Riassunti letteratura inglese: Shakespeare - Romeo and Juliet

SHAKESPEARE

All the three Shakespearian plays are written FOR THE STAGE, FOR EACH KIND OF PEOPLE (on the contrary, at that time plays are exclusively written for the Queen) and they're written only to ENTERTAIN and to TEACH.

It's no more an OLD COMEDY (Aristophanes' parody, satyr of people and events) an example of the NEW COMIC SCENARIO. There's love between two lovers but it's obstructed by the old generation (family, parents, society). There's an arbitrary imposition because of religion, social class, richness and how is this problem solved? Thanks to an overcome. Love is then realised through a trick.

Tension between the generations -> trick -> problem solved -> reconciliation

Dramatisation of society: society generates itself through generations, it exists in time (from one day to the next), young and old generations separate but then they re-conciliate because young are the means through which the society will continue perpetuate in time and renew.

itself.William Shakespeare

We almost have no information about him and his private life. Born in Stratford-upon-Avon, he was catholic but there are no documents about that. His father was a Glover and was active in politics and really important (elected mayor of Stratford-upon-Avon) and he maybe was also a rich usurer, but then he lost everything and William was withdrawn from school and forced to study at home.

Most of all his works have no definitive date because of the continue modifying FOLIO EDITION is the volume edition published thanks to his old manuscripts after his death and it gives a very classical design to the plays through the division in acts and scenes, done the editors (Shakespeare didn't do that!)

All the MALE CHARACTERS are almost equal in his works, because he pays MORE ATTENTION TO ALL THE FEMALE CHARACTERS of all his works

DRAMATIC REVERSAL is a characteristic that is over and over in his works: people think they live in a certain kind of world and they suddenly

Discover that that world is not a real world, they suddenly find themselves in dramatic situations and they must re-orientate themselves discovering new values and a new reality; this can be successful or unsuccessful.

PARALLEL BETWEEN LIFE OF THE AUTHOR AND THE PLAYS: He lived in London but his emotional home is always Stratford (London: metropolitan, modern city and economic/capitalistic values vs Stratford: conservative, agrarian and farming/catholic values). That's why his life is a continuous moving back and forth. He also reflects this in his plays (Venice -> Belmont in the Merchant of Venice, London -> forest in Midsummer's night's dream). This moving back and forth corresponds both to the coexistence of two different world/cities and to two different systems of values (The most excellent and lamentable tragedy of) Romeo and Juliet.

It can be considered an example of the modern romanticism and we can say that Shakespeare predicts what will happen in the following.

centuries (people will read his works and will appreciate them!) LOVE and HATE are the two main themes, but the play has also a psychological aspect: it analyses the relation between human beings and the external world and their inner characteristics. There are two other themes: RELATIONSHIP (between two or more different people and it can be squalid and violent) and SEXUALITY (really obscene in this play)

Shakespeare specifies even what is already known by everyone: no unity of time and different moods of time (Bergson's TEMPS and DURÉE) and the TIME IS THE REAL ENNEMY TEMPS (the time of the external world, hours, minutes ...) vs DURÉE (the time of the Bergson: emotions passing by, it depends on our way of living them). So the writer can write following different conception of time: he can either respect the duration of the play (2-3 hours) or make the story longer and shorter

What makes life develop the way it does? Stars? God? Chance? Ourselves? Shakespeare doesn't

Give us an answer, but different solutions. Among these solutions, he proposes that IDENTITY makes us what we are and can change our lives (debate between public and private identity).

WHAT'S NEW IN R&J? People already knew the story because it belonged to the common historical facts/chronicles and because other authors already spoke about the story of two young lovers who follow their passions and are condemned by their old parents. However, SHAKESPEARE SUBVERTED THE EXPECTATIONS OF THE AUDIENCE PLAYING WITH THE TWO GENRES OF TRAGEDY AND COMEDY. Instead of making a complete tragedy, he writes a tragedy using so many comic elements. Why? in order to make us think it's a comedy, only to reveal the real tragedy of its end. It would be a perfect comedy only if it ended with the marriage of the lovers, but we know it's not so because the two young lovers die. This is part of the Shakespearian subversion of the stories because it's not a tragedy from the very beginning! So,

TRAGEDY + COMIC ELEMENTS = ROMEO AND JULIET

COMEDY + TRAGIC ELEMENTS = THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

It's a self-contradictory story: the loved person is the enemy, but this conflict hasn't a precise and real cause (Juliet belongs to Capulet and Romeo to Montague and the two families hate each other) and so it's a kind of Catullo's "odi et amo".

Prologue: by chorus (only a person speaks); it's an English sonnet (rime scheme: ABABCDCDEFEFGG).

Two: division already enlightened by the very first line and it specifies that there are two different families (Montague and Capulet).

Fatal loins: their destiny is already known and the oxymoron life/death, cold/fire and sweet/sorrow underline it.

Their death: anticipation of their death

Death marked love: their love will bring them to death and consequently their families will extinguish. They are going to die not

for their own responsibility but because the fatal loins comes from the conflict between the two families

Two: is also the duration of the play

Play: colloquial language + puns (the same word accumulates different meaning during the play and this symbolises that it was originally written for an exercise of poetry)

He writes the same sound /ai/ to mean I, eye, and Ay (word which at that time meant "yes").

Benvolio: he belongs to none of the two families and he tries to keep the peace

The conflict between the two families implies also the respective servants and the citizens of Verona.

Many oppositions in the language: light/darkness, hate/love ...

Romeo: he's the stereotype of the romantic lover who dramatise his situation affirming that his beloved woman is unobtainable. But he's only playing the role of the lover, so he isn't sincere because he contradicts himself many times (Romeo as Petrarch: woman is only an excuse because he's in love with the emotion).

The Nurse: the servant, associated to sexuality

Servants intend sexuality as rape, violence; the Nurse intends it as physical procreation; Lady Capulet intends it only as a consequence of the institutional marriage