romeo n juliet

• Romeo and Juliet


  Opening play with a prologue introducing the setting, backstory, and plot
• Setting


  • Verona, Italy
• Backstory


  • Two rival families, the Montagues and Capulets, have been the cause of recent violence in Verona
• Plot


  • Two children of the families, Romeo and Juliet, will fall in love but by the play's end will commit suicide
• Action begins


  1. Servants from the households exchange insults and fight in the streets

  2. The Lords of the households arrive and pull out their swords to fight

  3. The Prince arrives and declares their feud illegal
• Romeo Montague


  Lamenting his unrequited love for Rosaline
• Juliet


  Has a suitor, the young count Paris
• Capulets host a masquerade ball

  1. Paris and Juliet can meet

  2. Romeo, Benvolio, and Mercutio sneak into the ball

  3. Romeo falls in love with Juliet
• Tybalt finds out Romeo is there


  Wants to fight him, but Lord Capulet tells him no
• Romeo and Juliet


  1. Declare their love

  2. Decide to get married

  3. Friar Laurence secretly marries them
• Tybalt challenges Romeo to a duel

  1. Mercutio defends Romeo's honor and is killed by Tybalt

  2. Romeo kills Tybalt
• The Prince enters


  Banishes Romeo from Verona
• Juliet


  1. Rejects her father's command to marry Paris

  2. Goes to Friar Laurence who devises a plan for her to take a potion that will make her seem dead

  3. Juliet drinks the poison and the family and Paris find her seemingly dead
• Romeo


  1. Hears news of Juliet's death before receiving the Friar's letter describing the plan

  2. Comes to her tomb and kills himself with poison

  3. Juliet wakes up, finds Romeo dead, and stabs herself with his dagger
• The heartbroken families


  Find the dead youths and decide to end their feud
• Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, but with a healthy dose of Elizabethan comedy along the way
• Comedic aspects in Romeo and Juliet

  • Plenty of jokes
  • Fun word play
  • Sexual innuendo
• Shakespeare didn't just write a shallow funny love story, he engaged with the concept of love on a much deeper level than the comedies that his audience was used to
• Petrarchan-style love poems


  Demonstrated the concept of courtly love where men would dramatically declare their love for women from afar, often with extravagant and flowery language
• Romeo at the beginning of the play


  His language is over-the-top and flowery, just like Petrarch's poems
• When Romeo meets Juliet


  He experiences a deep spiritual connection with her, rather than pining after her from a distance and spouting lots of exaggerated poems
• The deaths in the play reflect Shakespeare's move towards writing more tragic material
• In 1592, three years before Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, a massive plague had struck London, killing over 10 percent of the population
• The tragic Capulet Montague rivalry in Romeo and Juliet

  Can be understood as a warning to those in power, saying watch out for family feuds as they can have disastrous consequences and ruin peace and stability for everyone else
• Elizabethan England was predominantly Christian, but Shakespeare was also writing in the time of the Renaissance when a lot of ancient art and texts had been rediscovered
• Elizabethan society was patriarchal, with men having all the power and women expected to be quiet and subservient
• Capulet expects Juliet to obey him when he tells her to marry Paris, and is shocked when she disobeys, making Juliet a pretty rebellious and strong character
• Shakespeare uses Juliet to challenge the dominant patriarchal framework of the family, perhaps reminding audiences of Queen Elizabeth, another powerful woman who refused to marry
• Juliet


  • Distant relationship with her mother
  • Close relationship with her nurse
• Wet nurse


  A woman of lower class employed to breastfeed the child of a higher class family
• Juliet only has 8 lines in Act 1 Scene 3, whereas Lady Capulet and the nurse take up 90% of the dialogue
• Juliet's response to Lady Capulet


  "it is an honor that I dream not of"
• Juliet is guarded and cautious, sidestepping the question about marriage
• In Elizabethan England, women belonged to their fathers and then their husbands, could not attend school or university, could not purchase or own property, could not vote, and were not allowed on stage in plays
• Romeo: '"If I profane with my unworthy hand this holy Shrine, the gentle fine is this: my lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss."'
• Juliet: '"Good Pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, which mannerly devotion shows in this; for Saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss."'
• Juliet's language mirroring Romeo's suggests she is slightly cautious, trying not to give too much away of her own feelings
• Blazon


  Describing women using a range of grand metaphors
• Juliet's wisdom and maturity are heightened by contrast with Romeo's immaturity and hyperbolic language
• Juliet: '"if that thy bent of Love be Honourable, thy purpose Marriage, send me word tomorrow"'