Remember to make comments that make links between ideas
or issues in the text and the real world.
What relevance do these events or issues have in modern society?
In terms of Romeo and Juliet you may wish to discuss the following:
Shakespearian beliefs about fate, astrology, Fortunes wheel
Common elements in Shakespeares other plays - A Mid-Summer nights Dream
Origin of 'Romeo and Juliet', Shakespeare's use of Arthur Brook's poetry as inspiration
Similarities of 'Romeo and Juliet' to the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, told by the great Roman poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses
Romeo being a Petrarchan lover
Romeo's use of sonnets, 14 lined love poems developed by Francesco Petrarch, translated to english in 1557
'Romeo and Juliet' as the archetypal love story- forbidden love, parental disapproval, success against odds
Shakespeare's used of the plague in his plot - 'Romeo and Juliet' first opened in 1594, coincided with plague outbreak in 1593
911 reference, destruction caused by hatred, America vs Israeli Terrorist groups, Irish Civil War, Boer War
Cultural Influences
During the 16th century, many English dramatists and poets adapted a wide range of Italian stories and poetry to create their own material. The availability of these sources reflects the English interest in Italian culture during this period as the influence of the Italian Renaissance spread. The term Renaissance means “rebirth” and refers to the period after the Middle Ages when a revival of interest in classical Roman and Greek culture emerged. Beginning in the mid-14th century in Italy, the Renaissance was a period of rapid discovery and development, gradually moving northwards across the rest of Europe.
One Italian source that Shakespeare draws upon in Romeo and Juliet is Francesco Petrarch, 1304-1374, an Italian scholar and poet, who was responsible for developing the sonnet. The poems, which Petrarch wrote for the lady he admired, describe the process of falling in love and courtship, according to medieval ideas of courtly love and chivalry. Translated into English and published in 1557, the sonnets were extremely popular, so English sonnet writers imitated and developed Petrarch’s conventions.
A sonnet is a poem made up of 14 lines of iambic pentameter. That is, each line consists of ten syllables with a regular rhyme scheme. Both the prologues to Act I and Act II in Romeo and Juliet, as well as Romeo and Juliet’s first exchanges in Act I, Scene 5, are sonnets. The sonnet can be traced by identifying the rhyme at the end of each line, starting, for example, with Romeo’s line: “If I profane with my unworthiest hand” down to: “Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.” The first rhyming line may be called A and the second B, until the pattern ABAB CDCD EFEF GG is completed.
'Romeo and Juliet': Origins
Shakespeare did not invent the story of Romeo and Juliet. He did not, in fact, even introduce the story into the English language. A poet named Arthur Brooks first brought the story of Romeus and Juliet to an English-speaking audience in a long and plodding poem that was itself not original, but rather an adaptation of adaptations that stretched across nearly a hundred years and two languages. Many of the details of Shakespeare’s plot are lifted directly from Brooks’s poem, including the meeting of Romeo and Juliet at the ball, their secret marriage, Romeo’s fight with Tybalt, the sleeping potion, and the timing of the lover’s eventual suicides. Such appropriation of other stories is characteristic of Shakespeare, who often wrote plays based on earlier works.
Shakespeare’s use of existing material as fodder for his plays should not, however, be taken as a lack of originality. Instead, readers should note how Shakespeare crafts his sources in new ways while displaying a remarkable understanding of the literary tradition in which he is working. Shakespeare’s version of Romeo and Juliet is no exception. The play distinguishes itself from its predecessors in several important aspects: the subtlety and originality of its characterization (Shakespeare almost wholly created Mercutio); the intense pace of its action, which is compressed from nine months into four frenetic days; a powerful enrichment of the story’s thematic aspects; and, above all, an extraordinary use of language.
Shakespeare’s play not only bears a resemblance to the works on which it is based, it is also quite similar in plot, theme, and dramatic ending to the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, told by the great Roman poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses. Shakespeare was well aware of this similarity; he includes a reference to Thisbe in Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare also includes scenes from the story of Pyramus and Thisbe in the comically awful play-within-a-play put on by Bottom and his friends in A Midsummer Night’s Dream—a play Shakespeare wrote around the same time he was composing Romeo and Juliet. Indeed, one can look at the play-within-a-play in A Midsummer Night’s Dream as parodying the very story that Shakespeare seeks to tell in Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet in full knowledge that the story he was telling was old, clichéd, and an easy target for parody. In writing Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare, then, implicitly set himself the task of telling a love story despite the considerable forces he knew were stacked against its success. Through the incomparable intensity of his language Shakespeare succeeded in this effort, writing a play that is universally accepted in Western culture as the preeminent, archetypal love story.
