Barron's Booknotes (Drama Edition Plus)/BAR1DRAMA_4.ISO/source/bn_srom.txt

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                                      1596

                             WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S
                                ROMEO AND JULIET

                                by Sharon Linnea

                                 SERIES EDITOR
                            Michael Spring, Editor,
                      Literary Cavalcade, Scholastic Inc.

                                ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
        We would like to thank Loreto Todd, Senior Lecturer in English,
     University of Leeds, England, for preparing the chapter on Elizabethan
                             English in this book.
  We would like to acknowledge the many painstaking hours of work Holly Hughes
  and Thomas F. Hirsch have devoted to making the Book Notes series a success.

            (C) Copyright 1984 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc.
   ■iElectronically Enhanced Text (C) Copyright 1993, World Library, Inc.■I

CONTENTS
                               CONTENTS
                        SECTION............................ ■iSEARCH ON■I

      THE AUTHOR AND HIS TIMES............................. ■iSROMAUTH■I

      THE PLAY
      The Plot............................................. ■iSROMPLOT■I
      The Characters....................................... ■iSROMCHAR■I
      Other Elements
           Setting......................................... ■iSROMSETT■I
           Themes.......................................... ■iSROMTHEM■I
           Style........................................... ■iSROMSTYL■I
           Source.......................................... ■iSROMSOUR■I
           Form and Structure.............................. ■iSROMFORM■I
           Elizabethan English............................. ■iSROMELIZ■I
      THE PLAY............................................. ■iSROMPLAY■I

      A STEP BEYOND
      Tests and Answers.................................... ■iSROMTEST■I
      Term Paper Ideas..................................... ■iSROMTERM■I
      The Critics.......................................... ■iSROMCRIT■I

      Advisory Board....................................... ■iSROMADVB■I

      Bibliography......................................... ■iSROMBIBL■I

AUTHOR_AND_HIS_TIMES
                       THE AUTHOR AND HIS TIMES             (SROMAUTH)
-
  There have always been lovers, and we've always loved hearing
stories about them. Although it's about 400 years old, Romeo and
Juliet is one of the most popular stories ever told. It's got all
the right ingredients: teenagers sharing forbidden love, their witty
friends and troublesome parents, fights, parties, murders, and
nights of love.
  Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet tells us a lot about human nature. It
also tells us about the society and times in which it was written; and
about the passionate, spirited, witty young man who wrote it.
  The story was popular in England before Shakespeare made it into a
play in 1596. The central problem in Romeo and Juliet is a deadly feud
between two powerful families. The English had been involved in a
deadly feud for years. This one wasn't between powerful families,
but within England's royal family.
  Elizabeth I was Queen when Shakespeare wrote this play. Her
father, Henry VIII, had left the Roman Catholic Church to found the
Church of England, usually considered to be a Protestant denomination.
When he died, his oldest daughter Mary, who was a Catholic, eventually
became Queen. She persecuted and killed members of the Church of
England with the same zeal that Henry had used against Catholics. When
Mary died, her Protestant sister Elizabeth became Queen. This
violent tug of war left its mark on the country. The English had
seen how feuding in one family had divided a country and caused
thousands of deaths. Even though Elizabeth tried to be nonviolent
and tolerant of Catholics, her Catholic cousin Mary, Queen of Scots,
tried to start a civil war and take the throne. Elizabeth had Mary
beheaded only nine years before Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet.
  Even today in Ireland, Juliet and Romeo could be Catholic and
Protestant rather than Capulet and Montague. For the English of
Shakespeare's day, the play was that immediate.
                                         {AUTHOR_AND_HIS_TIMES ^paragraph 5}
  Both the Protestants and Catholics of that time had a very strong
feeling that God ordered the universe in a specific way. When
something evil, like the feud among the Capulets and Montagues,
broke the laws of this order, that evil had to be checked. In Romeo
and Juliet, two innocent lives must be sacrificed to restore order.
  London, like Verona in the story, was a thriving, busy city. Because
it was crowded and walled in, violence could spread quickly. Public
fights were considered a serious offense. Londoners would have
judged the Capulets' and Montagues' street fights very harshly.
  Politics aside, London was a good place to live in the 1590s. Europe
was in the middle of the Renaissance, which refers to the "rebirth" of
learning. Some of this exciting spirit had reached London, England's
capital and cultural center. Here, Elizabeth had her royal court;
here, musicians, actors, poets, and painters came to learn and work.
Many young artists left their small towns for the cultural Mecca of
London, and William Shakespeare was one of them.
  Who was this country boy who turned the moral fable of Romeo and
Juliet into a hot-blooded story of passion, love, hate, comedy,
revenge, and murder?
  No biographies of Shakespeare were written during his lifetime.
But what we can't learn about him from public records in his
hometown of Stratford-on-Avon, we can fill in by reading his plays and
poems.
                                        {AUTHOR_AND_HIS_TIMES ^paragraph 10}
  There are many reasons the story of Romeo and Juliet could have
appealed to the 32-year-old Shakespeare. He was apparently familiar
with feelings of passion and forbidden love. When he was only 19, he
quickly married Anne Hathaway, who was three months pregnant. Anne was
eight years older than he, uneducated, and the daughter of a poor
farmer who lived outside Stratford. She was probably not the match
that John Shakespeare would have chosen for William, who was his
oldest son.
  In Romeo and Juliet, Lord Capulet is quite a social climber, and
so was Shakespeare's father. John Shakespeare was born to a family
of tenant farmers, but he wanted to be rich. He married the daughter
of his family's wealthy landlord, and moved into the small city of
Stratford to start a business. In the play, Lord Capulet is determined
that Juliet will marry Paris, a wealthy young man from a higher social
class.
  William went to school in Stratford, where he studied literature and
learned Latin. But he probably learned how to speak like someone
from the upper class from his mother, Mary. The main characters in
Romeo and Juliet (and many of his other plays) have the proper
speech of the gentry. Mary Shakespeare came from a Catholic family
of landowners. Although it was illegal to be Catholic, it seems she
taught William to respect her religion. Shakespeare was the only
playwright of his day to treat Catholic characters, like Friar
Lawrence, with respect.
  After William and Anne's marriage, the young couple probably moved
in with his parents and five younger brothers and sisters. Their
daughter Susanna was born six months later, and two years later they
had twins named Hamnet and Judith.
  Soon after this, William left Stratford under mysterious
circumstances. There is a legend that he was forced to flee
Stratford (much as Romeo fled Verona) because he was caught poaching
on a private estate.
                                        {AUTHOR_AND_HIS_TIMES ^paragraph 15}
  Whatever the case, he left his family and went to live in London. He
became a well-known actor and playwright. By the time he wrote Romeo
and Juliet, he had already written six very successful plays- and he
was only at the beginning of his career!
  In those days, poets were more respected than playwrights, and so
Shakespeare decided to take time out and make a name for himself as
a poet. He was a success. His two long Romantic poems, The Rape of
Lucrece and Venus and Adonis, became bestsellers. He then experimented
with other popular poetic forms, such as sonnets. Soon after this,
he wrote Romeo and Juliet. The storyline is similar to the stories
of the Romantic poems he had just written. And he wrote sonnets and
other kinds of poems right into the dialogue of the play!
  We don't know if William and Anne had a happy marriage, but we do
know that Shakespeare loved his children. It's interesting to note
that he made Juliet 13 years old- the same age at the time as his
daughter Susanna. Shakespeare could also understand the Capulets'
and Montagues' grief over their childrens' deaths. Shakespeare's
only son, Hamnet, died the year he wrote the play.
  Romeo and Juliet was a hit from the beginning. That very year,
Shakespeare was rich enough to buy his money-conscious father a family
coat of arms. His father, who once thought William was a rebellious
young man, now called him "the best of the family." Legend has it that
he told his customers that William got from him the earthy humor
that he put into Mercutio and the Nurse. Wherever Shakespeare's talent
came from, it makes Romeo and Juliet moving and unforgettable.

THE_PLOT
                               THE PLAY
-
                               THE PLOT                     (SROMPLOT)
-
  It's a hot July Sunday in Verona, and we find the servants of the
Capulets out looking for trouble. What better way to start
something, they figure, than to insult the servants of their
masters' old enemies the Montagues? The plan works, and before long
servants, friends, relatives- and, finally, Lord Capulet and Lord
Montague themselves- are at each other's throats. Verona's Prince
Escalus has to personally break up the fight, and he isn't happy about
it. He heavily fines both families and warns them that if they fight
in the streets again, they'll face the death penalty.
  Lord and Lady Montague are glad their son Romeo wasn't involved in
the brawl, but they're worried about him anyway. They ask Benvolio,
Romeo's cousin and best friend, why Romeo has been off by himself so
much lately, and Benvolio soon finds out: Romeo is in love. But the
object of Romeo's affections, a gorgeous girl named Rosaline, couldn't
care less, and Romeo is nursing his grief. To cheer him up, Benvolio
suggests that they disguise themselves and secretly attend the
Capulets' ball that night. Rosaline will be there, and Benvolio
promises to find Romeo a girl who will make Rosaline seem like a
crow in comparison. Romeo has a sudden, mysterious feeling of
danger, but agrees to go along with Benvolio and their witty friend
Mercutio.
  Meanwhile, excitement is high at the Capulets' house. Not only are
they preparing for a big party, but Count Paris- a relative to the
Prince, and Verona's most eligible bachelor- has come to ask Lord
Capulet if he can marry his only daughter, Juliet. Capulet claims that
Juliet is too young to be married yet, but he's obviously thrilled.
Thirteen-year-old Juliet is beautiful and full of life. She's never
been in love, and she promises to do her best to like Paris when she
meets him at the dance.
                                                     {THE_PLOT ^paragraph 5}
  But that night, Juliet meets Romeo, and suddenly Paris and
Rosaline are forgotten. The two see each other across the room,
meet, and by the time they kiss, they are madly in love. But all is
not well. Tybalt, Juliet's quick-tempered cousin, recognizes Romeo.
Tybalt thinks this Montague's gatecrashing is a terrible insult, and
he vows revenge.
  Only after the evening is over do Romeo and Juliet separately
discover the identity of their new loves.
  After the party, Romeo hides from his noisy friends and unexpectedly
finds himself in an orchard beneath Juliet's window. In the romantic
and sexy balcony scene, Romeo and Juliet joyfully swear their love for
each other, and decide to marry in secret.
  Friar Lawrence, a Franciscan monk and father figure to Romeo, is
very worried about the suddenness of their passion. He finally
agrees to marry them, hoping that their wedding will eventually end
the bloody fighting between their families.
  The couples' secret world of love is soon shattered. Fresh from
the wedding, Romeo finds Mercutio and Benvolio with Tybalt, who has
come looking for revenge. Tybalt calls Romeo a villain and dares him
to fight, but Romeo refuses. He calls Tybalt "cousin" and swears he
loves the name Capulet as much as his own. Everyone is amazed at
Romeo's refusal, and the hot-blooded Mercutio takes Tybalt's challenge
instead. When Romeo rushes between them to stop the fight, Tybalt
kills Mercutio.
                                                    {THE_PLOT ^paragraph 10}
  Romeo is filled with guilt and outrage at his friend's death, and he
runs, furious, to catch Tybalt. It's a battle of life and death, and
Romeo wins. But as soon as Tybalt is dead, Romeo realizes the rashness
of his act. "I am fortune's fool!" he cries as his friends hurry him
off the streets into hiding.
  Juliet is excitedly getting ready for her wedding night when her
nurse brings her the bad news: her cousin Tybalt is dead, and Prince
Escalus has banished Romeo from Verona. The girl is overcome by grief-
for Tybalt, but mostly for her new husband. The Nurse finally tells
her that Romeo is hiding in the Friar's cell. Some of Juliet's joy
returns as they arrange for one stolen night of love before Romeo
has to flee Verona.
  Unfortunately, things go from bad to worse. Lord Capulet feels
terrible about his family's grief over Tybalt- and Juliet seems to
be more upset than anyone else. He quickly arranges something he
thinks will make everyone feel better- Juliet's marriage, that very
week, to Paris. Even as Lady Capulet comes to bring that news to
Juliet on Tuesday morning, Juliet and Romeo are saying their
heartbroken farewells.
  What can Juliet do? Her desperate refusals to marry Paris
infuriate her parents. Her father threatens to disown her if she
doesn't obey. Even her nurse, who knows the situation, suggests it
might be best to marry the Count. With nowhere else to turn, Juliet
runs to Friar Lawrence.
  Their only hope is a risky plan. The friar gives Juliet a drug
that will stop her breath and make her seem dead for 42 hours.
During this time he will send for Romeo in Mantua, and Romeo and the
Friar will be in the tomb when she wakes up. Romeo will take her
away with him, and the friar will try to calm everyone down, and
announce their marriage so they can come back to live in Verona.
Juliet eagerly takes the drink.
                                                    {THE_PLOT ^paragraph 15}
  The next morning, when the Nurse comes to prepare Juliet for her
wedding, she finds the seemingly lifeless girl. The Capulets' day of
joy turns to sorrow, as their only daughter's wedding turns into her
funeral instead.
  Friar Lawrence has sent a message to Romeo, but unfortunately, the
message-bearer is quarantined by the plague. Romeo's servant,
Balthasar, is the first to reach Romeo, and he tells him the sad
news that Juliet is dead. Romeo, beside himself with grief, buys
poison and rides full-speed toward the Capulets' tomb. He arrives to
find Paris mourning for Juliet, and when Paris refuses to let Romeo
pass, the two men fight, and Romeo kills Paris. The Count's last
request is to be buried with Juliet, and Romeo grants his wish. Inside
the tomb, Romeo begs forgiveness of the newly dead Tybalt, but his
attention is at once arrested by Juliet. He can't believe how
beautiful she still is, and he vows to stay with his new bride
eternally. He swallows the poison, and quickly dies.
  Friar Lawrence hurries to the tomb to be there when Juliet wakes up.
When he arrives, he finds Paris and Romeo dead. Juliet awakens just as
Paris' servant is bringing the watchmen. She sees her dead lover,
and refuses to leave the tomb, although Friar Lawrence panics and runs
away. Juliet hears people coming, so she acts quickly: she grabs
Romeo's dagger and stabs herself.
  The tragic deaths of their two children unite the Capulets and
Montagues in grief. The prince admonishes that "heaven finds means
to kill your joys with love." In death, rather than in life, the two
lovers have brought peace to their families.

