William Shakespeare - Romeo and Juliet

William Shakespeare

Much of what we know about his life is based on public records. Born in 1564, he attended a grammar school and married Anne Hathaway when he was 18. In 1592 the London theatres were closed and he needed the support of a private patron (earl of Southampton). In 1599 his company built the globe theater and when king James I came to the throne in 1603, it changed its name to "the king's men". He died at 52 in 1623. Some of his friends published 36 of his plays in "the first folio" and the plays were organized into comedies, tragedies, history and roman plays that has shaped our ideas of the shakespeare canon. He invented 1700 words. His sonnets were first published in 1609 and the 154 sonnets are both traditional and experimental: he modified the structure of the sonnet and created new metaphor, providing a complex exploration of gender and sexuality through the fair youth and the dark lady.

▪ the drama: started in the 5th century in greece.
▪ comedy: mocks the vices and follies of society with humorous language, ordinary characters, and every-day situations.
▪ tragedy: features catharsis, strong emotion, a solemn style, elevated language, and aristocratic heroes and villains whose death or destruction end the play.

The Elizabethan theatre

The elizabethan theatre was a combination of the medieval drama and the classical drama. The influences of the medieval drama included: thinking of a play as an animated sermon with allegorical characters and situations, vivid caricature and realistic comedy, a mix of comedy and tragedy, the idea of man's place inside an ordered universe, and the avoidance of aristotle's "3 unities of action, place and time". Elizabethan theatre also drew inspiration from the italian "commedia dell'arte", the works of niccolò machiavelli, the greek theatre, and the latin poet seneca. Regarding the playhouse, they were circular or octagonal. the stage was rectangular and 12 metres wide with no curtains in the front part, and there was a trap door. A tiring house, where the actors changed their clothes, was at the rear of the stage. The stage projected into an uncovered area called the pit, which was surrounded by three tiers of roofed galleries. There was little to no scenery, a limited number of props, and the action was continuous.
The globe theatre, erected in london in 1599, was very large and three stories high, with the roof only partially covering the circular structure. The theatre site was rediscovered in 1989, and a new globe theatre was built in 1997.

Shakesperare's plays

His works have been dated combining external evidence (a clear mention of a certain play), internal evidence (when the play itself includes a reference to an event), and stylistic evidence (the changes of shakespeare's style are very noticeable). The structure consists of introduction, development, turning point, complication, and resolution. The stage directions were added by editors and given indirectly, and the progress of the play was connected to the gradual clarification of things.

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet tells the love between a montague and a capulet, characterised by elements of both comedy and tragedy.
▪ in act I, Romeo talks with his cousin about his love for Rosaline and, after learning that she will be at a party at the capulets, he decides to attend; there he falls in love with Juliet.
▪ in act II, they declare love to each other and plan to get married by Friar Laurence.
▪ in act III, Mercutio (Romeo's best friend) is killed by Tybalt (Juliet's cousin), so Romeo kills Tybalt; Romeo is banished by the prince to Mantua.
▪ in act IV, to avoid the marriage with Count Paris (organised by her father), Juliet takes a drug that makes her seem dead; Romeo hears about Juliet's death and decides to return to Verona.
▪ in act V, Romeo, believing Juliet to be dead, drinks poison; Juliet, finding Romeo's body beside her, stabs herself; finally, the two families make peace to each other. The main themes are love, fate and death, and age and youth.