Romeo and Juliet
Two households…
Both alike in dignity…
In fair Verona,
where we lay our scene…
From ancient grudge
break to new mutiny…
Where civil blood
makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal
loins of these two foes,
A pair of star-cross’d
lovers take their life.
Romeo and Juliet
• Written about 1595
• The play’s most direct
source is a poem by
Arthur Brooke, which
in turn was based on a
popular Italian story.
• Considered a tragedy
• Set in Verona, Italy
Interesting Bits
• The much-misunderstood
line “Wherefore art thou
Romeo?” (2.2) means
“Why are you Romeo?” not
“Where are you, Romeo?”
• West Side Story (Movie)
based on R&J
• In Verona, Italy, one can
visit the Juliet’s fake
balcony, touch the right
breast of her statue for luck,
and write love graffiti on
the wall
What’s the play about?
• Romeo and Juliet is
about love, of course,
but it is about a
particular kind of
love: love that
extinguishes itself.
• This story is fixated
on the idea of
opposites,
contradictions, and
opposing pairs, and
the focus throughout
is on things that
consume each other in
a flash.
• This tragedy has less to
do with the results of
the choices the
principles make than it
does with the
PREORDAINED
FAILURE OF
YOUTHFUL
PASSION—the passion
of both awakening
physical love and the
sudden violence of a
street quarrel.
• We know that
the lovers will
die by the sixth
line of this play.
• RJ relies heavily
on notions of
fate, destiny,
and accident.
• Look for ongoing
references to
light/darkness,
explosions and
flashes, stars,
fate.
Cast of Characters
Romeo
-
Is a Montague
18 years old
Cute, smart, sensitive
Impulsive and
immature
- Romantic heart
- EMO
- He doesn’t care about
the feud
Lady Montague
• Romeo’s Mom
• Dies of grief for love
of her son
Lord Montague
• Romeo’s dad
• Worries about
Romeo’s sadness
• Patriarch (head man)
of the Montagues
• Loves his son
Balthasar
• Romeo’s servant
• He goes to tell Romeo
that Juliet is dead (he
doesn’t know that it is
a fake death)
Abraham or Abram
• Lord Montague’s
servant
• Fights Sampson and
Gregory in the
beginning
Benvolio
• Romeo’s cousin & friend
• Tries to break-up fights. Keep the peace.
• Counsels Romeo about love and make him feel better.
•
•
•
•
•
Mercutio
Related to the prince
Good friends W/ Romeo
Bad temper
Doesn’t like emotional people
Believes love is about the physical contact and nothing else.
Juliet
• -is a Capulet, 13 yrs old
• Begins as a naïve child,
• She doesn’t have as much
freedom as Romeo b/c she
is a girl
• SO she sneaks around to
see Romeo
• She totally trusts Romeo
• Juliet is very close with
the nurse.
Lord Capulet
• Juliet’s dad
• He truly loves Juliet, but
does not know her feelings
and dreams
• Bad temper when things
don’t go his way
• He commands respect and
propriety
• Patriarch of the Capulets
Lady Capulet
• Juliet’s mom
• Ineffectual mother- relies on the nurse to “mother” Juliet
• She married young, had Juliet around age 14, and is eager
for her to marry Paris
Nurse
• Has cared for Juliet
since she was born
• Vulgar, long-winded,
loyal and a confidante
to Juliet
• At end though, they
have a falling-out over
Romeo
Gregory & Sampson
• Servants to the
Capulets
• Start a fight w/
Montagues at the
beginning of the play
Tybalt
• Juliet’s cousin
• Vain, fashionable, very into proper etiquette,
prideful
• He is well-trained in sword fighting and
someone to fear
• He loathes Montagues
• “Cat”
Prince Escalus
• Prince of Verona
• He is concerned with
maintaining public
peace
• Related to Mercutio
and Paris
Paris
• Related to the prince
• Preferred by the
Capulets to marry
Juliet
• He treats Juliet
inappropriately after
Capulet says he can
marry her.