THE_CHARACTERS
                            THE CHARACTERS                  (SROMCHAR)
-
  Romeo and Juliet is more than a story about love and tragic fate;
it's a story about people. Shakespeare's characters are like all of
us: they have strengths and weaknesses, a temper and a sense of humor.
The plot doesn't just happen to them, it happens because of them.
How each character thinks, and how he or she chooses to act determines
what happens.
  In Romeo and Juliet, there are two kinds of characters, maturing
characters and static characters.
-
  1. MATURING CHARACTERS
  These characters cause events to happen because they grow and change
through the course of the play. Instead of being set in their ways,
they think things through and react differently to different
situations.
                                               {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 5}
  Characters in this category understand the seriousness of Romeo
and Juliet's situation, and are affected by it.
-
  2. STATIC CHARACTERS
  They don't change. These people force the play to end the way it
does, simply by being themselves and acting the way we expect them
to act.
-
                                              {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 10}
                         MATURING CHARACTERS
-
  JULIET
  In Juliet, we watch something fascinating: a girl blossoming into
a woman in the space of five days.
  Before we watch this progression, let's look at some aspects of
Juliet's character that stay the same.
                                              {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 15}
-
  1. SHE IS YOUNG
  In the Italian version of this story, Juliet was 18; in Brooke's
poem (the first English version) she was 16. Why does Shakespeare make
her so young- "not yet fourteen"? In Shakespeare's day, it was legal
for girls to marry at 12, but such early marriages were very rare.
  Two possible reasons are: Shakespeare's daughter Susanna was about
13 when he wrote the play; and the English thought that Italian
girls matured early. It is also possible that Shakespeare simply
changed her age for dramatic reasons.
  In any case, Juliet's age is a key to her character. She's
innocent and full of hope. (This is not to say that she is naive.
She couldn't live around her nurse without understanding sex, or
live with her parents without seeing some of the realities and
problems of marriage.) Because she's so young, we feel intense
sympathy for her.
                                              {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 20}
-
  2. SHE IS BEAUTIFUL
  Both Romeo and Paris fall in love with Juliet on sight alone. Before
they're even introduced, Paris asks to marry her, and Romeo is
"bewitched by the charm of looks." Her beauty inspires some of Romeo's
most famous poetry:
-
          O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
                                              {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 25}
          It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
          As a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear
          Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
                                                   (I, v, 46-49)
-
                                              {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 30}
  Even in the tomb, he is amazed that "Death, that hath sucked the
honey of thy breath / Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty." (V, iii,
92-95)
-
  3. SHE IS PRACTICAL
  In this couple, Romeo is the romantic one, and Juliet is the
practical one. We can see this contrast in the balcony scene. Romeo is
content to speak poetic words of love, while Juliet sets up the
marriage and the time and means of communication. She prefers short
statements to flowery promises, and her practical nature leads her
to worry about the suddenness of their passion:
-
                                              {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 35}
          Although I joy in thee,
          I have no joy in this contract tonight.
          It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden.
                                                (II, ii, 116-18)
-
                                              {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 40}
  JULIET'S GROWTH
  We first see Juliet like a child, surrounded by her nurse and her
mother. She doesn't say much, and obediently, she says she'll try to
like the man her parents wish her to marry. She hasn't seriously
thought about her life as an adult: she says marriage is "an honor I
dream not of."
  But that night, she meets Romeo and falls in love, and everything
changes. She begins to think and act for herself. By the end of the
evening, she has taken her future into her own hands, and has become
engaged.
  We see at this point that she is practical but idealistic. She knows
there are problems in the world, but she is confident that love can
overcome them.
  For Juliet, marriage and sexual awakening are the bridge between
childhood and adulthood. Before her wedding night she sees herself
standing between the experienced matron (married woman) she is to
become and the impatient child she still feels like. Juliet takes
her adult role as a wife seriously. Even though she's still living
at home, she gives her loyalty to Romeo over her family, even after
he's killed her cousin.
                                              {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 45}
  At the beginning of the play, Juliet still minds her nurse, but by
the end of the play she's outgrown her. Her nurse can't understand the
seriousness of Juliet's predicament, and the young woman must make
adult decisions by herself.
  The best mark of Juliet's maturity is that she's strong enough to be
true to herself and to Romeo, even though everyone is against it,
and the cost is very high. She is no longer an obedient little girl,
but a young woman who has taken charge of her own life. She feels
she even holds the final card: "if all else fail, myself have power to
die." (III, v, 343-45)
  By the end of the play, she has come full circle from innocence to
experience. Before she drinks the friar's potion, we see she
understands that the evil in the world can hurt her. She realizes that
the friar could have given her poison so that no one will find out
he's married them; she realizes she could wake up in the tomb and
suffocate, or she could go crazy.
  Still, she chooses to have faith. She believes that the friar
means her no harm, and she ultimately believes that her love for Romeo
is strong enough to withstand death.
-
                                              {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 50}
  ROMEO
  The same way that Juliet grows up, Romeo finds himself. Before we
look at how he changes, let's look at the parts of his personality
that remain constant.
-
  1. HE IS LIKABLE
  Everyone likes Romeo. Mercutio and Benvolio both want his attention,
the Nurse thinks he's honest, courteous, kind, and handsome. His
mother loves him so much that she dies of grief when he's banished;
and even Lord Capulet calls him "a virtuous and well-governed youth"
and refuses to let Tybalt bother him. Friar Lawrence loves Romeo so
much that he'll do almost anything to secure his happiness. (The
obvious exception to Romeo's admirers is Tybalt, and Romeo himself
tells Tybalt, "Villain I am none... see thou knowest me not." [III, i,
65-66])
                                              {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 55}
-
  2. HE IS PASSIONATE
  Romeo has the blessing and the curse of feeling things deeply. At
the beginning of the play, he is despairing over his unrequited love
for Rosaline. He is able to give himself completely to his love for
Juliet, and his only trouble comes when he gives in to "fire-eyed
fury" after Mercutio is killed.
-
  3. HE IS A GENTLEMAN
                                              {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 60}
  He's virtuous, honest, charming, and well-mannered. He charms Juliet
by reverently kissing her hand and calling her a saint; his manners
win over the Nurse when she's upset by Mercutio. He is a gentleman
to the end; he grants his rival's request to be buried with Juliet.
-
  ROMEO'S GROWTH
  Language is very important to Romeo. He talks while he thinks,
verbally exploring the world. Because of this, we can use Romeo's
growing skill with words to chart his progress throughout the play.
  When we first see Romeo, he's in love with love. He has chosen a
girl who'll never return his affection, and he spends more time
groaning about how depressed he is than he does praising Rosaline.
When he talks, he uses lots of cliches, and repeats himself. Of
Rosaline, he says, "She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair / To
merit bliss by making me despair."
                                              {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 65}
  His mooning leaves him unable to act. Instead, he spends time
wandering through trees or locked up in his room. This isn't like him,
and his family is worried. He even says, rather proudly,
-
          Tut! I have lost myself, I am not here;
          This is not Romeo, he's some other where.
                                                   (I, i, 200-1)
                                              {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 70}
-
  Then he meets Juliet and discovers his true self. Their love is so
right that Romeo's speech is transformed to poetry. The first time
they talk together, their conversation effortlessly forms a sonnet.
  This new love makes him sure of himself straight through his
wedding, and makes him strong enough to fight with Tybalt. Was it
mature and honorable for him to avenge Tybalt's death, or was it
rash and foolish? It can be argued both ways, and you'll need to
look at the evidence to see which view you agree with.
  In either case, by the time Romeo gets to Friar Lawrence's cell,
he has lost himself, his maturity, and his ability to act. He thinks
he has also lost Juliet by killing her cousin. Again, his speech
becomes repetitive. He's beyond comfort. This is much the way he was
at the beginning of the play.
  But when he hears that Juliet still loves him and wants him to
come to her that night, he springs back to action. After his wedding
night, he is more mature and more himself than before. We see that
he's accepted his banishment and is willing to act on it; his words of
love to Juliet as he leaves are breathtakingly beautiful. He's
become a man of action, and he doesn't hesitate to act for the rest of
the play.
                                              {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 75}
  It's a sad irony that Romeo is most himself in the tomb. At the time
of his death, his words and his actions fit together perfectly. He
tells us what has brought him to this point; he tells us what he's
going to do and why his love for Juliet has transformed him from a boy
who talks in cliches, to a man with a powerful command of speech. It's
tragic that when his love is deepest, there will be no earthly use for
it; when his speech is most mature, he will soon be silenced. He has
found himself, only to kill himself. In his death, we watch the
world lose a noble man.
-
  FRIAR LAWRENCE (LAURENCE)
  Some readers would call Friar Lawrence a maturing character,
others would not.
  There are several ways to look at Friar Lawrence, some more
flattering than others. We'll look at three of these, but first
let's look at the basic facts about him.
                                              {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 80}
-
  1. HE IS CATHOLIC
  Remember that when Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, England was a
Protestant country. Many other writers of the time made fun of
Catholics in their plays, but Friar Lawrence is treated
respectfully, and has virtues and faults like everyone else. He's a
member of the Franciscan order, which was started by St. Francis of
Assisi.
-
  2. HE MEANS WELL
                                              {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 85}
  Throughout the play, many people come to him for advice, and he does
his best to help them. He often reminds Romeo of the Church's
teachings, and he tries to use his position to end the feud.
-
  3. HE IS AN OUTDOORSMAN
  St. Francis loved nature, and so does Friar Lawrence. He gives an
eloquent description of the dawn, and he knows the plants and
flowers well enough to make medicines.
-
                                              {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 90}
  Now let's look at three different views of Friar Lawrence's
actions in the play.
  One view holds that he is a foolish old man who sends the lovers
to their deaths. Some readers feel that he lives shut away in an abbey
and doesn't understand other people's passions. Romeo accuses him of
this in Act III: "Thou canst not speak of what thou dost not feel!"
(III, iii, 64)
  Since he can't understand their passions, the best he can do is
offer shallow words and philosophy instead of wisdom. Some feel his
words of caution before Romeo and Juliet's wedding are empty, as is
his comfort to Romeo after Tybalt's death.
  He isn't wise, but bumbling, and his allowing the marriage, and
giving Juliet the risky potion are partly what kills the lovers.
  Worse, he's a coward. If he hadn't been afraid to tell someone (like
the Prince) about the marriage, the story could have ended
differently. And if he hadn't panicked and run away from the tomb,
he could have saved Juliet's life.
                                              {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 95}
  A second view holds that he is a good and wise man who is foiled
by fate. The Friar's first speech about the paradoxes of life seems to
prove that he has a deep understanding of life. He gives Romeo wise
counsel every step of the way; he tells him to take the relationship
slowly and to try to moderate his passion. As long as Romeo has
Friar Lawrence to guide him, he can overcome any circumstances; it's
only when Romeo has no one to quiet his passions that he kills
himself.
  A third view holds that he is a good man, but has failings. Some
readers feel that he really tries to do his best, and most of the time
it works. He tries to settle the feud, to keep Romeo and Juliet living
holy lives, and to solve the difficult problems that come up.
  His love for Romeo can be seen as a strength or as a fault. You
can interpret his actions as trying to keep Romeo happy: he marries
him to Juliet, he hides him (illegally) in his cell, he puts his
career on the line to try and have the marriage recognized; he gives
Juliet a risky drug in the hope that he can get her back to Romeo.
In this case, it's no wonder the Friar panics at the tomb: very few of
us could think straight if we'd just found the body of the person we
loved most.
  Although the Friar marries Romeo, he advises him to be careful;
although he uses empty philosophy to comfort him, he's able to form
a plan to rouse Romeo to action. He only gives Juliet the potion
because she's desperate and threatens suicide; and although he flees
from the tomb, he's willing to tell the whole story, even if it
condemns him.
  In the second and third views, Friar Lawrence understands the
lovers' problems and it changes him through the course of the play. If
you agree with either of these views, you can call Friar Lawrence a
"maturing character."
                                             {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 100}
  As you read the play, see what evidence you can find for each of
these views.
-
  PRINCE ESCALUS
  Some readers call Prince Escalus a maturing character because he
understands the seriousness of the feud and tries to do something
about it.
  Prince Escalus, the ruler of Verona, represents law and order. We
see him three times during the play: at the opening, when the fight
breaks out; in the middle, after Tybalt and Mercutio are killed; and
at the end, after Romeo, Juliet, and Paris are dead. By entering after
each climax, he helps define the structure of the play. All through
the play, he talks like a prince. He gives orders and expects them
to be obeyed.
                                             {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 105}
  In his first speech, he shows anger at the senseless fighting that
has been threatening Verona's peace. It's happened three times lately.
Besides fining both families, he lays down a strict new law: anyone
caught fighting in Verona's streets will face death.
  The second time he comes in is after Mercutio, one of his relatives,
has been killed. This causes the Prince to view the feud in a personal
way:
-
        "I have an interest in your hate's proceedings
         My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding."
                                             {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 110}
                                                (III, i, 190-91)
-
  Again he fines the families and banishes Romeo from Verona. While he
is wise and understands the seriousness of the feud, unfortunately, he
doesn't know the details of Romeo and Juliet's plight.
  By his last entrance, the Capulets, the Montagues, and he have
each suffered another death in the family. He contains his grief and
unearths the story; he takes his share of the blame for not having
been more strict. He acknowledges that his is not the final authority,
that heaven has had the final judgment in this case.
-
                                             {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 115}
                          STATIC CHARACTERS
-
  JULIET'S NURSE
  Who can help laughing at Juliet's Nurse? She says outrageous things,
repeats herself constantly, and she loves a dirty joke. When she tries
to act high-class and use big words, she winds up using the wrong
word. There's no other character like her: the minute she opens her
mouth, we know who's talking.
  She serves several important functions in the play: she is
Juliet's confidant, she is a message-carrier for the lovers; and her
earthiness is a contrast to Juliet's idealism.
                                             {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 120}
  The Nurse is a comic character who becomes tragic because she
isn't able to grow. Let's look at her comic characteristics, and how
they become tragic.
-
  1. She understands things in physical terms. To her, love means sex.
For example, when Lady Capulet tells Juliet that she'll be "no less"
if she marries Paris, the Nurse cries that she'll be more: men make
women pregnant.
  Because she sees things in physical terms, she can't understand
the depth of the lovers' emotional and spiritual bond. One partner
is as good as another to her: what does it matter if Juliet has
Romeo or Paris?
  2. She says exactly what she thinks, whether or not it's
appropriate. When Romeo, then a stranger, asks her who Juliet is,
she tells him, "I tell you, he that can lay hold of her / shall have
the chinks (money)." (I, v, 118-19)
                                             {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 125}
  Saying what she means without thinking hurts Juliet very much. The
last thing she needs to hear at the end of Act IV is that the Nurse
thinks Romeo is a "dishcloth."
  3. She garbles messages. This is funny when we know the message, and
it's good news.
  The garbled message about the wedding is funny; the garbled
message about who's dead is tragically painful to Juliet.
  4. She loves to plot. This is endearing because she goes out of
her way to help the lovers meet and get rope ladders.
  She enjoyed plotting Juliet's marriage, but she doesn't take
responsibility for her actions. If that plot doesn't work out, she
thinks, start over and try another one. But actions have consequences,
and Juliet is abandoned by her Nurse when she needs her most.
                                             {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 130}
-
  MERCUTIO
  Almost all of us know someone like Mercutio: witty, sarcastic,
always the center of attention at parties, always ready with a
put-down or a racy joke.
  In some ways, he's like Juliet's Nurse: he also sees love as
primarily sexual. He's Romeo's friend and confidant, as the Nurse is
Juliet's; he, too, underestimates the depth of Romeo's love and
passion.
  In other ways, he's the opposite of the Nurse. He's upper-class, and
a relative of the Prince. He's also very intelligent When he meets the
Nurse and they match wits, Mercutio makes her look like a fool.
                                             {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 135}
  He is clever, intelligent, and well-educated. He is a master of
words; he can make a pun or weave a spell with ease.
  He has an infectious wit. He has an enormous amount of energy, and
can make everyone laugh, including Romeo.
  He is fiery and excitable. He whips himself into a frenzy with the
Queen Mab speech, and he's already worked himself into a fighting mood
by the time he meets up with Tybalt in Act III.
  He's also quick to condemn others for faults he shares. He gives his
Queen Mab speech to Romeo to chide him for being "beside himself," and
he is beside himself by the end of the speech. He accuses Benvolio
of being hot-tempered; and finally curses the Montagues and Capulets
for a fight he brought on himself.
  On the one hand, he's a loyal friend to Romeo. Even when he thinks
Romeo is acting crazy, he's always trying to find him and "cure"
him. It's interesting to watch how much cynical Mercutio is
attracted by idealistic Romeo.
                                             {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 140}
  On the other hand, he doesn't understand Romeo's feelings, and he
doesn't try to. He is taunting and sarcastic to Romeo, to the Nurse,
and finally to Tybalt.
  Still, for all his faults, we can't help liking him as much as Romeo
does. We, too, feel a sense of outrage when he's killed and understand
why Romeo avenges his death. Mercutio is one of Shakespeare's most
talked-about characters.
  Some readers feel that Mercutio is the most interesting character in
the play, and that Shakespeare had to kill him off so that he wouldn't
eclipse Romeo. Others point out that Mercutio acts as a satellite to
Romeo. He's never on stage unless he's with Romeo, or trying to find
him.
  Also, some readers feel that Mercutio's sense of honor forces him to
fight Tybalt in Romeo's place; others feel that his own temper and
hot-headedness do him in.
  Readers have disagreed over how much he understands about life. Some
argue that his Queen Mab speech shows that he's thought a lot and
understands other's feelings; others feel that he isn't capable of
understanding Romeo's feelings at all.
                                             {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 145}
-
  LORD AND LADY MONTAGUE (ROMEO'S PARENTS)
  Romeo and Juliet come from very different families.
  The Montagues are close-knit and loving. Romeo's parents, Lord and
Lady Montague, care a lot about Romeo, and do everything they can to
find out what's bothering him.
  Romeo's parents know Romeo's friends. At the beginning of the
play, they ask Benvolio to find out why Romeo's depressed; and in
Act II, Scene iv, Mercutio and Benvolio are going to have supper at
the Montague's house, and they hope Romeo will come along.
                                             {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 150}
  Lady Montague's only fault is her obsessive love of Romeo. She
dies of grief when he's banished, before news comes that he's dead.
  Lord Montague's only fault is his willingness to fight in the
feud. The only time that he isn't reasonable and loving is in the
first scene when he charges onto the stage, calling, "Thou Villain
Capulet!"
  Unfortunately, this fault is ultimately responsible for his son's
death.
-
  LORD AND LADY CAPULET (JULIET'S PARENTS)
                                             {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 155}
  Lord Capulet enjoys playing the role of the gracious patriarch. He's
wealthy and he likes to be well thought of. He's on his best
behavior in front of company; he jokes with Paris and calls him "son."
At the Capulets' feast he flirts and jokes, and goes so far as to
protect Romeo from Tybalt.
  But like a spoiled child, he wants everything to go his way, and
he's furious when someone doesn't obey him. When Tybalt argues with
him, he calls him a "saucy boy" and a "princox." When Juliet refuses
to marry Paris, he has a tantrum and threatens to throw her out on the
street to starve.
  He has a strained relationship with his wife. He doesn't say much to
her, except to order her around; she responds by making bitter remarks
about him.
  Lady Capulet is a bitter, guarded woman. She was married early,
and the match was obviously arranged. Her husband seems to be much
older than she is, and she uses this to make life difficult for him.
The first time we see her, her husband is calling for a sword to
join a fight, and she follows behind, answering, "A crutch, a
crutch! Why call you for a sword?"
  Because she's an unhappy woman who guards her feelings, she
doesn't know how to relate to Juliet, who has been raised by her
Nurse. We can see why she'd think Paris a good match for Juliet.
He's not only wealthy, but young and attractive: everything in a
husband she might have wished for herself but doesn't have.
                                             {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 160}
  Through the play we see her become increasingly sympathetic to
Juliet. Could it be that she remembers her own tears before her
wedding? She begs her husband not to move the wedding closer, and
she protects Juliet from Lord Capulet's fury. Still, when Juliet needs
her most, she chooses to withdraw from the situation, telling
Juliet, "Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee." (III, v, 205)
  Still, both Capulets are genuinely grieved when they believe that
Juliet is dead. Lady Capulet cries that Juliet was the only thing
she had to love; and Lord Capulet now has no heir, nothing in which to
hope.
-
  TYBALT
  Tybalt, a Capulet, is trouble from the beginning. He's so
hot-tempered and full of hate that even his family thinks he's a
"saucy boy." He can be seen as the embodiment of the feud. During
the play, he fights Benvolio, Lord Capulet, Mercutio, and Romeo.
                                             {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 165}
  In temperament, he is a contrast to Benvolio. In the first scene,
when Benvolio talks of peace, Tybalt leaps in with "I hate the word as
I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee."
  In nature and personality, he is contrasted to Mercutio. Mercutio is
witty, cultured, and educated, and he isn't about to take an insult
from someone like Tybalt, whose only means of expression is a sword.
Mercutio's extreme dislike of Tybalt is another reason he must take up
Tybalt's challenge of Romeo.
-
  BENVOLIO
  Benvolio, a Montague, is the kind of person we'd all like to have
for a friend. When Romeo wants to be left alone, he leaves him
alone; when he wants to talk, Benvolio is there to listen with a
sympathetic ear. And when Romeo is in trouble for killing Tybalt, it's
Benvolio who gets him off the street and into hiding.
                                             {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 170}
  Benvolio is known as a clear-thinking, reliable, and peace-loving
young man. He tries to stop fighting whenever it starts; and he's
called on twice to explain what's happened. When Romeo's parents
want to find out what's bothering their son, they ask Benvolio to find
out, and he does.
  Still, he's more than a one-dimensional character. At the
beginning of the play, he, like Romeo, has "a troubled mind," that
leads him to take a walk before sunrise. He, too, teases the Nurse;
and he stretches the truth a little when he tells the Prince that
Tybalt started the fight, implying that he killed Mercutio without
provocation. These faults make us like him even more.
-
  PARIS
  Count Paris is the terzo incomodo, the unwelcome third party in
the love triangle with Romeo and Juliet.
                                             {THE_CHARACTERS ^paragraph 175}
  Shakespeare makes sure that he compares favorably with Romeo. He
is young, handsome, wealthy, and, socially, his family is a step above
Romeo's- Paris is related to Prince Escalus. Paris, too, is tired of
the feud and sincerely in love with Juliet. He never tries to steal
Juliet from Romeo; he proposes before Juliet meets Romeo, and he
dies without knowing he has a rival.
  Unlike Romeo, he goes through the proper channels to get Juliet to
marry him. He formally asks Juliet's father for her hand, and he
approves. In contrast, Romeo's love for Juliet is forbidden, and
he's secretive about his plans. Paris' language, wooden and
straight-laced, is also in contrast to Romeo's.
  Paris becomes a threat to the lovers only because he doesn't know
about their relationship. As an honorable young man, he would never
have gone after Juliet if he'd known she were married. If he'd known
about the marriage, he never would have challenged Romeo at the
Capulets' tomb.
  Paris, like Romeo and Juliet, is a victim of "sour misfortune."
He, too, is given a place of respect and importance in the tomb with
Romeo and Juliet.

SETTING
                            OTHER ELEMENTS
-
                               SETTING                      (SROMSETT)
-
  Romeo and Juliet takes place in Verona, Italy, in the 1500s.
Although the setting was already named in other Romeo and Juliet
stories, Shakespeare draws lots of parallels between Verona and the
London of his time. Both cities were walled, which made them seem
hot and crowded during the summer months. Violence could spread
quickly in this atmosphere, and so civil disturbances were treated
harshly. Elizabethan Londoners would have thought that the Prince
was too merciful to the brawlers.
  In cities like London and Verona, the plague spread quickly, so
quarantines were commonplace. Also, in Shakespeare's London, Queen
Elizabeth's word was law; Londoners would expect no less of Prince
Escalus.

THEMES
                                THEMES                      (SROMTHEM)
-
  There are many themes in Romeo and Juliet; we'll look at the major
ones here. You'll notice that some themes contradict each other-
it's up to you to decide which ones are true, and to find evidence
to support your position.
-
  1. LOVE
-
  Love is explored in different ways in the play. Here are some of
them:
                                                       {THEMES ^paragraph 5}
-
                            Love vs. Hate
-
  The play contrasts Romeo and Juliet's love against their families'
hate as illustrated by the feud. In the Prologue, we're told that
their love is stronger than the hatred of the feud, but it's a
bitter struggle. Hatred is strong enough to separate the lovers,
kill Mercutio, Tybalt, and Paris, banish Romeo, and finally force
Romeo and Juliet to commit suicide. But love is even stronger: nothing
can kill the love between Romeo and Juliet, and this finally triumphs.
-
                                                      {THEMES ^paragraph 10}
                       False Love vs. True Love
-
  At the beginning of the play, Romeo's lost in a false love for
Rosaline. He doesn't know her or have any relationship with her, so
he's created artificial feelings about her. The Nurse and Mercutio
also have false or incomplete ideas about true love. They both link it
exclusively to sex.
  Romeo and Juliet's love is a pure, true love. They love each other
emotionally, spiritually, and sexually. They are committed to each
other in marriage, and are willing to die rather than be unfaithful to
one another.
-
                                                      {THEMES ^paragraph 15}
                            Romantic Love
-
  This play is a wonderful example of Courtly Love or Romantic Love.
Until the end of the 14th century, the idea of marrying for love was
almost unheard of. Marriages were arranged for social, economic, and
political reasons. Romantic Love came into being in the French courts,
and it had very strict rules: the woman with whom the man chose to
be in love had to be unobtainable (if she was married to someone else,
that was good: if she died, that was even better), and both of the
romantic lovers must be chaste. The whole idea was to be pure and pine
away for someone.
  This is exactly what Romeo is doing for Rosaline at the beginning of
the story. Even though Romeo and Juliet share their love and they
sleep together once, there are Romantic obstacles in their way. They
are from enemy families; Juliet will be forced to marry someone
else. Finally, each of them dies pining for a love that is
absolutely unobtainable because his or her partner is dead.
  Could Romeo and Juliet have become a happy, middle-aged married
couple? Nobody in Shakespeare's audience would have wondered. The
whole point is that their love is Romantic, and therefore cannot be
fulfilled.
                                                      {THEMES ^paragraph 20}
-
  2. WHAT CAUSES THE LOVERS TO DIE?
-
  The deaths of Romeo and Juliet can be explained in several ways.
-
                                                      {THEMES ^paragraph 25}
                                 Fate
-
  In the Prologue, we're told that the lovers are "star-crossed,"
which implies that fate has it in for them. The number of fateful
coincidences and accidents in the play are too numerous to miss: Romeo
finds out about the Capulets' party from an illiterate servant; he
winds up in the Capulets' orchard; Mercutio is killed under his arm-
the list goes on and on. Every plan that the lovers make is
thwarted. They're destined to die, and nothing can stop it.
-
                              Providence
                                                      {THEMES ^paragraph 30}
-
  Some readers feel that there's a power beyond fate that has a role
in the outcome of the story. Since the play takes place in a Christian
context, this power can be thought of as God, or Providence. Romeo,
Juliet, and Friar Lawrence all call on this higher power to help them;
Friar Lawrence calls the deaths "a work of heaven." We can believe
that some benevolent power is working to change the Montagues' and
Capulets' hatred to love- and it succeeds.
-
                               Passion
-
                                                      {THEMES ^paragraph 35}
  The Catholic church (and to some extent, the Protestant) in
Shakespeare's day believed that love of God was pure, selfless, and
good. Love that gratified selfish desires was bad. Over and over,
Friar Lawrence warns that "these violent delights have violent
ends," and he's proven correct.
-
                              Character
-
  Some readers feel that Romeo's impetuousness (to passionately love
Juliet, and recklessly kill Tybalt, Paris and himself), Tybalt's hate,
Capulet's blindness, and Juliet's dishonesty work together to bring
the lovers' downfall.
                                                      {THEMES ^paragraph 40}
-
  3. A SENSE OF ORDER VS. CIVIL DISTURBANCES
-
  The feuding and public fighting in Verona's streets is such a
serious offense that Romeo and Juliet's lives must be sacrificed to
restore order and pay for this injustice.
-
                                                      {THEMES ^paragraph 45}
  4. ISOLATION
-
  In comedy, characters tend to form bonds; in tragedy, they become
isolated. The most obvious example in this play is Juliet: she is
abandoned by her parents, her Nurse, the Friar, and finally by Romeo.
-
  5. INNOCENCE AND EXPERIENCE
                                                      {THEMES ^paragraph 50}
-
  This theme is followed in two ways: we see the impetuous actions
of the innocent lovers contrasted to the helpless wisdom of their
parents and advisors; and we see Romeo and Juliet grow from
innocence to experience.
-
  6. LANGUAGE
-
                                                      {THEMES ^paragraph 55}
  Most of us talk similarly and use the same vocabulary most of the
time. But in Romeo and Juliet, each character's language tells us what
social class they're in, whom they're talking to, what mood they're
in, and if their feelings are genuine. As a character matures, his
or her words are more expressive, better chosen.

