Context

• Shakespeare


  England's most famous playwright, lived from 1564 - 1616
• Shakespeare's plays


  • Histories
  • Comedies
  • Tragedies
• Shakespeare was writing for his acting group, the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later, the King's Men)
• Renaissance


  Period between the 14th to 17th centuries where there was an expansion of artistic expression
• Romeo and Juliet is suspected to have been written at the beginning of Shakespeare's career


  1597-1579
• Plays


  Were an incredibly popular and central medium of entertainment during the Elizabethan and Jacobean era
• Audience


  Cross-class, from both the lower and middle classes
• Nurse


  • Represents the lower class, makes sexual jokes when talking to Juliet
• Sonnet structure


  • May have been appreciated by the richer and more educated audience members
• The Globe was Shakespeare's theatre, but Romeo and Juliet was first performed at the Theatre and then The Curtain
• Theatres


  • Open-air, poorer members of the audience stood in front of the raised stage, richer sat higher up, richest could sit on the stage
• Women were not allowed to act, so female characters were played by pre-pubescent boys
• Preliminary texts Shakespeare was probably inspired by

  • Arthur Brooke's The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet (1562)
  • William Painter's Palace of Pleasure (pre-1580)
• Shakespeare set his play in Italy because of the rich Italian heritage that the story already had
• The first edition of the play, the First Quarto, was published


  1597
• The Second Quarto was published, may be taken as the full version of the play


  1599
• Romeo and Juliet was included in Shakespeare's First Folio (1623), published after his death
• Richard Garrick's 18th Century production


  • Immensely popular, heightened the intensity of the play and reduced its comic elements
• Mid-19th Century productions


  • Unusually allowed female actors to play the role of Romeo, highlighting the effeminacy of Romeo
• Adaptations of Romeo and Juliet

  • West Side Story (1957)
  • Baz Luhrmann's 1996 Romeo + Juliet
• Tragedy


  A form of entertainment with certain common characteristics, including catharsis and hamartia
• Catharsis


  A purging of pity and fear among the audience through the action of the play
• Hamartia


  Tragic error made by the character, a foolish decision which leads to disaster
• Senecan tragedy


  • Bloody and sensationalist, elements of this violence can be seen in Romeo and Juliet
• Verona


  The setting of the play, a temporally and geographically distant place from the audience
• Shakespeare set his plays in foreign lands to critique society and the monarchy without being accused of treason
• Catholicism


  Italy was known to the English for its Catholicism, which was viewed negatively due to anti-Catholicism in Elizabethan England
• Christianity


  Religion was central to Elizabethan life, with the concept of sin pervading the play
• Ordered Great Chain of Being

  A belief system which underpinned Elizabethan society, teaching that there was a hierarchical ordering of all creation
• Astronomy


  Taught the Elizabethans that the Earth was the centre of the universe, supporting the concept of the Great Chain of Being
• Position of women


  • Women were seen as lesser than men, objectified and their property belonging to their closest male relative
• Dowry


  Physical objects (property, money etc.) added to a woman to make her more attractive to possible suitors
• Women's status


  They belonged to their father, then became the property of their husbands when married
• Men could do whatever they wanted to their wives free of judgement or condemnation
• Women were seen as sexual objects there to satisfy the needs of their husbands who were their lords and masters
• Dowry


  Physical objects (property, money etc.) added to the woman to make her more attractive to possible suitors
• The dowry made the woman "part of the package", contributing to the widespread objectification of women in Elizabethan society
• Women of noble families were sold off as part of the dowry from a very early age
• Marriage


  An end goal and purpose for all women
• An unmarried woman was thought of as a deviant, diverting from the will of God