Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Full title The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare's primary source for Romeo and Juliet was a poem by Arthur Brooke called The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Iuliet, written in 1562. He also could have known the popular tale of Romeo and Juliet from a collection by William Painter, entitled The Palace of Pleasure, which was written sometime before 1580. Shakespeare also likely read the three sources on which Brooke's poem and Painter's story were based -- namely, Giulietta e Romeo, a novella by the Italian author Matteo Bandello, written in 1554; a story in a collection called Il Novellio, by the widely-popular fifteenth-century writer Masuccio Salernitano; and the Historia Novellamente Ritrovata di Due Nobili Amanti or A Story Newly Found of two Noble Lovers, written by Luigi Da Porto and published in 1530.
Form, Structure, and Plot Romeo and Juliet starts off with a prologue that tells the general outline of the story foreshadowing future events. The prologue is followed by the rest of the play which is in 5 acts. Unlike some of Shakespeares other plays, most, if not all, of the main actions are onstage. The single plot is chronological and easy to follow. There are no flashbacks and no dream scenes. The attention is generally paid to Romeo as the focus follows him through the play. Exposition - The exposition starts with the prologue and the first fight setting the stage and the mood of the rivaling families. The prologue states that these two families have been feuding for a long time and that two lovers will die because of it. The fight shows the extent of the feud. Initial incident - The first incident that set the story moving happened at the party. Romeo meets Juliet and falls in love with her at first sight. Rising action - The action starts to rise greatly at the balcony scene where each profess their love for each other. They decide to get married and plan it out. The rising action continues through the marriage, and the separation. Climax - The climax is the inacting of the fathers plan. Juliet pretends to be dead, and Romeo does not know it and commits suicide. Falling action - The action begins to fall after Juliet commits suicide after finding Romeo dead. It continues as both families find their children dead.

Denouement - Escalus tells everyone that the deaths are the result of their feuds and everyone feels guilty.

Setting The play takes place in Verona, Italy during Shakespeares time, around the 1500s. Since the play was performed long ago in a simple open theater, backdrops were not used and there were only a few props. Most of the scenery had to be imagined by the audience. Since backdrops could not be used to create mood and atmosphere, the atmosphere had to be created by the few props they used and by the acting of the actors. For example, the actors might have used swords and knives for the fighting scenes, but they probably could not change the backdrops between scenes or acts. Themes ( The greatest theme in this play is that of love. This play is known for love as many phrases from this play have become famous for the expressions of love. For example, The term Romeo has become universal for a ladys man. The balcony scene is known as the place where they two lovers professed their love for each other. This play shows two lovers doing everything they could to be together despite their feuding family, and also despite death. This play also deals with the idea of fate like many of Shakespeares other plays. The fate caused by the circumstances of the feuding families predicted that these two would not be able to live together with the complete happiness of their families. The deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt resulted partly from the marriage, not to mention the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. It seems that although they did so much to stay together, fate would not allow it.) The Theme of Light and Drakness(duality): Take [Romeo] and cut him out into little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garrish sun. (3.2.23-6) Here Romeo, transformed into shimmering immortality, becomes the very definition of light, outshining the sun itself. However, despite all the aforementioned positive references to light in the play, it ultimately takes on a negative role, forcing the lovers to part at dawn: Romeo. It was the lark, the herald of the morn, No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east. Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountaintops. I must be gone and live, or stay and die. (3.5.6-11) From this point on, darkness becomes the central motif. Romeo exclaims: "More light and light: more dark and dark our woes!" (3.5.36). And, as Peter Quennell writes, "...the beauty and brevity of love itself -- that 'brief light', doomed to quick extinction, celebrated in Catullus' famous lyric -- are set off by the 'perpetual

darkness' of ancient Capulets' sepulchral vault" (Shakespeare: A Biography,150). The final indication that darkness has triumphed over light comes from The Prince: "A glooming peace this morning with it brings/The sun for sorrow will not show his head" (5.3.304-5). There are several other examples one could cite, and, despite Shakespeare's masterful poetic styling, many critics argue that these continual references to light are overkill, illustrative of Shakespeare at his most immature stage of The Theme of Time Early in the play, Romeo is painfully aware of the passage of time as he pines for Rosaline: "sad hours seem long" (1.1.159). Mercutio is the first to address the problem of "wasted time", and after his complaint, a sudden shift occurs and time quickens to rapid movement. Capulet laments that the years are passing too fast, and Juliet cautions that her love for Romeo is "too rash, too unadvis'd, too sudden...too like the lightening" (2.2.120). Soon time begins to aid in the destruction of the lovers. Capulet rushes ahead the marriage date, insisting Juliet wed Paris a day early, and thus forcing her into swift and, ultimately, fatal action. "The fast-paced world that Shakespeare builds up around his characters allows little possibility for adherence to Friar Lawrence's counsel of "Wisely and slow." In such a world to stumble tragically is surely no less inevitable than it is for Lear to go mad in the face of human ingratitude." (Cole, 17). As with Shakespeare's manipulation of the theme of light, it can be said that his reliance on time as an increasingly menacing force against the lovers is immature and artificial. The Theme of Destiny In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare explores the theme of fate by allowing the audience to be party to his characters destiny. In the opening lines of the play the audience is told what is going to happen to the lovers: a pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life. Throughout the story, the audience is put in an omnipotent, god-like position from the start encouraging them to think about fate and to what extent our actions are free. Because we know Romeo and Juliets fate from the outset we are constantly hoping that they will take a different course perhaps that Romeo will arrive just after Juliet has woken. However, their fate is sealed and we are forced to question our own destiny and ability to make free choices. Characters Romeo Romeo may appear at first glance a changeable, inconsistent character. Perhaps the playwright's own idea of Romeo is not at first clear, or it may be that his youth the strange and disconcerting circumstances in which he finds himself explain the apparent changes in Romeo's attitudes and behaviour. Though the action of the play occurs over a period of a few days only, Shakespeare gives the impression of the passage of a longer time, and in the course of the drama Romeo appears to be aged by his experiences. So while Tybalt, in Act 3; scene 1, addresses Romeo as "boy", in the play's final scene Romeo calls Paris "good gentle youth".