STYLE
                                STYLE                       (SROMSTYL)
-
  Romeo and Juliet is unique because it merges three distinct styles.
  The first two acts are comedy: characters meet, fall in love, have
funny friends and bawdy servants. These acts follow an Italian style
called a commedia dell'arte, which usually had two virtuous lovers,
old fathers who kept them apart, and servants who made racy comments
about sex.
  But the Prologue sets up a tragedy, and the last three acts bring it
about. Suddenly, a feud that seemed silly is deadly, and Mercutio
and Tybalt are killed. The lovers become isolated, and come to
understand the cruelty of the world and how it preys on them. Human
failure and tragic accidents work against them, and they must die.
  Romeo and Juliet is also Romantic. Not only does it deal with
Romantic Love, as mentioned above under Themes, but it includes many
different types of Romantic poetry. Just before he wrote this play,
Shakespeare had written two long narrative Romantic poems, as well
as some Romantic sonnets, and these poetic styles turn up over and
over again in the play.

SOURCE
                                SOURCE                      (SROMSOUR)
-
  The legend of Romeo and Juliet had been popular for more than 100
years by the time Shakespeare wrote his play. The seed for the story
had appeared as far back as 1476 in the Italian book, Il Novellino, by
Masuccio Salernitano. This told of secret lovers, a killing,
banishment, a helpful friar, and a marriage rival.
  In 1530, Luigi da Porta retold the story. He named Verona as the
setting, and gave the characters Italian names. Da Porta also added
the lovers' suicide.
  Other versions appeared in France and Italy, but an important step
was taken in 1562 when Arthur Brooke (or Broke) made it into a long
narrative poem, in English, called The Tragicall History of Romeus and
Juliet. This is the poem from which Shakespeare worked. Compared to
Shakespeare's play, Brooke's language was monotonous and dry. He
includes a Preface that tells the "pious reader" to note what comes of
unholy passion and secret love, of disobeying the law and parents'
advice. Although the Preface is stern, Brooke takes a sympathetic view
of the lovers. In his poem, they are older, less innocent, more
willful and glad to disobey their parents.
  Here are descriptions of Romeo and Juliet from Brooke's poem.
-
                                                       {SOURCE ^paragraph 5}
  ROMEO
-
     One Romeus, who was of race a Montague,
     Upon whose tender chin, as yet, no manlike beard there grew,
     Whose beauty and whose shape so far the rest did stain,
                                                      {SOURCE ^paragraph 10}
     That from the chief of Veron youth he greatest fame did gain
     At length he saw a maid, right fair of shape
     Which Theseus or Paris would have chosen to their rape,
     Whom erst he never saw, of all she pleas'd him most.
     Within himself he said to her, 'Thou justly mayst thee boast
                                                      {SOURCE ^paragraph 15}
     Of perfect shape's renown and Beauty's sounding praise,
     Whose like nor hath, nor shall be seen, nor liveth in our days.'
     And whilst he fix'd on her his partial pierced eye
     His former love, for which of late he was ready to die,
     Is now as quite forgot, as it had never been.
                                                      {SOURCE ^paragraph 20}
-
  JULIET
-
     Whilst Juliet (for so this gentle damsel hight)
     From side to side on everyone did cast about her sight
                                                      {SOURCE ^paragraph 25}
     At last her floating eyes were anchored fast on him,
     Who for her sake did banish health and freedom from each limb.
     He in her sight did seem to pass the rest as far
     As Phoebus' shining beams do pass the brightness of a star.

FORM
                          FORM AND STRUCTURE                (SROMFORM)
-
  OVERALL STRUCTURE
  Romeo and Juliet has five acts. As we have seen before, the first
two acts follow the rules of a comedy, and the last two follow the
conventions of tragedy. Besides this, shape is given to the play by
the Prologue and the three appearances of the Prince.
  The Prologue, which reminds us somewhat of ancient tragedies,
tells us the sorry fate of the characters we're about to meet.
  The Prince appears at the beginning of the play when the feud is
introduced. He's angry at the disturbance and the threat of
violence, but nothing deadly has happened yet. The Prince appears at
the next climax, after the deaths that change the course of the
play. He adds to the climactic events by banishing Romeo. The third
time he appears is at the end. Prince Escalus sums up the Prologue,
says that everyone is punished, and that there's never been a sadder
story.
-
                                                         {FORM ^paragraph 5}
  SCENES
  Shakespeare is a master storyteller. Scenes happen very quickly in
this play, alternating from tragic to comic, hurried to lazy, scenes
between the lovers to scenes about those who unwittingly cause their
downfall.
  Shakespeare also compares characters by having them appear in scenes
soon after each other. Often scenes with the Nurse follow scenes
with Mercutio; scenes with Paris are frequently next to scenes with
Romeo.
-
  PUBLIC PEOPLE AND PRIVATE PEOPLE
                                                        {FORM ^paragraph 10}
  Another way Shakespeare makes the play interesting is to show us how
characters act in public and then how they act in private. For
example, in the first scene, we see the Montagues when they come to
fight the Capulets; then we see them talking in private after everyone
else has left. The funniest example of this is in Act I, Scene v, when
Lord Capulet goes from his public image to his private temper in the
same speech.
  This makes us ready for Act III, when the public feud crashes in
on the private lives of Romeo and Juliet.
-
  CONDENSED TIME
  Shakespeare's biggest change was to shrink the timeframe from months
to a period of five days. He emphasizes this by showing us all five
dawns: On Sunday morning, Romeo walks in a grove of trees at dawn
and later meets Benvolio; Monday's dawn finds him reluctantly
leaving Juliet in the orchard. The next morning, he leaves his new
wife to flee to Mantua; Wednesday morning, Juliet is discovered
dead. The play ends on Thursday morning, when the Prince and the
families find the dead bodies in the tomb.
                                                        {FORM ^paragraph 15}
  This condensed time makes the play highly dramatic. Events are
very rushed. Things happen so fast that characters must make snap
decisions. There is no time for explanations, and there are no
second chances.

ELIZABETHAN_ENGLISH
                         ELIZABETHAN ENGLISH                (SROMELIZ)
-
  All languages change. Differences in pronunciation and word choice
are apparent even between parents and children. If language
differences can appear in one generation, it is only to be expected
that the English used by Shakespeare four hundred years ago will
diverge markedly from the English that is used today. The following
information on Shakespeare's language will help a modern reader to a
fuller understanding of Romeo and Juliet.
-
  MOBILITY OF WORD CLASSES
-
  Adjectives, nouns, and verbs were less rigidly confined to
particular classes in Shakespeare's day. Adjectives were often used as
nouns. In the Prologue to Act II, the chorus uses 'sweet' as a noun:
                                          {ELIZABETHAN_ENGLISH ^paragraph 5}
-
     Tempering extremities with extreme sweet.
-
  And verbs could be used as nouns as when 'jaunce', which meant
'trudge along', was used to mean 'a long hard walk':
-
     Fie, how my bones ache. What a jaunce have I!
                                                     (II, v, 26)
-
  Adjectives could also be used as adverbs. 'Scant' is used for
'scantly' in:
-
     And she shall scant show well that now seems best
                                                    (I, ii, 101)
-
  and 'merry' is used for 'merrily' in:
-
     Rest you merry
                                                     (I, ii, 83)
-
  and occasionally as verbs as in:
-
     Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name
                                                   (III, ii, 98)
-
  where 'smooth' means 'speak well of'.
-
  CHANGES IN WORD MEANING
-
  The meanings of words undergo changes, a process that can be
illustrated by the fact that 'chip' extended its meaning from a
small piece of wood to a small piece of silicon. Many of the words
in Shakespeare still exist today but their meanings have changed.
The change may be small, as with 'gossip' which meant 'good-natured,
convivial woman':
-
     Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word
                                                     (II, i, 11)
-
  or more fundamental, so that 'hoodwinked' meant 'blindfolded' (I,
iv, 4), 'crowkeeper' meant 'scarecrow' (I, iv, 6), 'film' meant
'gossamer' (I, iv, 66), 'breaches' meant 'defensive walls' (I, iv,
84), and 'owes' meant owns:
-
     So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called
     Retain that dear perfection which he owes
                                                 (II, ii, 45-46)
-
  VOCABULARY LOSS
-
  Words not only change their meanings, but are frequently discarded
from the language. In the past, 'leman' meant 'sweetheart' and 'sooth'
meant 'truth'. The following words used in Romeo and Juliet are no
longer current in English but their meanings can usually be gauged
from the context in which they occur.
-
      BILLS (I, i, 70): weapons
      PROOF (I, i, 208): strong armor
      UNATTAINTED (I, ii, 87): not affected
      TEEN (I, iii, 13): sorrow
      ATOMI (I, iv, 57): small creatures
      TRENCHER (I, v, 2): large plate
      NYAS (II, ii, 167): young hawk
      GYVES (II, ii, 179): fetters, chains
      MICKLE (II, iii, 11): great
      DISTEMPERATURE (II, iii, 36): mental disturbance
      HIDINGS (II, iv, 43): prostitutes
      CHEVERIL (II, iv, 83): soft leather
      ELL (II, iv, 84): 3 feet 9 inches (45 inches)
      COIL (II, v, 66): fuss, bother
      PILCHER (III, i, 79): leather garment
      AMERCE (III, i, 192): penalize
      SEELING (III, ii, 46): blinding
      LATED (III, iii, 6): belated
      TRENCHED (III, iv, 26): cut
      FLAWS (III, iv, 62): sudden gusts
      OWE (III, iv, 112): own
      BARK (III, v, 131): small boat
      MAMMET (III, v, 184): puppet
      CHAPLESS (IV, i, 83): without the lower jaw
      ORISONS (IV, iii, 3): prayers
      LOGGERHEAD (IV, iv, 20): fool, blockhead
      WEEDS (V, i, 39): clothes
      CAITIFF (V, i, 52): miserable, wretched
-
  VERBS
-
  Shakespearean verb forms differ from modern usage in three main
ways:
-
  1. Questions and negatives could be formed without using 'do/did' as
when Mercutio asks:
-
     Came he not home tonight?
                                                     (II, iv, 1)
-
  where today we would say: 'Did he not come home tonight?' or where
Benvolio tells Romeo:
-
     Stand not amazed...
                                                   (III, i, 136)
-
  where modern usage demands: 'Don't stand there looking surprised.'
Shakespeare had the option of using forms a. and b. whereas
contemporary usage permits only the a. forms:
-
              a.                                 b.
     Is Romeo coming?                    Comes Romeo?
     Did Romeo come?                     Came Romeo?
     You do not look well                You look not well
     You did not look well               You looked not well
-
  2. A number of past participles and past tense forms are used that
would be ungrammatical today. Among these are: 'drive' for 'drove':
-
     A troubled mind drive me to walk abroad
                                                     (I, i, 118)
-
  'create' for 'created':
-
     O anything of nothing first create!
                                                     (I, i, 175)
-
  'took' for 'taken':
-
     Very well took i' faith
                                                   (II, iv, 124)
-
  'forbid' for 'forbidden':
-
            The Prince expressly hath
     Forbid this bandying...
                                                 (III, i, 87-88)
-
  'becomed' for 'becoming':
-
     And gave him what becomed love I might
                                                    (IV, ii, 26)
-
  and 'writ' for 'wrote':
-
     Meantime I writ to Romeo
                                                   (V, iii, 245)
-
  3. Archaic verb forms sometimes occur with 'thou' and with
'he/she/it':
-
     ...thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more...
                                                    (III, i, 17)
-
     I see thou knowest me not
                                                    (III, i, 64)
-
     Come, he hath hid himself among these trees
                                                     (II, i, 30)
-
  PRONOUNS
-
  Shakespeare and his contemporaries had one extra pronoun "thou"
which could be used in addressing a person who was one's equal or
social inferior. 'You' was obligatory if more than one person was
addressed:
-
           What ho! You men, you beasts!
     That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
     With purple fountains issuing from your veins...
                                                    (I, i, 81ff)
-
  But it could also be used to indicate respect as when Juliet
speaks to her mother:
-
     Madam, I am here, what is your will?
                                                     (I, iii, 6)
-
  Frequently, a person in power used 'thou' to a child or a
subordinate but was addressed 'you' in return, as when Lady Capulet
and the Nurse speak:
-
  Lady Capulet. Thou knowest my daughter's of a pretty age.
                                                    (I, iii, 10)
-
  Nurse. My lord and you were then at Mantua.
                                                    (I, iii, 28)
-
  but if 'thou' was used inappropriately it could cause grave offense.
Tybalt uses this form to provoke Romeo:
-
     Romeo, the love I bear thee can afford
     No better term than this: thou art a villain
                                                 (III, i, 59-60)
-
  and later, when Romeo wishes to avenge Mercutio's death, he too uses
'thou' to Tybalt:
-
     Now, Tybalt, take the 'villain' back again
     That late thou gav'st me.
                                                (III, i, 127-28)
-
  PREPOSITIONS
-
  Prepositions were less standardized in Elizabethan English than they
are today and so we find several uses in Romeo and Juliet that would
have to be modified in contemporary speech. Among these are: 'of'
for 'in' in:
-
                            Fantasy
     Which is as thin of substance as the air
                                                     (I, iv, 99)
-
  'in' for 'into' in:
-
     ...if you should lead her in a fool's paradise
                                                   (II, iv, 163)
-
  'by' for 'because of':
-
     So the remembrance of my former love
     Is by a newer object quite forgotten
                                                   (II, iv, 194)
-
  and 'against' for 'for' in:
-
     Prepare her, wife, against this wedding day.
                                                   (III, iv, 32)
-
  MULTIPLE NEGATION
-
  Contemporary English requires only one negative per statement and
regards such utterances as: "I haven't none" as nonstandard.
Shakespeare often used two or more negatives for emphasis, as when
Mercutio describes his wound:
-
     No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a
     church door, but 'tis enough...
                                                    (III, i, 97)
-
  and when Romeo tries to convince Juliet that it is still early:
-
     Nor that is not the lark whose notes do beat
                                                    (III, v, 21)

PROLOGUE
                               THE PLAY                     (SROMPLAY)
-
                               PROLOGUE
-
  The Prologue is in the form of a sonnet, a type of poem that was
popular in Elizabethan times. A sonnet has very strict rules: it
must have 14 lines, have five accented syllables and five unaccented
ones per line, and a consistent pattern of rhyming.
-
---------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                     {PROLOGUE ^paragraph 5}
  NOTE: Throughout the play, we will see that Shakespeare uses
different types of poetry to make special moments stand out.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
  The Prologue does three important things: 1) it tells us what events
will happen in the play; 2) it makes us curious about why and how
these events will happen; and 3) it introduces us to themes that
will become important.
-
                                                    {PROLOGUE ^paragraph 10}
  1. THE EVENTS
  Two dignified families have been quarreling for a long time. From
these families come two children who are destined to become lovers and
to kill themselves. This is the only way the quarrel can end, we're
told, and this is the story we're about to see.
  It seems odd, doesn't it, that Shakespeare gives away the ending
to the story before he even starts telling it! But in Shakespeare's
time-much like today- the story of Romeo and Juliet was already
famous. People might not have been able to tell you the whole story,
but they could probably have said: "Romeo and Juliet? It's a story
about two kids who kill themselves."
  Also, fate plays a big part in the lovers' doom. It was normal in
a tragic story to tell the fate of the hero at the beginning, and then
tell the story of how this comes about.
-
                                                    {PROLOGUE ^paragraph 15}
---------------------------------------------------------------------
  NOTE: In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare uses the fact that we know
the plot to make us his fellow conspirators. He makes the story
revolve around characters who do what they think is best, unaware of
their tragic fate. They don't know the real circumstances- only we do.
This sets up comedy: for example, Romeo thinks that his crush on
Rosaline is the end of the world. This seems funny to us, because we
know his crush isn't important- the story isn't about Romeo and
Rosaline, it's about Romeo and Juliet. It also sets up tragedy: for
example, it's great news to Lord Capulet that Juliet and Paris will be
married. But it's terrible news to us, because we know that she's
already married to Romeo. Over and over throughout the play we
think, "if only they knew!"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
  2. THE PROLOGUE MAKES US CURIOUS
                                                    {PROLOGUE ^paragraph 20}
  The Prologue leaves out more information than it gives us. Who are
these lovers? What makes them "star-crossed"? Why do they kill
themselves? Why is this the only way to end the feud? These
questions make us want to read on!
-
  3. THEMES
  Romeo and Juliet is a play about paradoxes. In other words, we
find out that things seeming to be opposites are actually linked to
each other. In the Prologue, Shakespeare talks about "fatal loins." We
are conceived and born in the loins; "fatal" is something that kills
you. How can the same thing cause your life and your death? The play
resolves this paradox. Besides life and death, the Prologue tells us
that the play is about youth and age, love and hate, fighting and
peace. And since Shakespeare mentions these paradoxes so early, we
will be wise to watch for other paradoxes that will be used as themes.
-
                                                    {PROLOGUE ^paragraph 25}
---------------------------------------------------------------------
  NOTE: Notice how the lovers are called "star-crossed." Astrology was
a popular science then, and some people believed that your fate was
revealed by the positions of stars and planets. Star-crossed could
simply mean that the stars will make Romeo and Juliet's paths cross
and their lives intertwine. Or it can mean that the stars have it in
for them; they're doomed from the start. One theme is the
exploration of this very question: what makes the play end the way
it does? Do the lovers die because they're star-crossed by Fate and
cursed by bad luck? Or is there a power above Fate (usually called
Providence) that is making this all work for the good- to end the
feud? Or are the lovers free to act for themselves, to decide to
take their own lives? We'll see that there is evidence to support each
possible answer- it is up to you to choose the answer you think is
best at the end of the play.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

