Romeo and Juliet was written in 1595 by William Shakespeare as a play. It is classed as a tragic play, therefore involves a protagonist that has a peak in his or her life involving good fortune, but then on after good fortune turns quickly into bad, ending up in sadness and misfortune for the protagonist. All tragedies follow the same pattern, only changing the peak point and the speed of good fortune going bad. When mentioned, Shakespeare is often thought to be associated with romance and beautiful imagery, which in some cases is true, but this romance is a needle in a haystack amongst the violent, sexual, crude and malicious imagery. This is a trick that is used to make the romance stand out more, Romeo and Juliet is a very famous piece of Shakespeare's work, but is often thought to be extremely romantic and 'lovey-dovey', however with a deeper look underneath the surface it involves a lot of sex, violence, back-stabbing and corruption and isn't so romantic. William Shakespeare is an extremely well known and established writer to this day, despite his death centuries ago. This statement just shows the skill of Shakespeare, and also shows how good Romeo and Juliet is, therefore meaning that we still study it nowadays. In Shakespeare's time, writers stole each others ideas, adapting them to their own. Shakespeare may have just done this himself, but written it better, therefore receiving the great praise he still gets long past his death. At the time of Shakespeare, sonnets and particular rhyming patterns were extremely popular. Therefore Shakespeare has included some of these in Romeo and Juliet in quite clever ways actually. For example, upon the first meet, Romeo
and Juliet perform a traditional sonnet, separating it between characters in a very clever way. This is just one example amongst others that spread out over all of Shakespeare's established works and productions.
From the very first scene in the very first act, it is clear the play will most probably include lots of violence and sex. Gregory and Sampson, the characters that start off the play are very crude and violent: 'Therefore I will push Montague's men from the wall, and thrust his maids to the wall.' In simple terms this means he intends to kill or injure the Montague men and rape the Montague women: clearly a lot of hate, crudeness, violence etc. but no love. Surely if Shakespeare wanted to make it blatantly obvious that the play was completely love orientated he would have started it with something much less sexual and violent? The first act in which Shakespeare could be said to be establishing himself, he chose to use violence and sex, which signals to me the rest of the play may have love in it from reputation, but more orientated around violence and sex. Gregory and Sampson also talk about 'maidens' and how they 'will cut of their heads'. This is another violent image shortly after the last, this one talking about stealing virginity as a maiden is a virgin and 'cutting of their head' would be taking their virginity. So basically to follow a sexually violent image... is another sexually violent image. So if u didn't already expect the play to involve lots of violence and sex, then you definitely should now. Shakespeare has cleverly made certain characters more crude and violent and others. He has done this because it accentuates the other characters, making the seem much better instead of just a little. This is a trick that Shakespeare seems to have used throughout the whole play and as the main theme also. The fact there is a large amount of hate, anger, violence and sex, when love actually does occur it appears stronger, sticking out amongst the bad, much like a rose on a compost heap for example. In many cases lewd characters are used just for humour, for example the maid. Juliet's nurse, the woman who breast-fed Juliet when she was a baby and has cared for Juliet her entire life. A vulgar, long-winded, and sentimental character, the Nurse provides comic relief with her frequently inappropriate remarks and speeches. But, until a disagreement near the play's end, the Nurse is Juliet's faithful confidante and loyal intermediary in Juliet's affair with Romeo. She provides a contrast with Juliet, given that her view of love is earthy and sexual, whereas Juliet is idealistic and intense. The Nurse believes in love and wants Juliet to have a nice-looking husband, but the idea that Juliet would want to sacrifice herself for love is incomprehensible to her. The audience knows that she is an innocent character and therefore does not find her crudeness offensive, but instead funny. Whereas in the case of the males like Gregory and Sampson, the audience (if following the play intently), will understand that these characters should be seen as a threat. Therefore Gregory and Sampson may not be found as funny as the maid due to the fact the audience may actually believe what they are saying.The first kind of love that Romeo experiences in the play is infatuation. Romeo is infatuated with Roseline, but Roseline will not love Romeo as “She that sworn that she will live chaste”, which means she is going to stay a virgin, as she is a nun. At this point in the play, Romeo is very depressed, love sick and moody. This soon ends when he goes to the Capulet party to see Roseline. This is where he first sees Juliet and immediately forgets all about Roseline. The love between Romeo and Juliet is the strongest love in the play. It is certainly true love. When they first meet at the party in the Capulet mansion Romeo exclaims”Oh she doth teach the torches to burn bright” He is overcome with Juliet’s beauty.
It is in the balcony scene that we first see that the love between Romeo and Juliet is mutual. After the balcony scene they can hardly bear to leave each other. Juliet says, “Parting is such sweet sorrow. That I shall say goodnight till it be morrow!” Romeo makes a huge sacrifice for Juliet when he allows himself to be beaten by Tybalt and tries to be friends with him. “I do protest I n ever injured thee but love thee better than thou canst desire”.
When Romeo kills Tybalt Juliet still sides with him and does not hold it against him. “Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?” When Romeo is banished from Verona to Mantura for killing Tybalt he is devastated, he even thinks death would be no worse than banishment because he won’t get to be with Juliet.. “ Ha banishment? Be merciful, say death.”
Romeo does not go to Mantura until after he has spent the night with Juliet. In the morning Juliet is desperate for Romeo to stay with her. “It is not yet day, it was the nightingale and not the lark.” When Juliet finds out that she will be forced to marry Paris she is so desperate that she decides to fake her own death by taking poison to make her sleep. The plan goes wrong and Romeo does not realise that she is not really dead, he decides to commit suicide so he can be with her. “Well Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight”. When Juliet wakes to find him dead beside her she stabs herself with his dagger “O happy dagger! This is thy sheath: there rust and let me die”
In the end we know that it was true love as they were willing to die for each other.
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Apr 23rd, 2009
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