Download Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet
By William Shakespeare
Tragedy
A
tragedy is a drama that ends in
catastrophe—most often death—for the
main character.
 In Shakespearean drama the main
character, also known as the tragic hero,
is often nobly born and has great
influence in society.
 The hero also has a “tragic flaw”—a
weakness or serious error in judgment—
that leads to their downfall.
 Fate is often a significant factor in a
tragedy.
Comic Relief
 Shakespearean
drama includes comic
relief, a humorous scene, incident, or
speech that relieves the overall
emotional intensity.
 Comic relief helps the audience to
absorb earlier events in the plot and
get ready for the ones to come.
 Shakespeare also liked to use all the
star actors including the ones who
specialized in the comedy roles.
Allusion
 An
allusion is a brief reference, within
a work, to something outside the work
that the reader or audience is expected
to know.
 For example the writer may allude to a
historical or current event or to
another line from a piece of literature.
 Shakespeare’s plays often contain
allusions to ancient Greek and Roman
mythology and to the Bible.
Do you know the allusions?
“Mercutio…speak to my gossip Venus
one fair word,
One nickname for her purblind son and
heir, Young Adam Cupid, he that shot
so trim when King Cophetua loved the
beggar maid.”
Venus is the Roman goddess of love.
Cupid is the ancient Roman god of love,
child of Mercury and Venus.
King Cophetua is the subject of an
Elizabethan myth in which he searches
the world for a pure wife.
 All
of Shakespeare’s allusions would
have easily been recognized by anyone
attending his plays during Elizabethan
England.
Foil
A
foil is a character whose personality
or attitudes are in sharp contrast to
those of another character in the same
work.
 By using a foil, the writer highlights
the other character’s traits or attitude.
 For example, the kind behavior of one
character will be emphasized when it is
brought in sharp contrast to another
character who is not at all kind.
Dramatic Conventions
 Dramatic
conventions are devices that
theater audiences accept as realistic
although they do not necessarily reflect
the way real-life people behave.
 Examples are soliloquies and asides…
Soliloquy
A
soliloquy is a speech that a character
gives when he or she is on stage alone.
 Its purpose is to let the audience know
what the character is thinking.
 Think “INNER MONOLOGUE”: because
we cannot actually read a character’s
thoughts we must be told by that
character what he/she is thinking.
[Enter Juliet alone]
JULIET: …Come gentle night; come loving,
black-browned night.
Give me my Romeo; and when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun…
-Act III Scene II, lines 20-26
Aside
 An
aside is a character’s remark,
either to the audience or to another
character, that others on stage are not
supposed to hear.
 Its purpose, too, is to reveal the
character’s private thoughts.
 A stage direction, usually in brackets
or parentheses, indicates when an
aside is being made.
 Asides are usually spoken directly to
the audience unless otherwise noted.
Blank Verse
 Shakespeare’s
plays are written
largely in blank verse, a form of poetry
that uses unrhymed lines of iambic
pentameter.
 Iambic pentameter are lines that
ideally have five unstressed syllables,
each followed by a stressed syllable.
 The pattern is not always perfect and
there can sometimes be breaks in the
pattern.
But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the East and Juliet is the sun!
Arise, fair sun and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou her maid art far more fair than she.
u
/
u
/
u
/
u
/
u
/
But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
u / u
/
u /uu / u /
It is the East and Juliet is the sun!
u /
u
/
u
/ u / u u
/
Arise, fair sun and kill the envious moon,
u
/ u /u
/
u
/
u
/
Who is already sick and pale with grief
u
/
u
/
u /
u
/
u
/
That thou her maid art far more fair than she.
 Couplet:
two rhymed lines in a row.
Example“Let two more summers wither in their
pride
Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride”
 Couplets
follow the same pattern of
stressed and unstressed syllables as
unrhymed iambic pentameter.
Characters
 The
Montagues:
Lord Montague
Lady Montague
Romeo – Son of Montague
Benvolio – nephew of Montague
Balthasar – servant to Romeo
Abram – servant to Montague
 The
Capulets:
Lord Capulet
Lady Capulet
Juliet – Daughter of Capulet
Tybalt – nephew of Lady Capulet
Nurse – to Juliet
Peter – Servant to Juliet’s nurse
Sampson
Gregory
And old man – of the Capulet family
 Other
Characters:
Prince Escalus – Ruler of Verona
Mercutio – kinsman of the Prince and a
friend of Romeo
Friar Lawrence – a Franciscan priest
Friar John – another Franciscan priest
Count Paris – a young nobleman, kinsman
of the Prince
Apothecary
Page – to Paris
Chief Watchman
Time
Place
– The
th
14
Century
– Verona; Mantua in
northern Italy.
Marriage and Love in
the 14th Century…
Most European marriages, especially among
the upper classes, were arranged by families
for social and economic reasons.
 Because the expected life span was shorter
people got married at an earlier age, and
marriage arrangements were made long
before any wedding took place.
 Romantic love was recognized, but society
did not generally view it as the basis of a
sound marriage.