ACT_I|SCENE_I
                            ACT I, SCENE I
-
  LINES 1-65
  The Prologue has warned us about the terrible, senseless feud
between the Montagues and the Capulets and that it will cause the
death of innocent lovers. The play opens in a public place in Verona
where a fight is about to break out. We're ready to see evil,
bloodthirsty men, but we're in for a surprise. Instead of seeing
Lord Montague or Lord Capulet, we see their hired servants, who aren't
even part of the family. And instead of acting like evil men, they act
like clowns!
  The first people on stage are the Capulets' servants, Sampson and
Gregory. They're out on this lazy Sunday morning, acting a lot like
bored kids. They talk big about what they'll do to the Montagues, make
racy comments, use awful puns, and insult each other as often as
they insult the Montagues. They're in a good mood and we can't help
but laugh at how truly terrible their jokes are.
-
---------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                {ACT_I|SCENE_I ^paragraph 5}
  NOTE: We're caught off guard. We're expecting a tragedy, and instead
we've got comedy. Could this be another paradox? Could Shakespeare
be saying that the silly, harmless events in the first two acts can
actually cause the serious, deadly outcome of the final three? Can't
all of us think of a time that we've done something we never meant
to do, and all we could say was, "I was only kidding!"?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
  Soon servants of the Montagues join the Capulets', and the scene
gets funnier. In a way, they're like two street gangs. But in this
scene, they aren't angry or vicious, they just want some action. The
two sides are glad to see each other, because they're all in the
mood for something to happen. There doesn't seem to be any ill will
between them; in fact, their only argument is over who's going to
start the fight. Like children, they want to fight, but they don't
want to get in trouble for having started it.
-
                                               {ACT_I|SCENE_I ^paragraph 10}
  LINES 66-106
  Imagine that the streets are suddenly full of people shouting and
swords clashing. Once the fight has started, we begin to meet some
of the important characters. They come on one or two at a time, and we
can tell something about their personalities right away by how they
react to the feud.
  BENVOLIO  A young cousin of the Montagues, Benvolio is a man of
peace. He is the first one to find the servants brawling, and he seems
to be able to read our thoughts. Look what he says:
-
                                  Part, fools!
                                               {ACT_I|SCENE_I ^paragraph 15}
          Put up your swords. You know not what you do.
                                                      (I, i, 66)
-
  He sees them as fools, like we do; and he also sees that the
fighting is more than harmless fun. From the very beginning,
Benvolio tries to keep the peace, and from the very beginning he
fails. His is the voice of reason, and he doesn't stand a chance
against Tybalt, the next person who arrives.
  TYBALT  Tybalt is the opposite of Benvolio in more ways than one.
He's a cousin of the Capulets and a troublemaker: quick-tempered,
violent, and irrational. He says it himself in his second speech to
Benvolio:
                                               {ACT_I|SCENE_I ^paragraph 20}
-
          What, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word
          As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee.
                                                   (I, i, 72-73)
-
                                               {ACT_I|SCENE_I ^paragraph 25}
  LORD AND LADY CAPULET  The Capulets seem to have as much trouble
getting along with each other as they have getting along with the
Montagues. We first see Lord Capulet running in to join the fight,
calling for a sword. His wife is right behind him, telling him in
public that a crutch would be more appropriate. We can't help but
wonder how their antagonistic relationship affects their daughter.
  LORD AND LADY MONTAGUE  The Montagues enter just after the Capulets.
Lady Montague urges her husband not to join the fighting, but her
anger is directed at the feud rather than at her husband. We'll
learn more about them shortly.
  PRINCE ESCALUS  Prince Escalus also sees the feud as a serious
threat, and he's angry about it. But he acts rationally. He states the
charges: the Montagues and Capulets have broken the law by fighting
three times in the recent past. He publicly announces that in the
future anyone who fights will face the death penalty. Clearly, this is
a man who wants to end the deadly fight. But will he act strongly
enough, and soon enough?
  From an action-packed scene full of people, we go to one family's
private conversation.
  Everyone leaves except Lord and Lady Montague and their nephew
Benvolio. Benvolio is asked how the fight started; this is not the
only time he'll have to report on the trouble Tybalt causes.
                                               {ACT_I|SCENE_I ^paragraph 30}
-
  LINES 119-58
  Suddenly, Lady Montague says, "O, where is Romeo? Saw you him
today?" and the whole tone changes at once. Lord and Lady Montague and
Benvolio love Romeo so much that the mention of his name even
changes how they talk. Benvolio's terse and repetitive description
of the fight becomes poetry.
-
          Came more and more and fought on part and part,
                                               {ACT_I|SCENE_I ^paragraph 35}
          Till the Prince came, who parted either part.
                                                 (I, ii, 117-18)
-
  becomes
-
                                               {ACT_I|SCENE_I ^paragraph 40}
          Madam, an hour before the worshipped sun
          Peered forth the golden window of the East,
          A troubled mind drave me to walk abroad,
          Where underneath the grove of sycamore...
          So early walking did I see your son.
                                               {ACT_I|SCENE_I ^paragraph 45}
                                                  (I, i, 121-26)
-
  Instead of meeting Romeo in the middle of angry words and
fighting, we will meet him amidst the poetry of his loving family
and friends.
  We also find out that Romeo's parents are worried about him. He's
been spending his nights out walking, and his days locked in his room.
His father adds that Romeo "Shuts up his windows, locks fair
daylight out / And makes himself an artificial night."
-
                                               {ACT_I|SCENE_I ^paragraph 50}
---------------------------------------------------------------------
  NOTE: This is the first mention of how Romeo is connected to day and
night. Soon Juliet and true love will become his daylight and his sun.
But Romeo doesn't know true love yet, so he shuts out daylight and
creates "artificial night." Be on the lookout for more images of light
and dark.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
  Lord Montague has tried everything he can think of to find out
what's bothering Romeo, and now he asks for Benvolio's help. Keep
his words of concern in mind later, when we see how the Capulets
respond to Juliet's problems. Benvolio sees Romeo coming, and asks his
aunt and uncle to leave so the two cousins can talk alone.
                                               {ACT_I|SCENE_I ^paragraph 55}
-
  LINES 162-240
  Finally, we see the two best friends alone. Romeo comes to his
senses long enough to greet Benvolio and notice that there's been
fighting. The feud doesn't interest Romeo, he's got something else
on his mind, and Benvolio is determined to find out what it is. What
happens next is a situation we can all identify with. One friend has a
secret, and the other wants to know what it is. Benvolio gets Romeo to
admit that he's in love: the next trick is to find out with whom.
But Romeo isn't telling.
  We can't help but smile at Romeo in this scene. He's in love with
love. He's chosen a girl he can never have, and he's having a great
time feeling sorry for himself. He calls love a "madness" that has
overtaken him and claims "I have lost myself, I am not here / This
is not Romeo, he's some other where." (I, i, 200-1)
  Have you ever felt so overcome with emotion that you weren't
acting like your normal self? We'll see this happen to Romeo several
times during the play. Also, notice that when he's in this state,
Romeo's speech is childish and repetitive:
                                               {ACT_I|SCENE_I ^paragraph 60}
-
          She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair
          To merit bliss by making me despair.
                                                  (I, i, 224-25)
-
                                               {ACT_I|SCENE_I ^paragraph 65}
  It's no wonder that Benvolio wants the old Romeo back. Like a true
friend, he tries to solve the problem. He promises to find another
girl to make Romeo forget his grief.

ACT_I|SCENE_II
                           ACT I, SCENE II
-
  LINES 1-34
  In the last scene, we heard about Romeo before we met him; now we
hear about Juliet.
  Lord Capulet is in a good mood, and we soon find out why: Count
Paris, the Prince's relative and Verona's most eligible bachelor,
wants to marry Juliet. Paris is an honorable man, and he goes
through the accepted procedure for acquiring a wife- he asks her
father for her hand in marriage.
  Here we see Lord Capulet's public personality. He seems like a
gracious patriarch and father-figure. He claims Juliet is too young to
be married, but encourages Paris to win her heart. He wastes no time
in getting the two young people together; he invites Paris to a
party so he can start dating Juliet that very night.
  From this short scene we learn quite a bit about Juliet. At
thirteen, she's already very attractive. She's the Capulets' only
child; Lord Capulet calls her "the hopeful lady of my earth." Here
is another image of light and dark. He describes her and the other
young girls who'll be at the party as "stars that make dark heaven
light." But we'll have to wait a while longer to meet her.
                                               {ACT_I|SCENE_II ^paragraph 5}
-
  LINES 35-104
  Capulet gives his servant a list of other people to invite to the
party. There's only one problem: the servant can't read. He doesn't
mention this as Capulet and Paris leave; he's still trying to decipher
the list when he runs into Romeo and Benvolio.
  After joking around (when the servant is called "Clown" we expect no
less), Romeo finally reads the guest list to him. The list includes
Tybalt, Romeo's friend Mercutio, and the young woman Romeo's in love
with: the lovely Rosaline. When Romeo and Benvolio ask where this
party will be, the servant replies
-
                                              {ACT_I|SCENE_II ^paragraph 10}
                                  My master is the
          great rich Capulet, and if you be not of
          the house of Montague, I pray you come
                                                  (I, ii, 81-82)
-
                                              {ACT_I|SCENE_II ^paragraph 15}
  Of course, they are Montagues, but Benvolio decides they should go
anyway, as he has a scheme to help Romeo forget Rosaline. But Romeo
isn't convinced. He wants to go just to look at Rosaline.
-
---------------------------------------------------------------------
  NOTE: Romeo's chance meeting with Capulet's illiterate servant and
his invitation to the ball is the first fateful accident that guides
the action of the play. Be on the lookout for other chance happenings.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

ACT_I|SCENE_III
                           ACT I, SCENE III
-
  Now we go from the men on the street to the women in the Capulets'
house. It's almost party time, and Lady Capulet is looking for her
daughter. The tension is building. A lot has happened and we haven't
even seen Juliet yet. What does she look like? How does she talk?
Why does everyone fall in love with her? We finally get to meet
Juliet- but not all of our questions are answered. She doesn't say
much in this scene. She's an obedient child, literally, "seen but
not heard." Later, when she isn't surrounded by grown-ups, we'll
really get to know Juliet.
  The person we do get to know is the Nurse. Lady Capulet has
something important to tell Juliet, but it's the Nurse who talks
through the entire scene. At the beginning, Lady Capulet asks her
where Juliet is, and she replies:
-
          Now, by my maidenhead at twelve year old,
          I bade her come.
                                              {ACT_I|SCENE_III ^paragraph 5}
                                                     (I, iii, 2)
-
  That's roughly equivalent to "By my virginity when I was twelve, I
swear I've called her!" We see right away that the Nurse likes to make
funny sexual remarks, but who would say such a thing to the Lady of
the house? The Nurse gets away with it, and she's going to get away
with a lot more.
  Lady Capulet wants to talk to Juliet privately, and she sends
everyone away. But she soon remembers that the Nurse is Juliet's
second mother (she even nursed Juliet when she was a baby) and Lady
Capulet calls her back.
  The Nurse is a funny old woman. She talks incessantly, uses words
that she doesn't understand, and repeats herself constantly. But she
is devoted to Juliet.
                                             {ACT_I|SCENE_III ^paragraph 10}
  When she does finally get a word in, Lady Capulet comes right to the
point and asks Juliet, "How stands your dispositions to be married?"
Juliet demurely replies, "it is an honor I dream not of," before the
Nurse starts talking again. But now Lady Capulet takes over. She has
two good reasons that Juliet should consider marriage: she herself was
married at Juliet's age, and Paris is a good catch. Lady Capulet
reminds Juliet that Paris is young, handsome, well thought of, and
rich.
  The Nurse agrees completely, but her reasons for marriage have to do
with sex. She tells Juliet
-
          Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.
                                                   (I, iii, 106)
                                             {ACT_I|SCENE_III ^paragraph 15}
-
---------------------------------------------------------------------
  NOTE: Imagine how you would feel if you had to marry someone your
parents picked for you. For Juliet, however, this was the custom of
her times. She wasn't expected to marry for love.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

ACT_I|SCENE_IV
                           ACT I, SCENE IV
-
  As soon as the innocent Juliet has promised to try to like Paris,
we're back with Romeo.
  He's on his way to the Capulets' party with his friends, and he
and Benvolio are trying to decide if they should give the customary
speech that "masked" or uninvited guests usually give. Benvolio says
no, that's old-fashioned. He just wants to get in, dance, and leave.
  Then, just as the Nurse stole the last scene from Juliet, Romeo's
friend Mercutio steals this one from Romeo. Mercutio, like Paris, is
related to the Prince, and he doesn't have to worry about
gate-crashing the Capulets' party because he's been invited.
   Mercutio is witty and sarcastic, and quickly becomes the center
of attention. Unlike Benvolio, he isn't about to put up with Romeo's
romantic mooning, and Romeo's lovesickness becomes the butt of most of
his jokes. When Romeo is suddenly seized by a feeling of dread, he
tries to tell Mercutio, but Mercutio turns it into a joke:
-
                                               {ACT_I|SCENE_IV ^paragraph 5}
        Romeo. I dreamt a dream tonight.
     Mercutio. And so did I.
        Romeo. Well, what was yours?
     Mercutio. That dreamers often lie.
        Romeo. In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.
                                              {ACT_I|SCENE_IV ^paragraph 10}
     Mercutio. O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
                                                  (I, iv, 49-53)
-
  Then Mercutio launches into his witty speech about Queen Mab, the
fairies' midwife who "delivers" dreams. This speech is very
imaginative. Mercutio goes from one topic to another almost as if he's
dreaming. By the middle of the speech, Mercutio is really rolling.
He talks about elves and fairies and prayers. But the clever images
take on an angry edge, and Mercutio starts to lose control of himself.
It's ironic that Romeo, whom Mercutio has accused of being out of
his senses, is the one to calm Mercutio down.
  Meaning to make fun of superstitions and supernatural powers,
Mercutio ends up reminding us that there are mysterious forces at
work. Benvolio breaks the mood by claiming Mercutio's
long-windedness will make them late, but Romeo remains behind
because he has a premonition of danger. He says:
                                              {ACT_I|SCENE_IV ^paragraph 15}
-
                                   My mind misgives
          Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
          Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
          With this night's revels and expire the term
                                              {ACT_I|SCENE_IV ^paragraph 20}
          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 sail! On, lusty gentlemen!
                                                 (I, iv, 107-13)
                                              {ACT_I|SCENE_IV ^paragraph 25}
-
---------------------------------------------------------------------
  NOTE: All of us have had unexplainable feelings of dread or
uneasiness about something we're about to do. But Romeo's feeling is
very strong, and very specific. He's had a dream that's made him
feel that the forces unleashed this night will cause his death.
Romeo has several dreams in the play, some proving more accurate
than others. But both he and Juliet have reoccurring premonitions- a
feeling of knowing what's going to happen- and these are always right.
But now, no one else will even listen to Romeo's dream, let alone take
it seriously. So he tries to push it aside, and goes on to the party.
  This speech has been used as evidence for three different
explanations of why Romeo and Juliet meet their tragic ends.
  1) Romeo says he feels "some consequence yet hanging in the
stars"- is fate waiting for him to walk into its trap?
                                              {ACT_I|SCENE_IV ^paragraph 30}
  2) Trying to shake off his feelings of doom, he says, "But he that
hath the steerage of my course, direct my sail." Some readers feel
this is an appeal to Providence- the Protestants in Elizabethan
times would assume that God has the steerage of his course. Is
Providence really in charge here? Does this tragedy have to happen for
the good of the two families?
  3) Romeo concludes by saying, "Oh, lusty gentleman!" Whether he
meant "lusty" in the sexual sense, or just the robust, passionate
sense, Elizabethans could read this as a reason for Romeo's
downfall. To them, selfless love, or love of God, was holy, and
selfish love, that gratified personal passions, sinful. According to
this view, Romeo's already in trouble, for he's nothing if not
passionate. His lusty cohorts, likewise, could be in for a bad time.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

ACT_I|SCENE_V
                            ACT I, SCENE V
-
  We go from Romeo and his dark thoughts to a playful group of
servants.
-
---------------------------------------------------------------------
  NOTE: Watch how often this happens during the play; serious scenes
follow silly ones, and poetic scenes are followed by quick dialogue.
  Also, notice how many short scenes have come before the party scene.
So many people have been getting ready for it that we're ready for
something important to happen- and it does.
                                                {ACT_I|SCENE_V ^paragraph 5}
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
  Now we're back in the Capulets' house, and Lord Capulet is in his
element, happily welcoming all his guests. He's thrilled to see the
young men in masks- it reminds him of his bachelor days when he did
the same thing.
  Then we have to sit back and imagine what we'd see if we were at the
party: a beautiful hall in a wealthy man's house, plenty of food,
musicians playing, and lovely women dancing with dashing men. Benvolio
joins right in. Rosaline is there somewhere, but Romeo doesn't have
time for her: he's already seen Juliet.
  Juliet must be breathtakingly beautiful: both Paris and Romeo are
enchanted by her looks before they even meet her. But something more
is going on here: Romeo is so entranced that he's forgotten that he
ever had a crush on anyone else. The silly, repetitious praises he
made for Rosaline become wonderful, mature poetry as he exclaims about
Juliet:
                                               {ACT_I|SCENE_V ^paragraph 10}
-
          O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
          It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
          As a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear
          Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
                                               {ACT_I|SCENE_V ^paragraph 15}
                                                   (I, v, 46-50)
-
  Romeo is talking to himself as he says this, which was an accepted
custom on the Elizabethan stage. But, unexpectedly, someone
overhears him; and, unfortunately, that someone is Tybalt.
  Tybalt is furious. He recognizes Romeo and wants to kill him on
the spot, but Lord Capulet stops him. Capulet calls Romeo "a
virtuous and well-governed youth" while calling Tybalt "a saucy boy"
and "a princox." For the first time we see Capulet unleash his anger
on someone who doesn't instantly obey him. In the same speech, he goes
back and forth between speaking jovially to his guests and calling
Tybalt ugly names. True, Tybalt deserves it; but we'll later see
Capulet act the same way towards someone who doesn't.
-
                                               {ACT_I|SCENE_V ^paragraph 20}
  LINES 95-145
  Romeo finally meets Juliet. They're not formally introduced; they
don't know each other's names. Romeo reverently calls her "dear
saint," and likens her hand to a shrine, and his lips to two
pilgrims who've come to the shrine to be forgiven their sins. Who
could resist a romantic line like that? Not Juliet. She's instantly
smitten with this mysterious young man, but she gives him a run for
his money. He asks if saints have lips as well as hands, and she
says yes, but lips are used for prayer. When he does finally kiss
her lips to absolve his "sin", she asks if her lips now have the
sin, and makes him kiss her again to take it back. It's ironic that
from the beginning Romeo claims that kissing Juliet pardons his
sins, when some feel that their passion is the sin that leads to their
downfall.
-
---------------------------------------------------------------------
  NOTE: Romeo and Juliet fit together so well from the beginning
that their gentle battle of wits (interspersed with joyful kisses)
forms a sonnet- lines 95 to 108. Shakespeare seems to be telling us
that the moment was so beautiful it had to be preserved as a poem.
                                               {ACT_I|SCENE_V ^paragraph 25}
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
  The young lovers are interrupted by the Nurse, who tells Juliet that
her mother wishes to see her. Romeo asks the Nurse who Juliet's mother
is, and when he finds out, he exclaims:
-
                                  Is she a Capulet?
                                               {ACT_I|SCENE_V ^paragraph 30}
          O dear account! My life is my foe's debt!
                                                  (I, v, 119-20)
-
  As the party breaks up, Juliet casually asks the Nurse to identify
several young men, including Romeo. When the Nurse goes off to find
out who he is, Juliet whispers to herself, "If he is married, my grave
is like to be my wedding bed." We know that the opposite of this
will be true; it is the first of many ironic foreshadowings.
-
                                               {ACT_I|SCENE_V ^paragraph 35}
---------------------------------------------------------------------
  NOTE: This is the first time that marriage is linked to death.
Keep an eye out for this idea to reoccur.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
  When Juliet learns his identity, her cry echos Romeo's:
                                               {ACT_I|SCENE_V ^paragraph 40}
-
          My only love, sprung from my only hate!
          Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
                                                 (I, v, 140-141)

ACT_II|PROLOGUE
                           ACT II, PROLOGUE
-
  The Chorus (which, in Shakespeare's day, was only one person)
appears as in Act I to comment on the action. Again, Shakespeare
uses a sonnet.
  Romeo's love for Rosaline is dead, we're told. He now loves
Juliet. Romeo and Juliet don't really know each other yet, but they
have both been "bewitched by the charm of looks."
  At the end of the sonnet, we're told that neither fate, nor
Providence, but passion lends the lovers power to meet. How can good
come from "sinful" passion? The wise Friar Lawrence will explain
this later in the act.

