Riassunti letteratura inglese: Shakespeare - Romeo and Juliet

Shakespearian plays

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.

Themes and techniques

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 to 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(elected mayor of Stratford-upon-Avon) and he maybe was also a rich usurer, but then he lost everything and William was withdrawn from school and forced to study at home.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 continuous 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 by 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 values and life experiences.