The Romeo of the early part of the play is definitely boyish but his serious, pensive and fatalistic traits mark him off from his less reflective companions especially from Mercutio, who, with his blunt speech, his dislike of pretence, his cynical philosophy and his reduction of all love to brutal lust, serves as an excellent foil for Romeo. Romeo's unrequited love for Rosaline may be evidence of his pessimistic and perverse character. It seems that Rosaline is attractive not for any easily identified perfections, so much as for the fact of her being out of reach (as a Capulet, and sworn to chastity), almost as if Romeo wishes to be rejected, so that he can make a show of his despair. It is a pose that invites criticism or even outright ridicule from Romeo's fellows, and Romeo appears to relish the argument, which is provoked by these comments, and by his defence of his infatuation. Convinced fatalists will argue that Romeo, ironically, is fulfilling the decrees of fate, even as he claims to be free of its influence, because he is fated to die at this point. Romeo himself, speaking to no-one who is able to hear him, believes that in taking the poison, he makes himself free of the "unauspicious stars", under the yoke of which he has suffered so much. The deeper irony is that the news that can, even now, save him will come too late not because of the operation of inexorable fortune, but because of his own excessive haste in his reaction to Balthasar's news. The Nurse When we first meet the Nurse, we see her as a coarse and talkative, but well-intentioned woman, without affectation, and having Juliet's best interests at heart. Finally we discover, as Juliet does (passing judgement for us) that the Nurse does not really understand Juliet's love for Romeo and her faithfulness. The Nurse is shown to be essentially lewd and promiscuous. The first thing that strikes us about the Nurse is her manner of speaking. She is extremely garrulous, prone to trivial and irrelevant or inappropriate reminiscences, Thus, when Lady Capulet broaches the subject of Juliet's marriage, her reference to her daughter's age provokes from the Nurse a stream of recollections of Juliet's infancy and childhood. This shows the Nurse to be both long-winded and insensitive to the importance Lady Capulet accords to the subject of her daughter's future. In her speeches the Nurse is rarely logical: thus, her evidence for determining Juliet's age is derived by estimating her birth to have occurred three years before a celebrated earthquake (three years being an approximation of the time taken for Juliet's weaning); in her advising Juliet to take Paris as husband in place of Romeo, the Nurse again produces confused reasoning, changing her ground several times. The Nurse's conversation is marked by frequent and un-self-conscious use of coarse and earthy expressions: she is not able (or does not realise that she ought) to refrain from such coarseness even when speaking to Lady Capulet happily referring to her late husband's improper prediction concerning Juliet, and comparing the bump on Juliet's forehead to "a young cockerel's stone".

Juliet Having not quite reached her fourteenth birthday, Juliet is of an age that stands on the border between immaturity and maturity. At the plays beginning however she seems merely an obedient, sheltered, nave child. Though many girls her ageincluding her motherget married, Juliet has not given the subject any thought. When Lady Capulet mentions Pariss interest in marrying Juliet, Juliet dutifully responds that she will try to see if she can love him, a response that seems childish in its obedience and in its immature conception of love. Juliet gives glimpses of her determination, strength, and sobermindedness, in her earliest scenes, and offers a preview of the woman she will become during the four-day span of Romeo and Juliet. While Lady Capulet proves unable to quiet the Nurse, Juliet succeeds with one word (also in Act 1, scene 3). In addition, even in Juliets dutiful acquiescence to try to love Paris, there is some seed of steely determination. Juliet promises to consider Paris as a possible husband to the precise degree her mother desires. While an outward show of obedience, such a statement can also be read as a refusal through passivity. Juliet will accede to her mothers wishes, but she will not go out of her way to fall in love with Paris. Like many women in Shakespeare's plays, Juliet has very little freedom, but she is connected to the outside world through her closest friend, the Nurse. However, Juliet is prepared to abandon the Nurse entirely when she turns against Romeo. Juliet matures throughout the plot of the play and is eventually prepared to abandon her family in order to be with Romeo.