ACT_II|SCENE_I
                           ACT II, SCENE I
-
  The party's over and Romeo's out on the street. He's dazed after
meeting Juliet, and reluctant to go home. When he hears Benvolio and
Mercutio coming, he ducks out of sight.
  Benvolio and Mercutio, still in a party mood, are looking for
their friend. Benvolio calls for Romeo by name, but Mercutio is more
inventive. He calls, "Romeo! Humors! Madman! Passion! Lover!" and says
that if Romeo will only mutter lovers' cliches he'll know it's him.
  Mercutio assumes that Romeo is still pining away for Rosaline. In
fact, Mercutio says the best he can do is to conjure up the ghost of
the old Romeo.
  Benvolio finally decides they should just
-
                                               {ACT_II|SCENE_I ^paragraph 5}
          Go then, for 'tis in vain
          To seek him here that means not to be found.
                                                  (II, i, 41-42)

ACT_II|SCENE_II
                           ACT II, SCENE II
-
  LINES 1-49
  Romeo's hiding in an orchard but he's heard Mercutio's sarcastic
remarks. "He jests at scars that never felt a wound!" Romeo complains.
  But then Romeo realizes where he is, and the whole scene turns
around. By coincidence he's in the Capulets' orchard, and Juliet-
who's also too excited to sleep- has come to her window.
  Romeo can't believe his good luck. Still hidden in the orchard, he
gazes up at the girl the same way he would gaze at the heavens. He
turns his wonder and joy into poetry. Juliet again represents light to
him- she is the sun, and her eyes are brighter than two stars. But
although his love poetry about Juliet is much more creative and mature
than his verses about Rosaline, Romeo still keeps his distance.
Instead of speaking to her, he muses,
-
                                              {ACT_II|SCENE_II ^paragraph 5}
          See how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
          O, that I were a glove upon that hand
          That I might touch that cheek.
                                                 (II, ii, 23-25)
-
                                             {ACT_II|SCENE_II ^paragraph 10}
  Then, to Romeo's delight, Juliet begins to speak. This is the second
time that someone who's been talking to him or herself has been
overheard. And, for the second time, it changes the course of the
play.
  The lovestruck Juliet is talking to herself about Romeo. But instead
of comparing him to stars and gods (as Romeo compared her) she gets
down to the practical matter of wondering why he has to be a Montague.
"Tis but thy name that's my enemy," she says. What do names matter
anyway? "That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as
sweet." She ends by proclaiming
-
          Romeo, doff thy name;
          And for that name, which is no part of thee
                                             {ACT_II|SCENE_II ^paragraph 15}
          Take all myself.
                                                 (II, ii, 47-49)
-
  LINES 49-185
  Juliet's offer is too much for Romeo to ignore. He rushes out of
hiding, saying:
                                             {ACT_II|SCENE_II ^paragraph 20}
-
                             I take thee at thy word!
          Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized;
          Henceforth I never will be Romeo.
                                                 (II, ii, 49-51)
                                             {ACT_II|SCENE_II ^paragraph 25}
-
  Juliet is shocked that there's a man in the orchard- wouldn't you
be? She's even more shocked that he's been eavesdropping. She
doesn't recognize him until he calls her "dear saint".
  Their conversation immediately points up the differences in their
personalities. Juliet asks short, practical questions, and Romeo gives
idealistic, flowery replies.
  But their temperamental differences are complementary. They are both
kind, noble people, and they're madly in love.
  Juliet is embarrassed that Romeo overheard her frank statement of
love. She offers to be shier, more coquettish, if he'd like; but she'd
rather not, she loves him too much to play silly games. She asks him
if he loves her, and he starts to swear that he does; but she stops
him and asks him not to swear. Before Romeo can come up with a good
answer to this, Juliet suddenly becomes afraid.
                                             {ACT_II|SCENE_II ^paragraph 30}
-
                         Although I joy in thee,
          I have no joy in this contract tonight.
          It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;
          Too like the lightning, which does cease to be
                                             {ACT_II|SCENE_II ^paragraph 35}
          Ere one can say it lightens.
                                                (II, ii, 116-20)
-
  How can we blame the lovers for the tragedy, when Juliet herself
wishes their love were less sudden, more conventional? Every step of
the way, we see that Romeo and Juliet try their best to do the right
and honorable thing.
-
                                             {ACT_II|SCENE_II ^paragraph 40}
---------------------------------------------------------------------
  NOTE: Here our sympathy lies with the lovers as they do their best
to fight fate. But at the same time, Juliet's image of lightning is
the first of several times that their passion will be described as a
blinding light that will die instantly.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
  Juliet tries to say goodnight then, but Romeo asks her to stay. He
wants more than the vow of love she spoke to herself; he wants her
to tell him that she loves him.
                                             {ACT_II|SCENE_II ^paragraph 45}
  True to her word, Juliet isn't shy; she declares her love more
passionately than she did before. She tells him,
-
          My passion is as boundless as the sea
          My love as deep; The more I give to thee,
          The more I have, for both are infinite.
                                             {ACT_II|SCENE_II ^paragraph 50}
                                                (II, ii, 133-35)
-
  The Nurse calls to Juliet from inside, and the girl hurries in,
promising to return. When she does return, she is again the
practical one. She comes straight to the point: if his love is
honorable and his purpose marriage, he should send word to her of when
and where they'll be married, "and all my fortunes at thy foot I'll
lay / and follow thee my lord throughout the earth." But if he doesn't
mean well, he should tell her right away and leave her to her grief.
Romeo is as eager as she is to be married, and he promises he'll
have it arranged by nine o'clock that morning.
-
---------------------------------------------------------------------
                                             {ACT_II|SCENE_II ^paragraph 55}
  NOTE: Juliet complains that "Tis twenty year till then." The
lovers have entered into their own reality. In truth, time speeds
by. All of this has happened in one day, and by the end of the next
day, much will have changed. Be sure to watch the difference between
actual lengths of time, and how time feels to the lovers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
  Then, like lovers of any time, they can't stand to say good night.
Finally they part, but only to make plans to consummate their love.

ACT_II|SCENE_III
                          ACT II, SCENE III
-
  LINES 1-32
  From the passion of the night, we go to the calm of early morning.
As the sun rises, we find Friar Lawrence is in his cell (room)
preparing to go out and gather "baleful weeds and precious-juiced
flowers." He's a man who knows herbs and medicines; by his
descriptions of the dawn and the dew, he's a man who loves nature. But
his view of it is realistic: he knows that the same flower can be used
for medicine or poison. After this scene, it will seem natural that
the Friar will try to use his knowledge of medicines and potions to
help the lovers.
  Some readers feel that in this speech, Friar Lawrence states the
themes of the play. He is aware of paradoxes:
-
          The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb.
                                             {ACT_II|SCENE_III ^paragraph 5}
          What is her burying grave, that is her womb
                                                 (II, iii, 9-10)
-
  He also understands that everything- including people- have the
potential for good or for evil:
-
                                            {ACT_II|SCENE_III ^paragraph 10}
        For naught so vile that on the earth doth live
        But to the earth some special good doth give;
        Nor ought so good but, strained from that fair use,
        Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.
        Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,
                                            {ACT_II|SCENE_III ^paragraph 15}
        And vice sometime by action dignified.
                                                (II, iii, 17-22)
-
---------------------------------------------------------------------
  NOTE: How does this apply to the lovers? Are we to think that
love, a virtue, can become a sin? Or passion, a sin, can be used for
good? Keep these questions in mind through the next few scenes.
                                            {ACT_II|SCENE_III ^paragraph 20}
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
  LINES 31-94
  Before the friar can leave his cell, Romeo calls a greeting. The
friar is delighted to see him. He calls Romeo "young son", and means
it in a deeper sense than the usual priest-parishioner relationship.
The two are very close. Friar Lawrence knows more about Romeo than
do his parents. When Romeo admits that he's been up all night, the
friar sighs, "God pardon sin! Wast thou with Rosaline?"
  But Romeo says he has only good news for the friar. He tells him
he's forgotten Rosaline, and has been "feasting with mine enemy." When
the friar asks him not to speak in riddles, Romeo comes to the
point- he loves Juliet and wants the friar to marry them that very
day. The friar's instant reaction is an emphatic no.
                                            {ACT_II|SCENE_III ^paragraph 25}
-
          Holy Saint Francis! What a change is here!
          Is Rosaline, that thou didst love so dear,
          So soon forsaken? Young men's love then lies
          Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
                                            {ACT_II|SCENE_III ^paragraph 30}
                                                (II, iii, 65-68)
-
  By the end of the scene, Friar Lawrence hasn't yet promised to marry
them, but he admits that Romeo and Juliet's love could work to bury
their families' hatred. Romeo pleads with him to hurriedly help them
make plans but Friar Lawrence answers:
-
          Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast.
                                            {ACT_II|SCENE_III ^paragraph 35}
                                                   (II, iii, 94)
-
  This is another warning we know will go unheeded.

ACT_II|SCENE_IV
                           ACT II, SCENE IV
-
  From the quiet church, we go back to the streets. Mercutio and
Benvolio are out again, and still looking for Romeo. Benvolio tells
Mercutio two choice bits of information: that Romeo didn't come home
at all that night, and that Tybalt has sent Romeo a letter challenging
him to a duel. Benvolio says he's sure that Romeo will accept Tybalt's
challenge. Mercutio bets he won't- Romeo's as good as dead already,
"run through the ear with a love song." Tybalt is an expert swordsman,
he adds, and Romeo's in no state to take him on.
  This is funny to us, because we know that Romeo doesn't care about
Rosaline anymore. But we also feel the danger, because we know that
Tybalt's threat is nothing to take lightly.
-
---------------------------------------------------------------------
  NOTE: Have you ever had two good friends who had nothing, besides
you, in common? Benvolio and Mercutio are like that. They're an odd
couple when Romeo isn't around.
                                              {ACT_II|SCENE_IV ^paragraph 5}
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
  Mercutio uses his own witty descriptions of Tybalt to launch into
more punning and wordplay. Unlike Romeo, Benvolio is no match for
Mercutio's wit; in fact, he doesn't even try to be. Mercutio's in fine
form; he makes fun of everything that comes to mind. He's obviously
well-educated, and knows French. He uses this to make fun of people
who, putting on airs, throw around French phrases. This would be funny
to people in Shakespeare's audience, because English people were as
likely to show their snobbishness by speaking French as Italian people
(like Mercutio) were.
  Romeo enters in the middle of one of Mercutio's tirades.
Pretending not to notice him, Mercutio lists many of history's great
lovers, and claims that they all seem like prostitutes next to
Rosaline. But Romeo's not only his old self again, he's his new self
as well, and more than Mercutio's match at wordgames. Mercutio is so
surprised at the change in Romeo, that at one point he cries, "Come
between us, good Benvolio, my wits faints!" Again in the middle of a
joke comes a grim foreshadowing of what will come.
  Mercutio is thrilled to have his old friend back. He exclaims
                                             {ACT_II|SCENE_IV ^paragraph 10}
-
          Why, is this not better than groaning for love?
          Now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo.
                                                 (II, iv, 92-94)
-
                                             {ACT_II|SCENE_IV ^paragraph 15}
---------------------------------------------------------------------
  NOTE: In this scene, we see how much the two friends care about each
other. This friendship will be important to the action of the play.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
  LINES 106-67
                                             {ACT_II|SCENE_IV ^paragraph 20}
  The young men soon turn from making fun of each other to making
fun of others. Romeo spies an old servant-woman all dressed up and
trying to act ladylike. She's wearing a very noticeable hat, too,
for as soon as Romeo sees her, he shouts, "A sail! A sail!" He doesn't
recognize her as Juliet's nurse, and before he does, Mercutio takes
over.
  The Nurse has some wit and an earthy humor, but she's no match for
Mercutio's intelligence. The more she tries to act upper-class the
worse it gets. Mercutio pretends to go along with her, then cracks
racy jokes at her expense. The final insult is that Peter, the Nurse's
servant, thinks it's funny, too.
  She finally says she's looking for Romeo. Romeo sends Mercutio and
Benvolio away, promising to join them for supper. The Nurse is still
furious with Mercutio, but Romeo assures her that he's only, "a
gentleman, nurse, who loves to hear himself talk."
-
  LINES 168-222
                                             {ACT_II|SCENE_IV ^paragraph 25}
  Romeo finally calms the Nurse, but she remains defensive and
protective of Juliet. She warns Romeo that he'd better not lead her
into a "fool's paradise."
  As soon as Romeo begins to speak, the Nurse is won over. Once he
tells her the plan, the Nurse is her old self. After a good chat,
Romeo and the Nurse go their separate ways.

ACT_II|SCENE_V
                           ACT II, SCENE V
-
  While the Nurse is meeting with Romeo, Juliet waits at home. She's
very impatient- and who wouldn't be? Haven't you had an evening that
was so wonderful that the next morning, you wondered if the whole
thing was a dream? This is how Juliet feels. She won't know until
the Nurse returns if last night was too good to be true- or if this is
her wedding day.
  Finally the Nurse returns. She has the news Juliet's been waiting
for, but she isn't telling. Instead, she teases Juliet, acting sad,
complaining of her aching bones and shortage of breath. The more
Juliet pleads, the more the Nurse teases her.
  We get the feeling that the Nurse has done this to Juliet before. It
might have been a funny game when Juliet was little, but now that
she needs important information, the Nurse's prattle seems thoughtless
and cruel.
-
---------------------------------------------------------------------
                                               {ACT_II|SCENE_V ^paragraph 5}
  NOTE: We begin to notice that the whole play revolves around
messages, and that the two lovers depend on the message-bearers. If
Juliet has this much trouble with the Nurse this early, can we be sure
that later messages will reach their destinations?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
  Yet the Nurse really does care for Juliet. She finally tells her the
happy news: Juliet should go to the friar's cell, for "there stays a
husband to make you a wife." The Nurse will keep the lovers' secret
and get the rope-ladder (which Romeo will climb to Juliet's balcony)
so the couple can spend their wedding night together.

ACT_II|SCENE_VI
                         ACT II, SCENE VI
-
  A little while later, Friar Lawrence and Romeo are waiting in the
Friar's cell. Romeo says something that sounds odd, coming from a
bridegroom:
-
          Do thou but close our hands with holy words,
          Then love-devouring death do what he dare-
          It is enough I may but call her mine.
                                              {ACT_II|SCENE_VI ^paragraph 5}
                                                   (II, vi, 6-8)
-
  He's still responding, perhaps subconsciously, to his earlier fear
that he's about to die. Does he really mean that if they're married,
he's won, even over death? If those are his terms for victory, have
the lovers "won" at the end of the play?
  The Friar, doing his religious duty, restates the church's warning
about their passion:
-
                                             {ACT_II|SCENE_VI ^paragraph 10}
          These violent delights have violent ends
          And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
          Which, as they kiss, consume.
                                                  (II, vi, 9-11)
  Again, the lovers' passion is compared to a brilliant light that
goes out as soon as it's lit.
                                             {ACT_II|SCENE_VI ^paragraph 15}
  But when Juliet enters, the Friar can't help but admire her,
almost as much as Romeo does.
  Romeo and Juliet are so thrilled just to be together that getting
married almost seems an added attraction. But the Friar nonetheless
recognizes the depth of their passion. He decides he'd better get them
married before he leaves them alone, so that their physical
relationship will be holy.

ACT_III|SCENE_I
                           ACT III, SCENE I
-
  LINES 1-35
  Act III opens with Benvolio and Mercutio out on the street again,
but their tone has changed. Benvolio begs Mercutio, "let's retire...
For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring."
  Mercutio blames Benvolio for being hot-headed and looking for a
fight. The irony is that everything for which Mercutio blames Benvolio
is actually true of Mercutio.
  Their banter is still funny, but it has dangerous overtones.
Mercutio says that if there were two hotheaded people out, soon
there would be none, for they'd kill each other. Benvolio says that
the life expectancy of someone in Mercutio's fighting mood is an
hour and a quarter. As insults between friends, these lines are funny.
Unfortunately, they're going to come true.
-
                                              {ACT_III|SCENE_I ^paragraph 5}
  LINES 36-138
  As if on cue, Tybalt enters, looking for Romeo. Mercutio insults him
and goads him to fight; the only reason that Tybalt won't fight
Mercutio is that he's still obsessed with the "injury" that Romeo's
done to his family.
  Just then, Romeo comes in, fresh from his wedding. Tybalt is
thrilled; but try as he might, Tybalt can't get Romeo to fight.
Romeo doesn't pay any attention to his insults; instead he calls him
"cousin," and says he holds the name Capulet as dear as his own. The
feud might have ended right there, and the lovers could have lived
happily ever after. But Mercutio is there, and he's appalled at
Romeo's actions. He calls "O, calm, dishonorable, vile submission!"
and takes up Tybalt's challenge himself.
  We, like Romeo, want to part the two hot-tempered fighters. But just
as Romeo runs between them, Tybalt stabs Mercutio, then runs off. This
is the turning point of the play: the comedy has turned irrevocably to
tragedy.
  Mercutio's friends don't realize how badly he's hurt. True to
form, Mercutio's making puns. But then he asks Romeo, "Why the devil
came you between us? I was hurt under your arm." All that Romeo can
answer is, "I thought all for the best."
                                             {ACT_III|SCENE_I ^paragraph 10}
  Romeo's good intentions aren't enough; Mercutio dies, cursing the
Montagues and Capulets. Now Romeo has a reason to fight the
Capulets. One of his best friends is dead, and he feels that it's
his fault. All of us know, don't we, how bad we feel when we
inadvertently hurt one of our best friends. Can you imagine how
terrible you'd feel if your best friend accidentally died because of
something you'd done?
  Would the old Romeo have let this happen? Romeo doesn't know; he's
overcome with guilt and grief. He wonders if his love for Juliet has
made him effeminate, taken away his courage. By the time Tybalt
returns, Romeo has forgotten his feelings of love, and has given in to
hate. He yells, "fire-eyed fury be my conduct now!" and tells Tybalt
that one of them must join Mercutio. It's a fight to the death, but
the furious Romeo manages to kill the sword-skilled Tybalt.
  Benvolio, as always thinking clearly, urges Romeo to flee, as
fighting in the streets carries the death penalty. A crowd is forming.
Only then, does Romeo realize the consequences of his rash action,
crying, "O, I am fortune's fool!" before he's hurried away.
-
  LINES 139-99
                                             {ACT_III|SCENE_I ^paragraph 15}
  The Prince comes to the scene, and so do the Montagues and Capulets.
Benvolio stays to give a fair, unbiased account of the fight. Lady
Capulet is anguished over Tybalt's death; she claims Benvolio is lying
and demands that Romeo be killed. Instead, the Prince banishes Romeo
from Verona, "else when he is found, that hour is his last." The
Prince is outraged that one of his relatives has been killed in the
Capulet-Montague feud. He fines both families heavily. He's let them
off too easily in the past, he says, and this fight proves that "Mercy
but murders, pardoning those that kill."

ACT_III|SCENE_II
                          ACT III, SCENE II
-
  LINES 1-31
  Juliet's in the Capulets' orchard. Completely unaware of what's
happened, she's busy making plans for her wedding-night. Losing her
virginity is a serious thing to Juliet, but she's more than ready to
sleep with Romeo.
-
---------------------------------------------------------------------
  NOTE: Again, we see that Romeo represents light to her. He is her
"day in night," and she fantasizes that when he dies, Romeo could be
cut up into stars and put in the sky. Then everyone could be in love
with night.
                                             {ACT_III|SCENE_II ^paragraph 5}
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
  Here, we get a glimpse of a young girl growing up. She will soon
be a matron herself, but as yet, she is "an impatient child that
hath new robes / and may not wear them."
-
  LINES 32-143
                                            {ACT_III|SCENE_II ^paragraph 10}
  The Nurse arrives with news of the fight. As she did earlier that
morning, she wrings her hands, and looks sad; again Juliet pleads
for the news. This time, the Nurse garbles the message, leading Juliet
to believe first that Romeo has been killed, then that Romeo has
committed suicide; then that Romeo and Tybalt are both dead, and
finally that Romeo has killed Tybalt.
  Juliet is stunned. She can't believe Tybalt is dead, and she calls
Romeo "a damned saint and an honorable villain." But when the Nurse
cries, "Shame come to Romeo!" Juliet jumps to his defense. She knew of
Tybalt's temper, and says "that villain cousin would have killed my
husband." Her loyalty is no longer with her family, but with her
husband. She cries that Romeo's banishment is worse than 10,000
slain Tybalts:
-
          "Romeo is banished"- to speak that word
          Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
                                            {ACT_III|SCENE_II ^paragraph 15}
          All slain, all dead.
                                               (III, ii, 123-24)
-
  Juliet then says this means that she is married to the death; we
know that this is truer than she realizes.
  The Nurse finally tells Juliet the news she should have told her
at the beginning: Romeo is hiding in Friar Lawrence's cell, and can
come to her that night. Juliet gives the Nurse one of her rings to
give to Romeo, and sends her off right away.