REACHING EXCELLENCE:
Remember to make comments that make links between ideas
or issues in the text and the real world.
What relevance do these events or issues have in modern society?
In terms of Romeo and Juliet you may wish to discuss the following:
Cultural Influences
During the 16th century, many English dramatists and poets adapted a wide range of Italian stories and poetry to create their own material. The availability of these sources reflects the English interest in Italian culture during this period as the influence of the Italian Renaissance spread. The term Renaissance means “rebirth” and refers to the period after the Middle Ages when a revival of interest in classical Roman and Greek culture emerged. Beginning in the mid-14th century in Italy, the Renaissance was a period of rapid discovery and development, gradually moving northwards across the rest of Europe.
One Italian source that Shakespeare draws upon in Romeo and Juliet is Francesco Petrarch, 1304-1374, an Italian scholar and poet, who was responsible for developing the sonnet. The poems, which Petrarch wrote for the lady he admired, describe the process of falling in love and courtship, according to medieval ideas of courtly love and chivalry. Translated into English and published in 1557, the sonnets were extremely popular, so English sonnet writers imitated and developed Petrarch’s conventions.
A sonnet is a poem made up of 14 lines of iambic pentameter. That is, each line consists of ten syllables with a regular rhyme scheme. Both the prologues to Act I and Act II in Romeo and Juliet, as well as Romeo and Juliet’s first exchanges in Act I, Scene 5, are sonnets. The sonnet can be traced by identifying the rhyme at the end of each line, starting, for example, with Romeo’s line: “If I profane with my unworthiest hand” down to: “Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.” The first rhyming line may be called A and the second B, until the pattern ABAB CDCD EFEF GG is completed.
'Romeo and Juliet': Origins
Shakespeare did not invent the story of Romeo and Juliet. He did not, in fact, even introduce the story into the English language. A poet named Arthur Brooks first brought the story of Romeus and Juliet to an English-speaking audience in a long and plodding poem that was itself not original, but rather an adaptation of adaptations that stretched across nearly a hundred years and two languages. Many of the details of Shakespeare’s plot are lifted directly from Brooks’s poem, including the meeting of Romeo and Juliet at the ball, their secret marriage, Romeo’s fight with Tybalt, the sleeping potion, and the timing of the lover’s eventual suicides. Such appropriation of other stories is characteristic of Shakespeare, who often wrote plays based on earlier works.
Shakespeare’s use of existing material as fodder for his plays should not, however, be taken as a lack of originality. Instead, readers should note how Shakespeare crafts his sources in new ways while displaying a remarkable understanding of the literary tradition in which he is working. Shakespeare’s version of Romeo and Juliet is no exception. The play distinguishes itself from its predecessors in several important aspects: the subtlety and originality of its characterization (Shakespeare almost wholly created Mercutio); the intense pace of its action, which is compressed from nine months into four frenetic days; a powerful enrichment of the story’s thematic aspects; and, above all, an extraordinary use of language.
Shakespeare’s play not only bears a resemblance to the works on which it is based, it is also quite similar in plot, theme, and dramatic ending to the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, told by the great Roman poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses. Shakespeare was well aware of this similarity; he includes a reference to Thisbe in Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare also includes scenes from the story of Pyramus and Thisbe in the comically awful play-within-a-play put on by Bottom and his friends in A Midsummer Night’s Dream—a play Shakespeare wrote around the same time he was composing Romeo and Juliet. Indeed, one can look at the play-within-a-play in A Midsummer Night’s Dream as parodying the very story that Shakespeare seeks to tell in Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet in full knowledge that the story he was telling was old, clichéd, and an easy target for parody. In writing Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare, then, implicitly set himself the task of telling a love story despite the considerable forces he knew were stacked against its success. Through the incomparable intensity of his language Shakespeare succeeded in this effort, writing a play that is universally accepted in Western culture as the preeminent, archetypal love story.