Context

• Elizabethans believed the course of life was dictated by celestial bodies
• Shakespeare supports the idea that going against fate is futile and culminates in destruction
• The prologue gives the audience a sense of dramatic irony as they know the lovers cannot escape their fate
• What is a Petrarchan lover?


  A term that defines a man who is hopelessly and unrequitedly in love with a woman he cannot have
• At the start of the play Romeo is unrequitedly in love with Rosaline yet abandons this supposedly passionate love upon meeting Juliet
• Shakespeare satirises the Petrarchan lover and uses Romeo as a vessel to show love often is idolised and is full of lust.
• Shakespeare writes about the hate Catholics and protestants had for eachother which this play may be an allegory for
• The reformation undermined the concept of religion as it showed it it open to change
• Friar Lawrence is led by the catholic desire to do good and cure hatred - the reason he marries Romeo and Juliet believing it will cure the feud
• Friar Lawrence's aspiration for peace is not enough to overcome fate and Shakespeare could be using Friar Lawrence as an allegory for the criticism of the church
• What is the chain of being?


  Belief God created the world with a clear hierarchical structure
• God was above all in the chain of being. Men were seen higher than women - so all women were expected to be subodinate to men
• People believed going against the chain of being is blasphemous and culminates in destruction which foreshadows the ending of the play.
• Romeo and Juliet are both punished through their violation of natural order because of their relationship with each other
• Juliet's strong, fiery nature could be seen as a perversion of the chain of being, she would have violated her roles as a woman by not being submissive as she disobeyed her father's (patriarchal society) orders to marry Paris
• Many Greek theology references may be seen as blasphemous as they refer to other gods
• Marriage was seen as just a transaction in society as a way to elevate your status and keep control