ACT_III|SCENE_III
                          ACT III, SCENE III
-
  LINES 1-78
  If we were watching a movie, we might see a fade-out on Juliet
crying "banished," and a fade-in on Romeo crying the same thing.
He's in Friar Lawrence's cell, and the Friar has just told him of
the Prince's judgment. The Friar is very relieved that Romeo isn't
condemned to death, and he's confident that eventually things will
work out.
  But Romeo can see no future for himself: to be separated from Juliet
is unthinkable to him. In another foreshadowing, he asks for poison or
a knife with which to kill himself.
  Friar Lawrence tries to calm Romeo with philosophy and common sense,
but Romeo cries, "Hang philosophy!" The Friar accuses Romeo of
acting like a madman; Romeo accuses the Friar of not understanding the
situation or his feelings.
  But does that mean he shouldn't take any of Lawrence's advise? By
the time there's a knocking at the door, Romeo even refuses to hide.
He'd rather be killed.
                                            {ACT_III|SCENE_III ^paragraph 5}
-
  LINES 79-175
  Fortunately, the intruder is Juliet's Nurse. She tells the Friar
that Juliet is acting as childishly as Romeo.
  She orders Romeo to stand up and act like a man, then tells him
Juliet's weeping, first calling for Tybalt, then for Romeo. Romeo's
filled with guilt, thinking he's responsible for Juliet's suffering.
He grabs his dagger to kill himself, but the Nurse pulls it away.
  This threat finally provokes Friar Lawrence to action. Not only does
he love Romeo dearly, but the Church sees suicide as a mortal sin.
He commands Romeo to "hold thy desperate hand," and act like a man.
"Thy tears are womanish," he accuses, "thy wild acts denote the
unreasonable fury of a beast."
                                           {ACT_III|SCENE_III ^paragraph 10}
  He tells Romeo to think of others beside himself, and to keep his
mood in check. In yet another foreshadowing he asks:
-
          Hast thou slain Tybalt? Will thou slay thyself?
          And slay thy lady that in thy life lives
          By doing damned hate upon thyself?
                                           {ACT_III|SCENE_III ^paragraph 15}
                                              (III, iii, 116-18)
-
  He also warns that Romeo's present mood is likely to cause a
catastrophe that can be easily avoided. Knowing what we know, we
want to add our support to these warnings.
  The friar goes a little overboard in saying that "a pack of
blessings light upon thy back," but he points out three reasons that
Romeo should be grateful: 1) "Juliet is alive;" 2) "Tybalt would
kill thee, but thou slewest Tybalt," and 3) "The law, threatened
death, becomes thy friend and turns it to exile."
  Friar Lawrence then lays out the plan of action: Romeo will spend
the night with Juliet, sneak out of Verona before dawn and go to
Mantua; then Friar Lawrence, after having their marriage recognized,
will call him back.
                                           {ACT_III|SCENE_III ^paragraph 20}
  The thought of seeing Juliet revives Romeo completely. Friar
Lawrence and Romeo say loving goodbyes to one other; unknown to
them, it's their final farewell.

ACT_III|SCENE_IV
                          ACT III, SCENE IV
-
  A few hours later, we're back at the Capulets' house, where Lord and
Lady Capulet are saying good night to Count Paris. Why are we back
with them? What do they have to do with the lovers?
  Paris has come to see Juliet, but her father explains that she's
grief-stricken at Tybalt's death. Because Juliet's mourning, her
parents haven't been able to ask her how she feels about Paris.
  Paris is a thoughtful young man, and he understands completely. He
sends his best regards to Juliet and starts to leave. We can't
really help but like Paris; he obviously loves Juliet very much.
He's a good man, he's just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Fate seems to be playing with him as much as it is with Romeo and
Juliet.
  As Paris is leaving, Lord Capulet is suddenly convinced that
Juliet will obey his wishes in this matter. To him, Juliet and
Paris' eventual marriage is certain, and he calls Paris "son;" He
now decides to assuage Juliet's grief by setting their wedding for
that very week. It's still Monday (and what a day- it's included
marriage, death, and banishment!) so Wednesday is too soon- they'll be
married on Thursday.
  Capulet asks Paris if this is all right- since the family is
mourning for Tybalt, it will be a small wedding. (This would be a
sacrifice since someone of Paris' stature would expect to have a
huge wedding celebration.) Paris loves Juliet so much that he agrees
instantly.
                                             {ACT_III|SCENE_IV ^paragraph 5}
  Suddenly, Paris is a very real threat to the lovers. Juliet's second
wedding is only two days away.

ACT_III|SCENE_V
                           ACT III, SCENE V
-
  LINES 1-64
  While Lord Capulet is making arrangements for Juliet's marriage to
Paris, Juliet is secretly in her bedroom with Romeo. In contrast to
the quick, businesslike scene with Paris, the two lovers revel in each
other's presence as if life and time were theirs to command. They
speak tenderly to each other, and their language is beautiful and
mature. We can see that their love has never been deeper.
  Romeo says it's near day and he has to leave for Mantua, but
Juliet begs him to stay. Overcome with the joy of being with her,
Romeo throws caution to the wind. Then Juliet realizes it really is
near day, and he really is in danger, and she begs him to go
quickly. It seems that even nature is working against them: light
and day, which used to be their friend, is now their enemy:
-
    Juliet. O, now be gone! More light and light it grows.
                                              {ACT_III|SCENE_V ^paragraph 5}
     Romeo. More light and light- more dark and dark our woes.
                                                 (III, v, 35-36)
-
---------------------------------------------------------------------
  NOTE: In the prologue to Act II, time was their friend and helped
them meet in secret. But now time, too, is keeping them apart.
Juliet says
                                             {ACT_III|SCENE_V ^paragraph 10}
-
          I must hear from thee every day in the hour
          For in a minute there are many days.
          O, by this count I shall be much in years
          Ere I again behold my Romeo!
                                             {ACT_III|SCENE_V ^paragraph 15}
                                                 (III, v, 44-47)
-
  This also contrasts the lovers' sense of how time can stretch and
seem longer, to the condensed time that is catching up with them and
starting to crush them. The two days they've known each other have
seemed long because so much has happened. But from now on, time is
going to rush by, pushing them from one tragedy to another.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
                                             {ACT_III|SCENE_V ^paragraph 20}
  As Romeo finally drops to the ground from Juliet's window, she has a
terrible feeling of foreboding: she thinks she sees Romeo, not on
the ground, but "as one dead in the bottom of a tomb." Romeo says that
his grief makes her look the same way to him.
  As Romeo leaves, Juliet pleads to Fortune to send him back to her
quickly.
-
  LINES 65-126
  The Nurse warns Juliet that her mother is coming, and Juliet's
startled- it's well before dawn.
                                             {ACT_III|SCENE_V ^paragraph 25}
  When Lady Capulet finds Juliet crying, she assumes Juliet's grief is
for Tybalt. She tells her daughter that she's carrying it too far;
tears can't bring Tybalt back. The real tragedy, she says, is that
Tybalt's murderer is still alive. Lady Capulet's dearest wish is to
send someone to Mantua to poison Romeo.
  Through their whole conversation, Juliet talks in double meanings.
To her mother it sounds like she mourns for Tybalt and hates Romeo;
but we know she means just the opposite.
  Does her talk, with hidden meaning, show her new maturity and her
ability to hide her feelings? Or does she speak childishly and
contribute to her own sense of loneliness? In either case, we feel
strongly that the lovers are alone against the world.
-
---------------------------------------------------------------------
                                             {ACT_III|SCENE_V ^paragraph 30}
  NOTE: Throughout the story, plot turnarounds have happened fairly
quickly. Romeo turned quickly from loving Rosaline to loving Juliet;
the couple's wedding soon turned into horror at the deaths of Mercutio
and Tybalt. Now events and turnarounds start happening so fast that
characters have to make instant decisions and think on their feet.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
  Lady Capulet says she has happy news for Juliet: she will marry
Paris on Thursday. The mother seems genuinely happy for her
daughter: Paris is gallant, young and noble- everything her own
husband is not.
-
                                             {ACT_III|SCENE_V ^paragraph 35}
---------------------------------------------------------------------
  NOTE: Was there ever a time when your parents worked hard on a
surprise for you- but it was something you didn't want? Do you
remember the anger and hurt on both sides? This is part of what's
happening here with the Capulets- but the stakes are very high.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
  Juliet angrily refuses to marry Paris. Why should she marry
someone who hasn't even wooed her? She swears by the saints she
won't marry anyone, and if she does it will more likely be Romeo, whom
her parents hate, than Paris. She ends with an emphatic "These are
news indeed!", roughly equivalent to: "So what do you think about
that!"
                                             {ACT_III|SCENE_V ^paragraph 40}
  Lady Capulet knows better than to get caught between her
daughter's temper and her husband's. She tells Juliet, "Here comes
your father. Tell him so yourself / and see how he will take it at
your hands."
-
  LINES 127-244
  It's obvious that Juliet doesn't want to marry Paris. But, instead
of trying to find out why and counsel her, her parents angrily
disown her.
  When her father and her Nurse arrive at her bedroom, her father asks
Lady Capulet if she's given Juliet the news. She answers with
another bit of foreshadowing:
                                             {ACT_III|SCENE_V ^paragraph 45}
-
          Ay sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks.
          I would the fool were married to her grave!
                                                (III, v, 139-41)
-
                                             {ACT_III|SCENE_V ^paragraph 50}
  Lord Capulet explodes with anger that Juliet should cross him this
way. Lady Capulet tries to bring him to his senses, telling him he's
acting crazy; but in the end, only the Nurse stands up for Juliet.
  Still nothing calms her father down. He yells that his whole life
has been devoted to finding Juliet a worthy match; and now that he's
found the best one possible, she refuses, whining like a fool. He lays
down a final ultimatum: if she doesn't marry Paris on Thursday, she
can
-
          Hang, beg, starve, die in the streets,
          For, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee.
                                             {ACT_III|SCENE_V ^paragraph 55}
                                                (III, v, 194-95)
-
  Juliet turns to her mother one last time: "O sweet my mother, cast
me not away! Delay this marriage for a month, a week." But it's no
use. Her mother says, "Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee."
  Deserted by her parents, Juliet turns to her faithful Nurse for
advice. The Nurse's advice is simple- forget Romeo and marry Paris.
Paris is so fine, she says, that Romeo's a dishcloth in comparison.
  Juliet is shocked. "Speakest thou from your heart?" she asks. Juliet
has a serious problem. Legally, morally, and in her heart she is
already married. Instead of offering a solution for her problem, the
Nurse suggests that she ignore it, pretend it hadn't happened, and
start again.
                                             {ACT_III|SCENE_V ^paragraph 60}
  This is the worst betrayal of all. Juliet still hides her
feelings, and tells the Nurse that she has comforted her "marvellous
much." But she cuts the final cord to her childhood. Alone, Juliet
says of her Nurse, "Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain."
  The girl has only one hope left- Friar Lawrence. She resolves to
go to church to confess displeasing her father. At this point,
Juliet has taken responsibility for her own fate. "If all else fail,
myself have power to die," she pledges.

ACT_IV|SCENE_I
                           ACT IV, SCENE I
-
  LINES 1-43
  We find ourselves at Lawrence's cell before Juliet's arrival. Of all
people, Paris is with the friar, having come to make plans for his
wedding. Friar Lawrence tries to stall him, but we soon realize that
he isn't going to disclose the true situation, to Paris, or anyone
else. Is this courageous or cowardly? We'll wonder about the friar's
courage more in the coming scenes.
  Juliet comes running in, and both she and Paris are surprised to see
each other. It's plain to see that Paris really loves Juliet. He
speaks tenderly to her, and is concerned that she's grieving. When
he asks hopefully for a sign of love from her, we can't help but
feel sorry for him.
  Juliet again talks in circles giving Paris answers that could mean
several things. Although she hides her feelings, her tension shows,
She abruptly interrupts her talk with Paris to ask the Friar if he can
see her right away, or if she should come back. The Friar sends
Paris away so that he might counsel Juliet privately.
-
                                               {ACT_IV|SCENE_I ^paragraph 5}
  LINES 44-126
  Once they're alone in the friar's cell, Juliet drops her defenses
and cries:
-
        O shut the door, and when thou hast done so,
        Come weep with me- past hope, past care, past help!
                                              {ACT_IV|SCENE_I ^paragraph 10}
                                                  (IV, i, 44-45)
-
  Lawrence tells her he knows of her dilemma, but "It strains me
past the compass of my wits."
  Juliet begs his help. She says God joined her heart to Romeo's,
and the Friar joined their hands in marriage. She'd rather kill
herself, she declares, than marry someone other than Romeo.
  The Friar has to think fast, and the plan he comes up with is a
desperate one. They have to stop the marriage, and to do so, they must
buy time. Juliet is ready to agree to anything: love and desperation
have made her strong.
                                              {ACT_IV|SCENE_I ^paragraph 15}
  The Friar lays out his plan. Juliet should go home, ask forgiveness,
and agree to marry Paris. The next night, before her wedding, she
should make sure she's alone. Then she should drink a drug the Friar
will give her. It will make her seem dead for forty-two hours.
She'll be placed in the tomb, and he'll send a letter to Romeo. When
she wakes up, Romeo will be there to take her to Mantua, where they
can live as husband and wife. The Friar will work to have Romeo
pardoned and their marriage recognized.
  Thankfully, Juliet agrees to the plan.

ACT_IV|SCENE_II
                           ACT IV, SCENE II
-
  Meanwhile, the Capulets are at home making plans for the wedding.
Even though Lord Capulet told Paris it would have to be a small
affair, he has the servants bustling, and twenty cooks are on the way.
  When Juliet returns, she falls at her father's feet to beg his
forgiveness. Does she play her part well, or does she overact? In
either case, her father makes another snap decision. He moves the
wedding closer by one day, to the very next morning.
-
---------------------------------------------------------------------
  NOTE: Time is really becoming an enemy to the lovers. There isn't
time now for Romeo to receive the Friar's second message.
                                              {ACT_IV|SCENE_II ^paragraph 5}
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
  Surprisingly, Lady Capulet objects to this decision. Her emotional
plea makes us wonder if she doesn't remember her own fears and sadness
about marriage. Her excuse is if the wedding is moved forward
they'll be short of food. But her husband isn't convinced.
  Lady Capulet and the Nurse go to help Juliet pack and prepare for
her wedding. Lord Capulet decides to go and tell Paris himself. Now
that Juliet has agreed to the wedding, he says, "My heart is
wondrous light." He cares enough about Juliet that her refusal
bothered him; but he didn't care enough to listen to her objections
and delay- or even alter- his plans.

ACT_IV|SCENE_III
                          ACT IV, SCENE III
-
  The women go to Juliet's bedroom. Juliet sends the Nurse and her
mother away so she can pray. Again we feel that Lady Capulet has a
genuine empathy for her daughter's feelings.
  As soon as they've left, Juliet has second thoughts. She wants to be
a child again; to call them back to comfort her, but she realizes, "My
dismal scene I needs must act alone." This painful part of growing
up is something all of us can relate to.
  She takes out the drug, and by her speech we know how far she is
from the innocent young girl she was at the beginning of the play.
Then the world was full of hope and promise for her; now she dearly
sees the power and threat of evil. She wonders about the
consequences of taking the drug:
-
  --what if the Friar, not wanting anyone to find out he'd married
them, gave her poison?
                                             {ACT_IV|SCENE_III ^paragraph 5}
  --what if she wakes up in the tomb by herself and suffocates?
  --what if she wakes up in the tomb, and she's so terrified by the
bodies and the spirits that she goes crazy? She might even dash her
brains out with some kinsman's bone.
-
  Her courage and love prevail, however, and she downs the Friar's
drug.

ACT_IV|SCENE_IV
                           ACT IV, SCENE IV
-
  It's three o'clock in the morning. While Juliet lies seemingly
dead in her room, the rest of the house is busy. Lord Capulet is
checking on all of the food preparations. He's having a good time
ordering everyone around, but the Nurse orders him to go to bed. She
tells him he'll be sick in the morning if he stays up all night.
Lord Capulet laughs that he's stayed up for less important things
and it's never bothered him. Lady Capulet throws in that they are
all aware that he used to be a ladies' man.
  Capulet starts making jolly puns with the servants, and tells them
that Paris is bringing the musicians. As he says that, they hear music
outside, and Capulet jumps to life. Paris is coming! He tells the
Nurse to run and wake Juliet.

ACT_IV|SCENE_V
                           ACT IV, SCENE V
-
  LINES 1-95
  The time has come for the bride to prepare for her wedding. The
Nurse, excited and talking a mile a minute, hurries to Juliet's
bedroom to awaken her. If we didn't know the truth, the Nurse's
happiness might be contagious. She hasn't the slightest reservation
about preparing Juliet for a bigamous marriage.
  She calls the girl by many pet names to wake her up. When there's no
movement from Juliet, she calls her a "slugabed," but then jokingly
says it's a good idea for Juliet to get some sleep now, because
Paris surely has other plans for her nights.
  When there's still no movement, she opens the curtains around the
bed, and discovers that Juliet is "dead."
  Lady Capulet, Lord Capulet, Count Paris and Friar Lawrence rush to
Juliet's room, and each mourns her in his or her own way.
                                               {ACT_IV|SCENE_V ^paragraph 5}
  Lady Capulet shows how much Juliet really meant to her:
-
          O me, o me, my child and only life!
          Revive, look up, or I will die with thee!
                                                  (IV, v, 19-20)
                                              {ACT_IV|SCENE_V ^paragraph 10}
-
  Lord Capulet mourns for himself as well as his Juliet:
-
          Death is my son-in-law, Death is my heir;
          My daughter he hath wedded. I will die
                                              {ACT_IV|SCENE_V ^paragraph 15}
          And leave him all. Life, living, all is Death's.
                                                  (IV, v, 38-40)
-
  Paris feels a terrible sense of loss:
-
                                              {ACT_IV|SCENE_V ^paragraph 20}
          Beguiled, divorced, wronged, spited, slain!
          Most detestable Death, by thee beguiled,
          By cruel, cruel thee quite overthrown.
                                                  (IV, v, 55-57)
-
                                              {ACT_IV|SCENE_V ^paragraph 25}
  Friar Lawrence is in a difficult position. He knows she isn't
dead, and that she will hopefully be returned to them. Since he
can't comfort them with this, he comforts them with their religious
beliefs. They should be happy for her:
-
          For 'twas your heaven she should be advanced;
          And weep ye now, seeing she is advanced
          Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?
                                              {ACT_IV|SCENE_V ^paragraph 30}
                                                  (IV, v, 73-75)
-
  He shows some anger at Juliet's parents who have partly caused
this trouble.
  The Capulets' day of joy becomes a day of mourning. Everything
they had prepared for the wedding will be used instead for the
funeral.
-
                                              {ACT_IV|SCENE_V ^paragraph 35}
  LINES 96-147
  Following Juliet's tragic "death," we have a comparatively light
passage. Peter, the Nurse's servant, finds the musicians who had
come to play for the wedding. He asks them to play a song called
"Heart's Ease" to comfort him because his heart is full of grief.
  To cheer himself up, he teases the musicians with bad puns, and they
answer with silly jokes. The scene is comic, but the underlying tone
is tragic.

