Romeo + Juliet Flashcards
introduction
..deals w/ long feud between Montague + Capulet families which disrupts city of Verona + causes tragic results for R. + J. Revenge, love + secret marriage force young star-crossed lovers to grow up quickly + fate causes them to commit suicide in despair. Contrast + conflict are running themes throughout the play
1st half, turning point
more like Shakespearan comedy than tragedy: bawdy jokes, masked ball + love poetry
Only after Tybalt kills Mercutio near play’s midpoint (turning point) do things become tragic
Romeo + Juliet
R. always on streets, J. always inside >only church where R. + J. world can overlap
Tragic heroes; major flaw of character (see characterization)/conflict w/ some overpowering force (feud)
writing style
epic (1st chorus; civil blood), passionate, poetic (blank verse; all R. + J. lines 10 syllables)
day
- identity (family)
- youth (young lovers rush to wed after 1 day)
- passion (impassioned violence results in 2 murders)
- banishment (R. is banished from Verona)
- sacrifice (families reconcile)
night
-identity (faces concealed R. + J. meet)
-youth (meet secretly)
-passion (after tragedy,
lovers still share the night)
-banishment (J. seeks escape through pretended death)
-sacrifice (double suicide)
balcony
-R. compares J. to sun
>she is his light in life, feels well in her nearness, for him J. transforms darkness into light
day + night
-Acts almost change from day to night as motif + contrast while R. + J. always meet in night because safer + love is associated w/ dark + shows secret nature of their love
stars
-Comparisons w/ stars (J. eyes are like stars)
>chorus where J. + R. are described as ‘star-crossed lovers’
Elizabethan Age
-Golden sage (Renaissance)
-Freedom of Spirit >imagination
-domestic study of bible
>conflicts due religious passions, adherents of wrong religion were persecuted
-theatre, music, art, poetry
-immense cultural change
>economic growth
-highly infectious diseases
>demands of people to be distracted: Shakespeare chose foreign places as settings
Great Chain of Being
- God
-angles
-man (existence, life, feeling, understanding) >microcosm
-higher animals (having touch, memory, movement, hearing)
-
-
-plants (existence, life)
-elements, liquid, metals (mere existence, inanimate class)
>animals=sensitive class
Elizabethan Theatre
-no Lightning/special sound effects
>imagination depended totally on language used in play
-complaints: corrupts youth, leads to evil behavior
Prose
Ordinary speech, no metric pattern
>used by low status characters, low comedy, realistic tone
Rhymes
Concluding scene, hammering point home
Blank verse
Final words not rhyme in any regular pattern