Rosaline
• The woman who
Romeo is obsessed
with at the beginning
of the play.
The
Apothecary
• “a pharmacist”
• He sells the poison to
Romeo.
• Values money more
than morals
Friar Lawrence
• Friend to Romeo and Juliet
• Kind, civic-minded
• Secretly marries R & J in hopes that their
marriage will end the feud.
• He is a Catholic holy man and also familiar
with potions and herbs.
Friar John
• A Catholic holy man
asked to tell Romeo
about Juliet's false
death.
• He is held up in a
quarantined house
and so never gets the
message to Romeo.
How we will dramatize the play…
• Any person of any gender can read any role.
• There are no Elizabethans around to tell us
how to say the words, so readers do not
need to worry about pronunciation too
much; rather, they should do the best they
can.
• Readers do not need to act, but they do need
to read with inflection.
Each time we read you will be
reading with a focus:
• Director:
– Summarizes: Who are these guys?
– What’s going on here? How do you know?
• Stage Manager:
– Visualizes and explains: what does the action on the
stage look like?
– Where and how does the motif of light/dark appear?
• Acting Coach:
– Interpret characterization via literary devices (simile, metaphor,
puns, etc.)
Literary Terms to
Know
• Literary Analysis:
– the study or examination of a literary work or
author.
• Literary Devices:
– figures of speech or tools a writer uses to add
layers of meaning to the text
Tragedy (Shakespearean)
Shakespeare's tragic works are similar enough to the Aristotelian
model that it is a useful point of reference for these "aspects":
1. A faulty or corrupt society, or at least some particular characters
who are decidedly more wicked than the tragic hero.
2. A tragic hero: by Aristotle's definition, a man who is neither
completely evil nor good, but somewhere in between. The
audience will usually identify or sympathize with the tragic
hero, instinctively.
3. Hamartia on the part of the tragic hero. Aristotle's term means
"mistake," but we really have to divide the concept into two
things:
Tragedy (Shakespearean)
(a) a chronic shortcoming in character, often called a "tragic flaw."
In Shakespeare, this often takes the form of metaphorical
"blindness" or defective imagination: it is usually related,
paradoxically, to the tragic hero's ideals of some sort; and it
leads him into metaphorical "madness" (usually referred to
explicitly) which is barely distinguishable (if at all) from real
madness. A particular result of this idealism/madness is that the
hero will imagine the people around him as worse than they are,
often resorting to animal imagery in his language; and ironically
he becomes more "corrupt" or dangerous than the social
corruption he deplores.
(b) a specific mistaken act, related to or caused by the "flaw."
Comic Relief
• the inclusion of a humorous character, scene or
witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often
to relieve tension
• In R & J, look for moments of comic relief that
help “relieve” the tragedy of the situation
Dramatic Foil
• a character that contrasts with another
character (usually the protagonist) and so
highlights various facets of the main
character's personality
• A character whose purpose is to show off
another character
– Benvolio for Tybalt
• look for others in RJ
Prose
• Ordinary writing that is not
poetry, drama, or song
–Only characters in the lower
social classes speak this way
in Shakespeare’s plays
–Why do you suppose that is?
Blank Verse
• a type of poetry, distinguished by having a
regular meter, but no rhyme
• Much of R & J is written in it:
– unrhymed verse
– iambic (unstressed, stressed)
– pentameter( 5 “feet” to a line)
• ends up to be 10 syllable lines
Iambic Pentameter
• iambic pentameter- describes a particular
rhythm that the words established in each
line. That rhythm is measured in small
groups of syllables; these small groups of
syllables are called "feet". The word
"iambic" describes the type of foot that is
used. The word "pentameter" indicates that
a line has five of these "feet".
Couplet
• Two lines that rhyme in any poem or
blank verse.
• Always concludes a sonnet.