ACT_V|SCENE_I
                            ACT V, SCENE I
-
  Romeo's in Mantua, and in a good mood. Throughout the play, he's had
foreboding dreams that have come true. But finally, he's had a happy
one, and he's sure that good news is on the way. This dream is sadly
ironic to us:
-
          I dreamt my lady came and found me dead . . .
          And breathed such life with kisses in my lips
          That I revived and was an emperor.
                                                {ACT_V|SCENE_I ^paragraph 5}
                                                  (V, i, 6, 8-9)
-
  His servant Balthasar enters, having ridden at full speed from
Verona. He tells Romeo that Juliet is dead. He saw her buried in
Capulet's tomb and came right away to tell his master.
  Romeo immediately cries, "Then I defy you, stars!" and leaps into
action. Sadly, by defying the stars, he is still fortune's fool. If he
had waited a day, an hour, even a few more minutes to go to
Capulet's tomb, he would have found his Juliet alive. Balthasar puts
our thoughts into words and begs Romeo to have patience. He's very
worried- Romeo's "looks are wild and pale and do import some
misadventure." But Romeo doesn't pay any attention.
-
                                               {ACT_V|SCENE_I ^paragraph 10}
  LINES 35-86
  Romeo sends Balthasar to get fresh horses for both of them. Alone,
he states his purpose: "Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight."
This connects the ideas of death, sex, and marriage.
  Romeo has decided to kill himself, but how? Selling poison is
against the law, and punishable by death. But Romeo remembers a very
poor apothecary (druggist) who looks desperate enough to secretly sell
him some. He goes to find the man at once.
  He asks for a poison that will kill him, "as violently as hasty
powder fired / doth hurry from the cannon's fatal womb." The image
of gunpowder has been linked to the lovers' passion up until now. By
using it to refer to death, Romeo links the lovers' passion to their
death.
  We see that this once hopeful young man has become tired of the
world. He gives the apothecary the money, saying:
                                               {ACT_V|SCENE_I ^paragraph 15}
-
        There is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls,
        Doing more murders in this loathsome world
        Than these poor compounds that thou mayest not sell.
                                                   (V, i, 80-82)

ACT_V|SCENE_II
                           ACT V, SCENE II
-
  From Mantua, we return to Friar Lawrence's cell, where his fellow
monk, Friar John, has hurried in to see him. This scene has three
purposes:
-
  1. To tell us why Romeo didn't get the letter. Lawrence had given
the letter about Juliet's pretended death to Friar John, who was going
to Mantua. John had gone to find another monk to travel with him,
but the other monk had been working with plague victims and the
authorities quarantined both of them. This explanation might seem
unlikely to us, but in Shakespeare's day, the plague was an
ever-present threat and quarantines weren't unusual.
-
  2. To give us the feeling that fate (or Providence) was working
against the lovers. Look at the string of coincidences. The letter
would have arrived safely: if Friar Lawrence had asked someone else to
deliver it; if John hadn't decided to ask his friend to travel with
him; if his friend hadn't been tending the sick; if the authorities
hadn't arrived just as the monks were leaving; if the marriage
hadn't been moved ahead by a day.
                                               {ACT_V|SCENE_II ^paragraph 5}
-
  3. To show us that time is closing in. There are only three hours
left until Juliet will awake.
-
---------------------------------------------------------------------
  NOTE: Some readers find some internal inconsistencies in this
play. For example, earlier, Juliet tells the Nurse she's praised Romeo
thousands of times, when she's only known him a day.
                                              {ACT_V|SCENE_II ^paragraph 10}
  Here, the Friar worries that Juliet will be angry with him because
Romeo doesn't know yet of their plans. Even if the letter had gotten
through, they say, the marriage had originally been planned for a
later day, and Romeo wouldn't have known to come yet.
  Other readers assume that Friar Lawrence simply means that Juliet
will be upset that Romeo hasn't heard about anything that's
happened. He runs to be there when she wakes up, so he can hide her in
his cell until Romeo comes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

ACT_V|SCENE_III
                           ACT V, SCENE III
-
  LINES 1-73
  Finally it's night, and we find ourselves in the graveyard by
Capulet's tomb. Someone comes, but again we're caught off guard: we
expect Romeo, but it's Paris.
  This is final proof that Paris really did love Juliet. He's
brought flowers and perfumed water to sprinkle on her body; he vows to
come secretly every night to mourn for her. No sooner has he vowed
this then he hears a signal from his servant that someone's coming.
  Paris hides, and Romeo enters the cemetery with Balthasar. Romeo
is very upset, but has the presence to ask Balthasar three things:
1) to give him the crowbar they've brought; 2) to give his father,
Lord Montague, a letter; and 3) not to disturb him when he enters
the tomb. As rationally as possible, Romeo is putting his affairs in
order. But he warns Balthasar:
-
                                              {ACT_V|SCENE_III ^paragraph 5}
          But if thou, jealous, does return to pry
          In what I farther shall intend to do,
          By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint,
          And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs.
                                                 (V, iii, 33-36)
                                             {ACT_V|SCENE_III ^paragraph 10}
-
  Balthasar is shocked and worried to hear Romeo talk like this, and
he promises he won't disturb him. Once he's satisfied that no one will
bother him, Romeo takes time to be kind and considerate to
Balthasar. He tells him to "live, and be prosperous," gives him money,
and calls him "friend" instead of "servant."
  Balthasar sees that Romeo is still desperate. He decides to stay and
hide in the churchyard.
  Romeo takes the crowbar and goes to force open the door to the
Capulets' tomb. By this time, Paris has recognized him. This is Romeo,
he thinks, who killed Tybalt, and it was grief for Tybalt that
killed Juliet. Paris is furious: he assumes that the criminal who
caused Juliet's death has returned to defile the Capulets' tomb.
Boldly, Paris rushes out of hiding to arrest Romeo for returning to
Verona.
  Paris is determined that Romeo won't enter the tomb; Romeo is more
determined that he will. But he doesn't want to hurt Paris, and he
begs him to leave. But these two "gentle youths" have been forced into
a position where they are mortal enemies. Paris is so enraged that
he demands a fight; Romeo is so determined to carry out his plan
that he lets nothing stand in his way. They draw swords, and Romeo
kills Paris. Paris' last words are simple and moving:
                                             {ACT_V|SCENE_III ^paragraph 15}
-
               O, I am slain! If thou be merciful
               Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.
                                                 (V, iii, 72-73)
-
                                             {ACT_V|SCENE_III ^paragraph 20}
---------------------------------------------------------------------
  NOTE: Again we feel time closing in: as soon as the fight started,
Paris' servant ran off to call the watchmen.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
  LINES 75-120
                                             {ACT_V|SCENE_III ^paragraph 25}
  It's so dark that Romeo didn't know who he was fighting. Now, by
torchlight, he sees that it was Paris- Mercutio's relative. Romeo
thinks he remembers Balthasar telling him that Paris was supposed to
marry Juliet, but he's so overwrought he's no longer sure. Even now,
Romeo isn't selfish. He gives his rival due honor: he buries Paris
near Juliet, and curses Fate that frowned on Paris as well as on the
lovers. He calls Paris, "one writ with me in sour misfortune's
book," and promises, "I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave."
  Then Romeo sees Juliet, and forgets everything else. As he looks
at her he speaks the final irony:
-
                                     O, my love, my wife!
     Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath,
                                             {ACT_V|SCENE_III ^paragraph 30}
     Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.
     Thou art not conquered.
                                                 (V, iii, 92-94)
-
  You're right! we want to tell him, Death hasn't conquered her!
                                             {ACT_V|SCENE_III ^paragraph 35}
  Another sad thing about these tender words is that they're so
beautiful. Romeo is inspired in Juliet's presence, but he's about to
remove himself from her forever.
  Before he starts his final farewell, he sees Tybalt, also buried
in the family vault. A gentleman until the end, Romeo begs forgiveness
of Tybalt, and promises that he'll kill himself to avenge Tybalt's
death.
  But Romeo can't keep his eyes off Juliet. Other characters in the
play have treated Death like a real person, and suddenly Romeo wonders
if Death is in love with Juliet, and keeping her beautiful for
himself. He makes his final farewell- a last look, a last hug, a
last kiss. He raises the poison and cries, "Here's to my love!" This
echoes Juliet when she drank the Friar's potion. Neither is able to do
it for him or herself, but they have courage to do it for the other.
  The poison is strong, and he dies instantly. Time has finally closed
in on them. If he had waited only a few minutes, they could have
lived.
-
                                             {ACT_V|SCENE_III ^paragraph 40}
  LINES 121-70
  Too late, Friar Lawrence hurries to the tomb so he'll be there
when Juliet wakes up. He's afraid that something's wrong: someone else
is in the graveyard and there's a torch in Capulet's tomb.
  The person he runs into is Balthasar. He tells the Friar that Romeo,
"one that you love," is in the tomb, and has been for half an hour.
Balthasar remembers Romeo's threats and refuses to go to the tomb with
Lawrence. He adds, "I dreamt my master and another fought / And that
my master slew him."
  Even though the Friar is afraid, he runs to the tomb. There, he
finds bloody swords, and the dead bodies of Romeo and Paris. Before he
has time to gather his wits, Juliet wakes up and starts asking for
Romeo.
  Friar Lawrence hears someone coming, and is overcome by guilt and
fear. He feels he has to get out of there- after all, there are two
dead bodies, and he's partly responsible. He tries to get Juliet to
flee with him: he tells her that "a greater power than we can
contradict / hath thwarted our intents." (What power does he mean?
Would a priest say that the "higher power" was God? Or fate?) When
that doesn't work, he tells her that Romeo and Paris are dead, but
he'll see to it that she is put in a nunnery. When Juliet says she
won't come with him, he feels forced to flee by himself.
                                             {ACT_V|SCENE_III ^paragraph 45}
  Juliet is thinking clearly. She tells the friar to go, then she goes
to Romeo. She sees that he's died of poison, and she kisses his
lips, hoping that there will be enough poison there to kill her. She
discovers that his lips are still warm- she missed him by minutes. The
watchman is coming, so she acts fast: she grabs Romeo's dagger, and
stabs herself through the heart.
-
---------------------------------------------------------------------
  NOTE: Here we see Juliet left absolutely alone. She is abandoned
by Friar Lawrence, her only friend; and, unwittingly, by Romeo.
Through the scene, she talks to Romeo as if he were still present, and
kills herself as if it's the only way to join him again.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
                                             {ACT_V|SCENE_III ^paragraph 50}
-
  LINES 171-310
  Paris' page arrives with the guards, and the Chief Watchman begins
the investigation. After finding Paris and Romeo dead and Juliet
"bleeding, warm, and newly dead," he sends guards to arrest anyone
in the cemetery. He sends others to get the Prince, the Montagues, and
the Capulets. Meanwhile, the cemetery guards return with Balthasar and
Friar Lawrence.
  Prince Escalus is the first to arrive, and he takes over the
investigation. The Capulets arrive next, and are shocked to see Juliet
newly dead. Lord Montague comes in, already mourning: his wife has
died of grief over Romeo's banishment. Now he has the added anguish of
his son's death.
  The Prince seals the tomb until he can find out what's happened.
Three people come forward to piece together the story:
                                             {ACT_V|SCENE_III ^paragraph 55}
  Friar Lawrence has the courage to tell all, even if the truth
condemns him. He tells of the secret marriage, Juliet's potion, and
the letter of Romeo that went astray. He says he found Juliet in the
tomb and told her to bear this "work of heaven" with patience, but
then he panicked and fled. The Friar throws himself on the mercy of
the law, and the Prince pardons him.
  Balthasar says that he told Romeo of Juliet's "death", and gives
Lord Montague Romeo's letter. This confirms what Lawrence and
Balthasar have said. The letter also explains how Romeo bought
poison and came to the vault to die with Juliet.
  Paris' Page adds that his master had come to mourn for Juliet. He
saw Romeo come, and Paris draw his sword.
  So the whole story is made public.
  Prince Escalus pronounces that heaven has already sentenced these
enemies: "See what a scourge is laid upon your hate / That heaven
finds means to kill your joys with love." The Capulets have lost
Juliet and Tybalt; the Montagues, Romeo and Lady Montague. The
Prince has also lost two relatives: Mercutio (a good friend of the
Montagues) and Paris (who would have married into the Capulets).
                                             {ACT_V|SCENE_III ^paragraph 60}
  In the midst of their grief, the two families are reunited. Lord
Capulet takes Lord Montague's hand. He says this friendship is
Juliet's marriage dowry. Lord Montague says he'll build a gold
statue of Juliet, and Lord Capulet offers to build one of Romeo next
to it.
  The Prince adds, "A glooming peace this morning with it brings / The
sun for sorrow will not show his head."
  Peace has come out of desperate night, but it's not a joyous peace
that brings light. Finally, through love, there is an end to the feud,
and order is restored. Although some must be punished, some will be
pardoned. There will finally be mercy again in Verona.

TESTS_AND_ANSWERS
                            A STEP BEYOND
                          TESTS AND ANSWERS                 (SROMTEST)
-
                                TESTS
-
  TEST 1
-
  _____  1. The major themes of Romeo and Juliet are
-
            I. love and death
           II. the terrible consequences of family feuds
          III. conflicts between parents and children
-
            A. I and II only
            B. I and III only
            C. I, II, and III
-
  _____  2. Brooke's poem and Bandello's Novelle
-
            A. are Shakespeare's sources for the play
            B. were dramatized at the Capulet party
            C. both refer to Shakespeare's version of the tragedy
-
  _____  3. In the best-known description of Romeo and Juliet, the
            Prologue refers to them as
-
            A. Cupid's cup bearers
            B. star-cross'd lovers
            C. the paragons of romance
-
  _____  4. Escalus, the Prince of Verona, admitted culpability by
            saying he should have
-
            A. been more forceful about the feud
            B. made peace between Tybalt and Romeo
            C. taken stronger steps to keep the lovers apart
-
  _____  5. Shakespeare emphasizes the role of fate because
-
            A. the Elizabethans believed strongly in it
            B. it lends a quality of irony to the drama
            C. the tragedy could have been avoided
-
  _____  6. In his bawdy and anti-romantic speeches, Mercutio serves
             as
-
            A. a foil to Romeo
            B. comic relief from the starkness of the tragedy
            C. the voice of the common man
-
  _____  7. Romeo refuses to be upset by Tybalt's insults because
-
            I. as a newlywed he is in a good mood
           II. he had disciplined himself to be unemotional
          III. although Tybalt doesn't know it, they have become
               relatives
-
            A. I and II only
            B. I and III only
            C. I, II, and III
-
  _____  8. Romeo is melancholy at the start of the play because
-
            A. Juliet won't accept his advances
            B. he is in love with a coldly virtuous maiden
            C. Rosaline was the daughter of his enemy
-
  _____  9. Mercutio's famous Queen Mab speech in Act I is largely
-
            A. romantic posturing
            B. Platonic philosophy
            C. social satire
-
  _____  10. In Romeo's first speech upon spying Juliet, he says
-
            A. "O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!"
            B. "Her beauty makes this vault a feasting presence."
            C. "By heaven, I love thee better than myself."
-
  11. What part does fate play in the lovers' downfall?
-
  12. Follow Juliet's growth from innocence to experience.
-
  13. Trace Romeo's growing maturity over the course of the play.
-
  14. What does the Prince represent, and how does he structure the
play?
-
  15. Contrast Romeo's and Juliet's view of love to Mercutio's and the
Nurse's.
-
  TEST 2
-
  _____  1. When Juliet was critical of Romeo's first kiss, she said,
-
            A. "My lips, two blushing pilgrims, await thee."
            B. "You kiss by th' book."
            C. "Have not saints lips and holy palmers too?"
-
  _____  2. The first and second acts are
-
            A. preceded by prologues
            B. introductions to the main characters, basically
            C. do not prepare us for the intensity of the disaster
               which follows
-
  _____  3. The real meaning of "Wherefore art thou Romeo?" is
-
            A. where is my loved one hiding?
            B. why are you a member of the hated
            C. will you not come forward and claim me?
-
  _____  4. Shakespeare shows Friar Lawrence gathering herbs in order
            to
-
            A. demonstrate the contemporary knowledge of drugs
            B. prepare us for Juliet's "death potion"
            C. reveal the priest's involvement in secular affairs
-
  _____  5. The extremely hot weather in Act III, S. I
-
            A. helps to inflame the tempers of both families
            B. forces a postponement of the wedding
            C. keeps the nurse from delivering her message
-
  _____  6. Mercutio says, "A plague o' both your houses!" to indicate
-
            A. that the Montagues and Capulets were getting on his
               nerves
            B. that the disease would necessitate a quarantine
            C. that the feud has led to his imminent death
-
  _____  7. "...'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church
            door" refers to
-
            A. Benvolio's big mouth
            B. Romeo's characterization of his love for Juliet
            C. Mercutio's wound
-
  _____  8. When Juliet talks of the word which "hath slain ten
            thousand Tybalts" she is referring to
-
            A. "banished"
            B. "poisoned"
            C. "confession"
-
  _____  9. "Methinks I see thee, now thou art below, As one dead in
            the bottom of a tomb." is an example of
-
            A. Senecan foreboding
            B. a feminine meter
            C. an heroic couplet
-
  _____ 10. The closing lines of the play are
-
            A. "For never was a story of more woe
               Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."
            B. "Bear hence this body, and attend our will.
               Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill."
            C. "Take up the bodies. Such a sight as this
               Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss."
-
  11. Contrast Romeo and Juliet's personalities in the balcony scene.
-
  12. What is Paris' role in the play? How does he cause Romeo and
Juliet's downfall?
-
  13. Compare the Nurse's and the Friar's roles as counsellors to
Romeo and Juliet.
-
  14. Follow the images of light and dark through the play.
-
  15. Trace Juliet's growing sense of isolation.
-
                               ANSWERS
-
  TEST 1
-
  1. C     2. A     3. B     4. A     5. C     6. A     7. B
  8. B     9. C    10. A
-
  11. First, you'll want to find evidence that fate does play a
part. In the Prologue, the lovers are called "star-crossed." On the
way to the Capulets' ball, Romeo says, "My mind misgives / some
consequence yet hanging in the stars / shall bitterly begin his
fearful date with this night's revels" (I, vi, 104-6). If you call
"heaven" fate, Juliet acknowledges it (III, v, 211); so does Friar
Lawrence (V, iii, 261), and Prince Escalus (V, iii, 293).
  How does Fate cause the lovers downfall? One way is through
"tragic accidents." This is how Romeo and Benvolio find out about
the Capulets' ball, how Tybalt knows that Romeo is there, and how
Romeo ends up under Juliet's window.
  You can also examine how fate uses time against the lovers. A day,
an hour- even several minutes- would have saved them, but fate takes
that time away from them. Why must Romeo leave for Mantua so soon? Why
is Juliet's wedding date reset? Why does Romeo get news of Juliet's
death so quickly? Why does he get to the tomb so fast?
  You'll need to decide for yourself how important is fate's role.
Is it the only factor that does in the lovers? Or does it work with
the lovers' characters to cause the tragedy? Is fate or character more
important?
-
  12. The section in this book on Juliet's character is a good place
to start.
  Give proof that Juliet's innocent at the beginning of the play.
We're told she's "not yet fourteen," and we see her with her mother
and her childhood Nurse. She seems to have little experience of the
world- she says that marriage is "an honour I dream not of" (I, iii,
66). She's willingly obedient to her mother, and why not? She has no
reason not to trust her Nurse and her mother completely. The world
is full of hope to her, and she now has the promise of a good marriage
with Paris. Then, we need to see how the "real world" affects
Juliet. She isn't attracted to Paris, she falls in love with Romeo.
Her innocence in love is replaced by the experience of marriage. Not
only does she gain sexual experience, but she soon finds out that
relationships are loaded with problems. Romeo's anger leads him to
kill Tybalt, and Romeo is banished from Verona. Juliet also
discovers that her parents aren't always reasonable, or on her side.
They have their happiness, rather than hers, at heart. She finally
discovers that she can't even depend on her Nurse.
  Let's look at the end of the play to see how Juliet has changed. Her
monologue before she drinks the potion is a good example (IV, iii).
Experience has taught her that she can't depend on her mother or her
Nurse, and she wonders if she can trust Friar Lawrence. The future
no longer seems rosy to her: she can envision insanity and death.
Her understanding of the world and of evil is much fuller now, and
experience has made it that way.
-
  13. Again, you'll want to describe Romeo as he was at the
beginning of the play, as he grows up, and as he is at the end of
the play.
  Three of the best indications of Romeo's growth are: his use of
language, his ability to act, and the honesty of his feelings. Let's
follow these through the play, and see what changes them.
  At the beginning of the play, Romeo is mooning for Rosaline. His
speech is simple and full of cliches, he shuts himself in his room and
doesn't do anything, and from his talk we can tell that his feelings
aren't deep.
  Then he meets Juliet and all of that changes. This time his feelings
are true and because of this, his language becomes mature and
poetic. He's able to act: he professes his love, and plans their
marriage. But this new maturity doesn't last.
  When he kills Tybalt, he realizes that he's given in to hate, and
that he might have lost Juliet. He sobs like a child. Again, his
language is simple, and again he refuses to act.
  But word that Juliet still loves him and his wedding-night with
her makes him more mature than ever. For the rest of the play, his
language is full and honest; he never fails to act as he's planned to,
and he's true to his feelings. For more specifics, look at the
character section on Romeo in this book.
-
  14. The Prince is the head of government in Verona, and that's
what he represents: law and order. He comes in three times: in the
beginning, at the climax, and at the end of the play. The first time
he explains the situation, the second time he emphasizes how serious
the feud has become, and the third time he states heaven's judgment on
the families. For more notes, see the character section on Prince
Escalus in this book.
-
  15. We find out what the Nurse and Mercutio think about love by what
they say. Twice in her first scene (I, iii), the Nurse turns the
discussion of love and marriage to sex (lines 95 and 106). She sees
the world in physical terms: to her, Juliet's greatest asset is her
money (I, v, 119).
  Mercutio also has nothing but disdain for romance. He mercilessly
makes fun of Romeo for being in love (I, iv and II, i). Instead of
talking about emotional love, he fills his speech with sexual
references (II, iv, 118-19, for instance).
  Both Romeo and Juliet add emotional and spiritual aspects to their
love, as well as sexual passion. We see this as much by their
actions as by what they say. Not only do they swear to be constant
to each other emotionally and physically, they act on this promise.
Juliet would rather die than be unfaithful to Romeo. We watch her give
her loyalty completely to him rather than to her parents (III, ii,
121-24). Her nurse cannot understand these emotions at all.
  Romeo, for his part, considers life without Juliet the same as death
(III, iii, 10-51). When he finds that Juliet is "dead," his commitment
to her is much stronger than his commitment to the world, and he kills
himself.
-
  TEST 2
-
  1. B     2. A     3. B     4. B     5. A     6. C     7. C
  8. A     9. A    10. A
-
  11. First, state what you believe are the main differences in
their personalities in this scene; then find specific examples to back
it up.
  One difference between them is that Romeo is romantic, and Juliet
practical. For a discussion of this, go to the discussion of Act II,
Scene ii in The Story section of this guide.
-
  12. He is the unwelcome third party in the love triangle with
Romeo and Juliet. He's Romeo's rival for Juliet's hand in marriage,
and a worthy rival. He's also a contrast to Romeo, because he has
the Capulets' blessing, and takes the correct steps to win his
bride; Romeo's love is forbidden and secret.
  Because he doesn't know the situation, his actions cause the lovers'
deaths and his own. Juliet takes the potion to escape marrying
Paris; this leads Romeo to kill himself because he believes Juliet
to be dead, which leads Juliet to kill herself because Romeo is
dead. Paris, because of his ignorance and his love for Juliet, would
rather die than let Romeo into Juliet's tomb. He challenges Romeo
and is killed.
  Paris, like the lovers, is a sympathetic character. He is a good man
who is done in by "sour misfortune." (V, iii, 82) For more on his
part, see the section on character.
-
  13. To counsel someone, you have to understand both the person and
his situation. Both the Nurse and the Friar are friends and confidants
of the lovers: they are the only ones who know the situation.
  From the beginning, the Friar knows Romeo's secrets. He knows
about Rosaline, and he soon knows about his intended marriage with
Juliet. The Nurse, too, is always in on Juliet's secrets. At the
beginning of the play, Lady Capulet remembers not to discuss
anything important with Juliet unless the Nurse is there. (I, iii,
7-10).
  When Romeo and Juliet fall in love and want to get married, they
seek help and advice from the Friar and the Nurse.
  As the problems intensify, Romeo turns to the Friar, and Juliet
turns to the Nurse. The Friar helps Romeo escape, but the Nurse
can't help Juliet get out of her marriage. The Friar does his best
to help her, but his help is ineffective. In the end, both the Nurse
and the Friar contribute to the lovers' doom, rather than to their
salvation.
-
  14. First, let's recall some images of light and dark.
  LIGHT: sun, moon, stars, fire, lightning, the flash of gunpowder,
the reflected fight of beauty and love.
  DARK: night, darkness, clouds, rain, mist, and smoke.
  What are the images at the beginning of the play? Romeo is smitten
by a "false" love. He describes this feeling as "smoke" rather than
fire (I, i, 194-95), and shuts all his curtains to make an "artificial
night" (I, i, 143).
  Then we find the major image: Romeo and Juliet are the light in
the darkness to each other. Romeo says this the first time he sees
Juliet (I, v, 46) and again in the balcony scene (II, ii). Juliet
calls Romeo her "day in night" (III, ii, 15). Because of him, she sees
night as a friend. But soon things change. Even daytime becomes an
enemy to them (III, v, 36), and they both end up forever in "the
pallet of dim night" (V, iii, 107).
-
  15. At the beginning of the play, Juliet is in harmony with her
family. Their wish that she like Paris is also her wish, and she has
no secrets from them.
  After she meets Romeo, the two are isolated from the rest of the
world. Even their friends don't truly understand them any more, but
they have each other, and no one, at this point, is seriously
threatening them.
  But in Act III, Juliet starts to physically lose her family and
friends. First, Romeo is banished to Mantua. Then her parents disown
her when she refuses to marry Paris. Finally, her beloved Nurse
betrays her, and Friar Lawrence deserts her in the tomb. Without
meaning to, Romeo has left her alone in the world. She must spend
her final moments totally abandoned.
  We hear Juliet talk about this aloneness in Act IV, Scene iii; and
her parents echo the theme: "But one, poor one, one poor and loving
child" (IV, v, 46).

