving hate, O anything, of nothing first create! O heavy lightness, serious vanity, Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms, Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is! (1.1.176-81).

‘O me, what fray was here? Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all. Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love.’ p.29

These lines from Romeo seem to foreshadow later events in the play as the families feud will result in the destruction of the two young lovers. The comment seems to suggest that they cannot be separated; to hate is to feel pain ‘brawling love’ and so often people relish in hate ‘loving hate’.

However, Romeo’s language changes when he meets Juliet.

ROMEO: Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!It seems she hangs upon the cheek of nightLike a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear,Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.So shows a snowy dove trooping with crowsAs yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand,And, touching hers, make blessèd my rude hand.Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.

The balcony scene suggests a change from shallow affection and lust to a binding love.

Juliet

Love also changes the character of Juliet.

At the beginning she is obedient and subdued:I’ll look to like, if looking liking move. But no more deep will I endart mine eyeThan your consent gives strength to make fly.