Main ideas

• The 10 key words:

  DIFF Clashing Houses, Passionate Betrayal, Doomed Tragedy
• D - Dramatic Irony

  I - Impetuousness

  F - Folly of youth

  F - Futile / Futility

  C - Celestial Bodies

  H - Hamartia

  P - Prohibited

  B - Boundless

  D - Disillusioned

  T - Transcends mortal limitations
• 4 bits of context (FOIG)

  • Fate
  • Ovid‘s metamorphoses
  • Italy
  • Great chain of being
• Fate & Astrology

  • Elizabethans believed in the power of Celestial Bodies.
• Prologue: ‘Star-cross’d‘ introduces the theme of Fate and the belief in Celestial Bodies
• Ovid’s metamorphoses

  • The concept of lovers who are prevented from being together by Fate
  • The idea of Prohibited love
• Italy

  • Believed to be a romantic, wild country
  • Women were sexually promiscuous
  • Men were violent and prone to deuls
• Italy

  • Gives an exotic background
  • Different to Elizabethan society where women were trapped for life once married
  • Sets the scene for the audience to feel more immersed
• Prologue demonstrates Shakespeare's belief that love and violence cannot exist without each other
• Romeo is portrayed as an impulsive character who acts on his emotions rather than thinking rationally about the consequences of his actions.
• Romeo's impulsivity can be seen when he decides to kill Tybalt despite knowing it will lead to banishment from Verona.
• Shakespeare constructs the young characters as impulsive and passionate.
• Shakespeare shows the consequences of violating societal, religious and familial constructs.
• Key themes: (FLICVY)

  Family vs duty

  Love

  Individuals vs society

  Chance / fate

  Violence

  Youth