TERM_PAPER_IDEAS
                           TERM PAPER IDEAS                 (SROMTERM)
-
  VIEWS OF LOVE IN ROMEO AND JULIET
-
  1. True Love vs. False Love.
  Compare Romeo's love for Rosaline with his love for Juliet. You
could also compare the Montagues' love for Romeo with the Capulets'
love for Juliet.
-
  2. Contrast Romeo and Juliet's Views of Life and Love with the
Nurse's and Mercutio's Views.
  Which is more truthful- the lovers' idealistic view of the world, or
Mercutio and the Nurse's earthy view?
-
  3. Romantic Love in Romeo and Juliet.
  What is the idea of Romantic love, and how does the story of Romeo
and Juliet follow this pattern? How does the story deviate from the
pattern?
-
  4. Love vs. Hate in Romeo and Juliet.
  What events demonstrate the power of hatred? What demonstrates the
power of love? Which wins in the end?
-
  5. Views of Sex in Romeo and Juliet.
  How does Juliet view sex in Act III, Scene ii? How does the Nurse
view sex? Mercutio? Friar Lawrence? Whose views do you agree with?
Whose views do you think Shakespeare was most sympathetic to?
-
  WHAT CAUSES THE TRAGIC ENDING?
-
  1. The Role of the Feud in Romeo and Juliet.
  Is the feud a serious thing? Who treats it seriously? Who doesn't?
Does hatred keep it going, or fate? Why must Romeo and Juliet die to
end it?
-
  2. Fate and Accidents.
  What role does fate play in Romeo and Juliet? Are the lovers
doomed from the start? What part do accidents and miscalculations play
in the story?
-
  3. Providence and the Supernatural.
  Is there a higher power in control of this tragedy, and who is
working it all out for the best? Where are the repeated references
to God and the supernatural? Is the end of the play a victory? Has a
plan been worked out? Is order restored?
-
  4. The Seed of Destruction in Character.
  How does Romeo's character lead to his death? Juliet's character?
Who else's character adds to their downfall?
-
  5. Elizabethan View of Passion.
  What was the Elizabethan view of passion? Is passion the sin that
causes the tragedy? What kinds of passion do we see during the play?
Who warns against passion? What images are used as illustrations of
passion? Do the warnings come true?
-
  6. Capulet Family Structure.
  What is the relationship between Juliet and her mother? Her
father? How do her parents relate to each other? How do these
relationships lead to the tragic ending?
-
  7. With Friends Like These...
  How do Romeo and Juliet's friends, Mercutio, the Nurse, and Friar
Lawrence, bring about their deaths?
-
  8. The Importance of Messages.
  How often does the plot depend on messages? How do these messages go
from the silly invitation to the Capulets' party, to the tragically
missing letter from the Friar? How do we see messages garbled from the
beginning?
-
  9. Unawareness.
  What actions spring from unawareness of the situation? How does
Mercutio act in ignorance? The Capulets? Paris? Prince Escalus?
-
  MOTIFS
-
  1. Trace the Images of Light and Dark in the Play.
  What are the images? What do they stand for? What is the
relationship between light and dark, and the lovers? How does it
change?
-
  2. The Images of Fire and Explosions in Romeo and Juliet.
  Where do these images appear? What do they signify? How do they
predict the ending of the play?
-
  3. Dreams and Premonitions.
  Where do dreams and premonitions occur in the play? Who has them?
How do they affect the action of the play? Are they always accurate?
-
  4. Love and Death.
  Where are love and death tied together? Where are marriage and death
linked? How does Juliet's childhood die when she gets married? How
does Romeo and Juliet's love lead them to death?
-
  5. Paradoxes, or Opposites.
  Which opposites are linked in the play? Where do characters talk
about them? Is love stronger, or hate? Youth or age? etc.
-
  6. Innocence and Experience.
  How do experienced adults fail innocent young people? How do Romeo
and Juliet grow from innocent children to experienced adults?
-
  CHARACTERS
-
  1. Juliet's Growth Through the Play.
  Show how she changes from a girl to a woman; from innocent to
experienced.
-
  2. Romeo's Growth Through the Play.
  Show how he finds himself, and changes from a boy to a man.
-
  3. Contrast Between Romeo and Juliet.
  Show the differences in their personalities in the balcony scene,
and in how they handle later crises.
-
  4. How Romeo and Paris Compare Throughout the Play.
  When do we see Paris? When do we see Romeo? When do they want the
same things? How do they go about getting what they want? Why must
Paris be a worthy rival? When do we expect Romeo and find Paris?
What forces their final confrontation?
-
  5. Maturing vs. Static Characters.
  Which characters change during the play? How do these changes affect
the plot? Which characters don't change? How do they affect the plot
by doing what we expect them to do?
-
  6. Different Views of Friar Lawrence.
  Is he an ineffective bumbler? A wise counsellor? A person with
strengths and weaknesses? Find evidence to support all three
positions, and explain why you reach the conclusion you do.
-
  7. The Nurse: A Comic Character in a Tragic Play.
  What traits of the Nurse are comic? How do they become tragic in the
course of the play?
-
  8. Juliet's Isolation.
  How do we see Juliet's growing sense of isolation? How does she
actually become isolated from her family and friends?
-
  9. The Capulets' Views of Marriage.
  How does Lord Capulet view marriage? What does he think Juliet is
worth on the marriage market? What is Lady Capulet's view of her
husband? Why would she think that Paris would be a good choice for
Juliet? Is she sympathetic to Juliet during the play? What is Juliet's
view of marriage? How do we know she takes it seriously?
-
  10. Explore the Nurse and Mercutio as Parallel Characters.
  What relationships do they have to the lovers? What is their view of
life and sex? What is so funny about them? Do they understand Romeo
and Juliet? How does their comedy turn to tragedy?
-
  LANGUAGE
-
  1. Use of Poetry in Romeo and Juliet.
  What forms of poetry appear? Why do they appear when they do? How do
poems help form dialogue? What tradition does this poetry come from?
How does this tie in with the themes of the play?
-
  2. Language and Character.
  How does Shakespeare use language to tell us about peoples'
personalities? How do different characters talk? What can we tell
about them from the way they talk? How does Romeo's language change as
he changes? How does it change according to his mood?
-
  3. Puns and Double Meanings.
  Who uses puns and double meanings in the play? What is the
difference between the servants' puns and Mercutio's? In what scenes
are the puns and double-meanings light-hearted? When do they become
serious attempts to cover up the truth?
-
  THEMES
-
  1. Friar Lawrence's Speech as Statement of Theme.
  Look at his speech at the beginning of Act II, scene iii. How do his
paradoxes point up the play's themes? How does he illustrate the
precarious balance of good and evil?
-
  STRUCTURE
-
  1. The Breakdown of Comedy and Tragedy.
  Show how two acts follow the conventions of comedy, and three follow
the conventions of tragedy. What causes the change?
-
  2. Condensed vs. Stretched Time.
  How does the "condensed time"- the five days of rushed action-
affect the plot? How does time seem longer to Romeo and Juliet? How do
these perceptions of time intersect and contrast each other?

CRITICS
                             THE CRITICS                    (SROMCRIT)
-
  THE PLAY AS COMEDY AND TRAGEDY
  Romeo and Juliet is in essence a comedy that turns out tragically.
That is, it begins with the materials for a comedy- the stupid
parental generation, the instant attraction of the young lovers, the
quick surface life of street fights, masked balls and comic
servants. But this material is blighted. Its gaiety and good fortune
are drained away by the fact that the lovers are "star-crossed"...
Romeo and Juliet are all ardour and constancy, their families are
all hatred and pride; no one's motives are mixed, there are no
question marks. After the tragedy the survivors are shocked into
dropping their vendetta, and Montague and Capulet are united in grief.
Once again, there are no question marks. Nothing made them enemies
except the clash of their own wills, and nothing is needed to make
them brothers except a change of heart.
                     John Wain, The Living World of Shakespeare, 1964
-
  ON JULIET:
  The character is indeed one of perfect truth and sweetness. It has
nothing forward, nothing coy, nothing affected or coquettish about it;
it is a pure effusion of nature. It is as frank as it is modest, for
it has no thought that it wishes to conceal. It reposes in conscious
innocence on the strength of its affections. Its delicacy does not
consist in coldness and reserve, but in combining warmth of
imagination and tenderness of heart with the most voluptuous
sensibility. Love is a gentle flame that rarefies and expands her
whole being.
                                          William Hazlitt, Characters
                                         of Shakespeare's Plays, 1817
-
  ON ROMEO:
  Romeo is Hamlet in love. There is the same rich exuberance of
passion and sentiment in the one that there is of thought and
sentiment in the other. Both are absent and self-involved, both live
out of themselves in a world of imagination. Hamlet is abstracted from
everything Romeo is abstracted from everything but his love, and
lost in it.
                                          William Hazlitt, Characters
                                         of Shakespeare's Plays, 1817
-
  THE LOVERS' PRIVATE WORLD
  In their first kiss Romeo and Juliet withdraw into a private world
of intimacy, suspending the world's ordinary time and replacing it
with the rival time of the imagination. Yet no sooner do they draw
apart than they find themselves bound to take heed of the alien public
world and its imperatives, of time calculated in days and hours, of
love reduced to appetite, happiness to jesting and farce, vitality
to violence.
                                       Brian Gibbons, Introduction to
                                               Romeo and Juliet, 1980
-
  LIGHT AND DARK
  The dominating image is light, every form and manifestation of it;
the sun, moon, stars, fire, lightning, the flash of gunpowder, and the
reflected light of beauty and love; while by contrast we have night,
darkness, clouds, rain, mist, and smoke.
                               Caroline F. E. Spurgeon, Shakespeare's
                                   Imagery and What It Tells Us, 1935
-
  UNAWARENESS
  More than any other of Shakespeare's plays,- Romeo and Juliet is a
tragedy of unawareness. Fate, or Heaven, as the Prince calls it, or
the "greater power" as the Friar calls it, working out its purpose
without the use of either a human villain or a supernatural agent sent
to intervene in mortal affairs, operates through the common human
condition of not knowing. Participants in the action, some of them
in parts that are minor and seem insignificant, contribute one by
one the indispensable stitches which make the pattern, and
contribute them not knowing: that is to say, they act when they do not
know the truth of the situation in which they act, this truth being
known, however, to us who are spectators.
                Bertrand Evans, "The Brevity of Friar Laurence," 1950
-
  CHARACTER AS FATE
  It is, of course, in the end a tragedy of mischance. Shakespeare was
bound by his story, was doubtless content to be; and how make it
otherwise? Nevertheless, we discern his deeper dramatic sense, which
was to shape the maturer tragedies, already in revolt. Accidents
make good incidents, but tragedy determined by them has no
significance. So he sets out, we see, in the shaping of his
character to give all likelihood to the outcome. It is by pure
ill-luck that Friar John's speed to Mantua is stayed while Balthasar
reaches Romeo with the news of Juliet's death; but it is Romeo's
headlong recklessness that leaves Friar Laurence no time to retrieve
the mistake... character is also fate; it is, at any rate, the more
dramatic part of it, and the life of Shakespeare's art is to lie in
the manifesting of this.
                             Harley Granville-Barker, Prefaces to
                             Shakespeare, 1947.
-
  BALANCE OF GOOD AND EVIL
  But if we see the ending as purposeful, and as an evocation of the
paradoxical good that can spring from a lamented destruction, the
simple view of Fate will not satisfy. Nor can we ignore what
Shakespeare characteristically stresses in all his tragic drama: the
connection between the character of men and the disaster that may
befall them... The personification of a hostile Fate or Fortune was
a fashionable convention... however, Shakespeare was moving in another
direction. His developing vision of a tragic universe was not to be
defined by hostile fatality, but by a paradoxical and all too
precarious balance of good and evil.
                                   Douglas Cole, Modern Criticisms of
                                               Romeo and Juliet, 1970
-
  The point of the play- the wonder of the story- is not how such a
love can arise out of hatred and then triumph over it in death, but
that it does.
                  Elmer Edgar Stoll, Shakespeare's Young Lovers, 1937

ADVISORY_BOARD
                            ADVISORY BOARD                  (SROMADVB)
-
  We wish to thank the following educators who helped us focus our
Book Notes series to meet student needs and critiqued our
manuscripts to provide quality materials.
-
  Murray Bromberg, Principal
  Wang High School of Queens, Holliswood, New York
-
  Sandra Dunn, English Teacher
  Hempstead High School, Hempstead, New York
-
  Lawrence J. Epstein, Associate Professor of English
  Suffolk County Community College, Selden, New York
-
  Leonard Gardner, Lecturer, English Department
  State University of New York at Stony Brook
-
  Beverly A. Haley, Member, Advisory Committee
  National Council of Teachers of English Student Guide Series
  Fort Morgan, Colorado
-
  Elaine C. Johnson, English Teacher
  Tamalpais Union High School District
  Mill Valley, California
-
  Marvin J. LaHood, Professor of English
  State University of New York College at Buffalo
-
  Robert Lecker, Associate Professor of English
  McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
-
  David E. Manly, Professor of Educational Studies
  State University of New York College at Geneseo
-
  Bruce Miller, Associate Professor of Education
  State University of New York at Buffalo
-
  Frank O'Hare, Professor of English
  Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
-
  Faith Z. Schullstrom, Member of Executive Committee
  National Council of Teachers of English
  Director of Curriculum and Instruction
  Guilderland Central School District, New York
-
  Mattie C. Williams, Director, Bureau of Language Arts
  Chicago Public Schools, Chicago, Illinois
-
-
                    THE END OF BARRON'S BOOK NOTES
                WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S ROMEO AND JULIET


                               BIBLIOGRAPHY                 (SROMBIBL)

ROMEO_AND_JULIET
                           FURTHER READING
-
                            CRITICAL WORKS
-
  Brown, John Russell. Shakespeare's Dramatic Style. London: Heinemann
Educational Books, 1972.
-
  Bryant, J. A. Jr. Romeo and Juliet, "Introduction." New York:
Signet, 1964.
-
  Charlton, H. B. Shakespearian Tragedy. Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press, 1948.
-
  Clemen, W. H. The Development of Shakespeare's Imagery. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1951.
-
  Coghill, Nevill. Shakespeare's Professional Skills. Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press, 1964.
-
  Cole, Douglas. Modern Criticisms of Romeo and Juliet,
"Introduction." Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1970.
-
  Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Shakespearean Criticism. New York: E. P.
Dutton, 1960.
-
  Dent, Alan. The World of Shakespeare. New York: Taplinger, 1974.
-
  Dickey, Franklin M. Not Wisely But Too Well: Shakespeare's Love
Tragedies. San Marino, California: The Huntington Library, 1957.
-
  Eliot, T. S. On Poetry and Poets. New York: Farrar, Straus,
Giroux, 1957.
-
  Evans, Bertrand. "The Brevity of Friar Laurence." PMLA, LXV 1950,
pp. 850-852.
-
  Gibbons, Brian. Romeo and Juliet. New York: Methuen & Co., 1980.
-
  Granville-Barker, Harley. Prefaces to Shakespeare. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1963.
-
  Hazlitt, William. Characters of Shakespeare's Plays. London:
Oxford University Press, 1970.
-
  Levin, Harry. Shakespeare Quarterly, XI: "Form and Formality in
Romeo and Juliet." Shakespeare Association of America, 1960.
-
  Pettet, E. C. Shakespeare and the Romance Tradition. London: Staples
Press, 1949.
-
  Parrott, Thomas M. Shakespeare. New York: Scribner's, 1938.
-
  Stoll, Elmer Edgar. Shakespeare's Young Lovers. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1937.
-
  Spurgeon, Caroline F. E. Shakespeare's Imagery and What It Tells Us.
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1935.
-
  Wain, John. The Living World of Shakespeare. New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1964.
-
                            AUTHOR'S WORKS
-
  Shakespeare wrote 37 plays (38 if you include The Two Noble Kinsmen)
over a 20-year period, from about 1590 to 1610. It's difficult to
determine the exact dates when many were written, but scholars have
made the following intelligent guesses about his plays and poems:
-
    PLAYS
-
        1588-93     The Comedy of Errors
        1588-94     Love's Labor's Lost
        1590-91     2 Henry VI
        1590-91     3 Henry VI
        1591-92     1 Henry VI
        1592-93     Richard III
        1592-94     Titus Andronicus
        1593-94     The Taming of the Shrew
        1593-95     The Two Gentlemen of Verona
        1595        Richard II
        1594-96     Romeo and Juliet
        1594-96     A Midsummer Night's Dream
        1596-97     King John
        1596-97     The Merchant of Venice
        1597        1 Henry IV
        1597-98     2 Henry IV
        1598-1600   Much Ado About Nothing
        1598-99     Henry V
        1599        Julius Caesar
        1599-1600   As You Like It
        1599-1600   Twelfth Night
        1600-01     Hamlet
        1597-1601   The Merry Wives of Windsor
        1601-02     Troilus and Cressida
        1602-04     All's Well That Ends Well
        1603-04     Othello
        1604        Measure for Measure
        1605-06     King Lear
        1605-06     Macbeth
        1606-07     Antony and Cleopatra
        1605-08     Timon of Athens
        1607-09     Coriolanus
        1608-09     Pericles
        1609-10     Cymbeline
        1610-11     The Winter's Tale
        1611-12     The Tempest
        1612-13     Henry VIII
-
    POEMS
-
        1592        Venus and Adonis
        1593-94     The Rape of Lucrece
        1593-1600   Sonnets
        1600-01     The Phoenix and the Turtle
-
-
         THE END OF THE BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR BARRON'S BOOK NOTES
                WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S ROMEO AND JULIET