Monologue
• an extended uninterrupted speech by a character in
a drama. The character may be speaking his or her
thoughts aloud, directly addressing another
character, or speaking to the audience
• One person speaking on stage > may be other
character on stage too
– ex > the Prince of Verona commanding the
Capulets and Montagues to cease feuding
Aside
• aside—a line “quietly” spoken by an actor
to the audience but not intended for others
on the stage
Direct Address
• Words that tell the reader who is
being addressed:
• “A right fair mark, fair coz, is
soonest hit.”
• “Ah, my mistresses, which of you
all/ Will now deny to dance?”
Puns
• pun—a joke based on the use of a word, or more than one
word, that has more than one meaning but the same sound.
Mercutio—"Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance."
Romeo—"Not I, believe me. You have dancing shoes / With
nimble soles; I have a soul of lead…“ (I iv 13-5)
Romeo has used the word "sole" when referring to Mercutio's
shoes, then made a pun by referring to his own "soul."
Motif
• motif—a recurrent thematic element in a literary
or artistic work
Motifs in Romeo and Juliet are:
1. opposites, contradictions, and opposing pairs
2. light and dark imagery / day and night
3. time
Light and Dark
Look for references to light
and dark:
• References to “light” words, such as
“torches,” “the sun,” adjectives that
describe light (“bright”)
• References to “dark” words, such as
“night” and “gloom”
Time
Look for references to time:
•References to “time” words, such as
“hours”
•References to the passage of time,
especially if it seems “rushed”
Foreshadowing
foreshadowing—a literary device in
which an author drops subtle hints about
plot developments to come later in the
story
“O God, I have an ill-divining soul!
Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low,
as one dead in the bottom of a tomb”
Simile
• simile—a figure of speech that makes a
comparison between two unlike things,
using a word such as like, as, than, or
resembles
“Love goes toward love as schoolboys from
their books”
Metaphor
metaphor—a figure of speech that makes a
comparison between two unlike things without the
use of specific words of comparison
“Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs”
Romeo – “But, soft! what light through yonder
window breaks? / It is the east, and Juliet is the
sun.” (Act II Sc. 2)
Personification
personification—a figure of speech in which an object or
animal is given human feelings, thoughts, or attitudes
“o, happy dagger”
“The all-seeing sun ne’er saw her match since first the
world began.”
Juliet— “For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night
/ Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back. / Come,
gentle night, come, loving, black-brow’d night”
(Act III Sc. 2)
Oxymorons
oxymoron—a figure of speech that
combines opposite or contradictory terms
in a brief phrase
“honorable villain, fiend angelical”
Juliet – “Beautiful tyrant! fiend
angelical!” (Act III Sc.2)
Paradoxes
paradox—a statement or situation with seemingly
contradictory or incompatible components. On closer
examination, however, the combination of these
components is indeed appropriate.
Juliet—"O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!" (III ii 75)
While Juliet knows that Romeo is not a serpent nor does
he have a face full of flowers, her use of these
descriptions show how paradoxically he is her lover and
the murderer of her cousin at the same time.
Dramatic Irony
• A contradiction between what a character
thinks and what the reader/audience
knows to be true
• when words and actions possess a
significance that the listener or audience
understands, but the speaker or character
does not
Verbal Irony
• Words used to suggest the opposite of
what is meant
• when a speaker says one thing but
means another, or when a literal
meaning is contrary to its intended
effect. An example of this is sarcasm.
Situational Irony
• An event occurs that directly contradicts
the expectations of the characters, the
reader, or the audience
• When the result of an action is contrary to
the desired or expected effect. Likewise,
cosmic irony is disparity between human
desires and the harsh realities of the outside
world (or the whims of the gods)
• Alanis Morissette video
• Bo Burnham video
Soliloquy
• soliloquy—a speech by a character,
thinking aloud; it allows the audience to
“listen in” to the private feelings and
thoughts of a character (no other character
is present on the stage)
Juliet’s speech before she swallows the
sleeping potion.
Apostrophe
• apostrophe—a technique by which the
writer (character) addresses an inanimate
object, an idea, or a person who is either
dead or absent
“Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last
embrace!”
The
End