Romeo and Juliet

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Romeo and Juliet
An introduction to

• By William Shakespeare

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Romeo and Juliet
EVERYWHERE
Can be found
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ANIME
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Movies
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ART
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(No Transcript)
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References to Romeo and Juliet are
everywhereincluding current fashion magazines.
Love of a Lifetime
"Love of a Lifetime" has been edited for
Style.com the complete story appears in the
December 2008 issue of Vogue.
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The Fateful Night
Romeo 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, Sc.
5)
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The Harsh Truth
Nurse His name is Romeo, and a Montague,/The
only son of your great enemy. Juliet My only
love sprung from my only hate!/Too early seen
unknown, and known too late!/Prodigious birth of
love it is to me,/That I must love a loathed
enemy. (Act I, Sc. 5)
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The Stolen Moment
Juliet Three words, dear Romeo, and good night
indeed./If that thy bent of love be
honourable,/Thy purpose marriage, send me word
tomorrow. (Act II, Sc. 2)
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Friar Laurence These violent delights have
violent ends,/And in their triumph die like fire
and powder,/Which as they kiss consume. (Act II,
Sc. 6)
The Promise
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Romeo This day's black fate on moe days doth
depend,/This but begins the woe others must end.
(Act III, Sc. 1)
The Curse
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The Ruse
Friar Laurence Dry up your tears, and stick your
rosemary/On this fair corse, and as the custom
is,/And in her best array, bear her to
church/For though fond nature bids us all
lament,/Yet nature's tears are reason's
merriment. (Act IV, Sc. 5)
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The End
Prince A glooming peace this morning with it
brings,/The sun for sorrow will not show his
head./Go hence to have more talk of these sad
things/Some shall be pardon'd, and some
punished/For never was there a story of more
woe/Than this of Juliet and her Romeo. (Act V,
Sc. 3)
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What do we need to know to help us understand and
appreciate Romeo and Juliet?
Romeo and Juliet is actually a tragedy.
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What is a TRAGEDY?
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Literarily speaking a tragedy is

• a work of literature, especially a play that
  results in a catastrophe for the main character.
  In ancient Greek drama, the main character was
  always a significant person a king or a hero-
  and the cause of the tragedy was a tragic flaw,
  or weakness, in his or her character.

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Shakespeare utilized the tradition of the chorus
in many of his plays including Romeo and Juliet.
What is a chorus?
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Not that kind of chorus
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Again literarily speaking
a chorus is the use of a figure or group of
figures who comment on a plays action (this idea
goes back to ancient Greek and Roman drama). In
Shakespeares time, it was common for a chorus to
deliver a prologue an opening speech that
introduces the plays main characters, plot, and
setting.
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VS
Entertainment Today
Entertainment in Elizabethan England
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Basically anything you are in the mood for.
comedy
romance
action
horror
What choices do you have?
Think about going to the movies
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Elizabethan audiences didnt have this luxury.

• What did Shakespeare have to do in order to
  appease his entire audience?

First let us consider Shakespeares audience
and the social classes of Elizabethan England.
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Elizabethan Social Classes England
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Nobility
In Shakespeare's time there are only about
55 noble families in England.  At the head of
each noble family is a duke, a baron, or an
earl.  These are the lords and ladies of the
land. These men are rich and powerful, and
they have large households. For example, in 1521
the earl of Northumberland supports 166 people
family, servants and guests.  A person
became a member of the nobility in one of two
ways by birth, or by a grant from the queen or
king. Noble titles were hereditary, passingfrom
father to oldest son. People in other
classes might lose status by wasting their
fortunes and becoming poorer.  It took a crime
such as treason for a nobleman to lose his title.
 
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The Gentry
When Elizabeth I was young, only about 5 of the
population would have been classed as gentry
knights, squires, gentlemen, and gentlewomen "who
did not work with their hands for a living."
(Time Traveller's Guide) Their numbers, though,
were growing.  They were the most important
social class in Shakespeare's England. "Wealth
was the key to becoming part of the gentry.
These were people not of noble birth who, by
acquiring large amounts of property, became
wealthy landowners. Some families bought
property bit by bit over generations. A man
might marry the daughter of a lesser knight or
noble and gain land through his wife's
inheritance. Some of the great merchants made
their fortunes in the city, then bought a country
estate.
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Yeomanry
"Between the two extremes of rich and poor are
the so-called 'middling sort', who have saved
enough to be comfortable but who could at any
moment, through illness or bad luck, be plunged
into poverty. They are yeomen farmers, tradesmen
and craft workers. They have apprentices and take
religion very seriously usually, they are
literate." (Time Traveller's Guide)
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The Poor
At the bottom were the poor.  There was far more
poverty under Elizabeth than in previous reigns,
mostly because of enclosure, but there were also
the sick, the disabled, the old and feeble, and
soldiers unable to work because of wounds.  In
earlier times, the church -- notably the
monasteries -- had cared for the poor. Under
Elizabeth, the government undertook the job -- a
big job because enclosure had created so much
unemployment. The result was the famous
Elizabethan Poor Laws, one of the world's first
government- sponsored welfare programs.  The
program was financed, at first, by contributions
from the wealthy.  When this proved inadequate, a
poor tax was levied on everyone.  The Poor Laws
had three goals first, those unable to care for
themselves were placed in hospitals or
orphanages.  Children, when they were old enough,
were put out as apprentices to craftsmen. Second,
the able-bodied who could not find jobs on their
own were put to work, usually in workhouses
established in the towns.  These were places
where the unemployed were put to work making
goods for sale -- such small items as candles,
soap, or rope -- in exchange for a place to sleep
and enough food to keep alive.
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The third goal was to discourage the permanently
unemployed, "rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy
beggars" responsible for "horrible murders,
thefts, and other great outrages."48  The
Elizabethans made a clear distinction between
those who, for one reason or another, were unable
to work and those able-bodied people who refused
employment, whether in a regular job or in a
workhouse. 
The Elizabethan sense of order revolted at the
thought of people wandering about with no
respectable occupation.  To refuse to work for
wages was an offense punishable by law.  When
vagrants were caught, they were whipped and
returned to the parishes (church areas) of their
birth. If the vagrant refused work or escaped
from a workhouse and was caught, he was "burned
through the gristle of the right ear with a hot
iron of the compass of an inch about."50  If,
for a third time, a vagrant was found to be
unemployed, the punishment was death.
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Social Class of the cast of characters Like all
of Shakespeares dramas, Romeo and Juliet
features characters from all social classes and
all walks of life. The diversity of characters
on the stage reflects the diversity found within
the original audiences at the performances of the
plays.