Lesson Three - Romeo and Juliet

1. Romeo and Juliet Introduction

Romeo and Juliet

by William Shakespeare

A tale of tragic love............

This pre-reading lesson will help you to expand your  knowledge of Shakespeare and build an understanding of Romeo and Juliet by connecting the summary of the play to their everyday lives as teenagers. You will also explore the definition of tragedy and how "tragic love" is ingrained in the lives of teenagers from all cultures. The lessons will help you  build background knowledge of the play, the genre of tragedy, and related terms and concepts, creating a context in which you can better understand and relate to the Shakespearean text.

2. Romeo and Juliet Setting and Characters

SETTING

The play is set in the thirteenth or fourteenth century in Italy in Verona and Mantua. Much of the action takes place in Juliet’s house. Two cities of Venice are also mentioned in the play. The Capulets and the Montagues, the main families of the play, are from noble lineage and wealth; they dress well, live in fancy surroundings, and are served by many attendants. The play’s basic setting, therefore, is rich and elegant.

CHARACTER LIST

Major Characters

Romeo
The hero and one of the protagonists of Romeo and Juliet. The son of Old Montague, he is at first in love with Lord Capulet’s niece, Rosaline. When he goes to a feast given by Capulet, he attends the feast in a mask, meets Capulet’s daughter Juliet, falls in love with her, and becomes passionate and impulsive.

Juliet
The heroine and one of the protagonists of the play. She is the thirteen-year-old daughter of Capulet. She is a happy, romantic, and an innocent girl who falls in love with Romeo.

Friar Lawrence
The person who is responsible for helping Romeo and Juliet. He is a good man with good intentions.

Nurse
A friend, guide, confidante, and educator of Juliet. She has raised Juliet and is truly fond of her. She is a realist, who is fond of talking and joking. She often provides comic relief to the play.

Minor Characters

The Montagues
One of the two major families of Verona. They are bitter enemies of the Capulets.

The Capulets
One of the two major families of Verona. They are bitter enemies of the Montagues.

Escalus
The Prince of Verona. He is tired of the fighting in his city and threatens anyone who disturbs the peace with death.

Paris
A young nobleman and kinsman of the Prince. He is handsome and courteous and favorable to the Capulets. They arrange for Juliet to marry him since they do not realize she is married to Romeo.

Benvolio
A nephew of Montague and a friend of Romeo.

Mercutio
A relative of the Prince, who relies on satire and serves as comic relief to the melancholy mood of Romeo. He is responsible for making the young lovers aware of the practical aspects of love.

Tybalt
Lady Capulet’s nephew, who is quick to anger. He constantly provokes Romeo to fight. In the end, Romeo kills him.

Friar John
A Friar in the same church as Friar Lawrence. He is sent to deliver a message to Romeo in Mantua about Friar Lawrence’s plan for the lovers.

Lady Capulet
The young wife of Capulet, who has an ugly temper. She is humbled by the death of her daughter Juliet.

Lady Montague
The wife of Montague who hates the violence that plagues Verona. When she learns of the suicide of her son Romeo, she grieves herself to death and becomes another victim of the old family conflict.

Balthazar
Servant to Romeo.

Samson and Gregory
Servants to the Capulets.

Peter
Servant to Juliet’s nurse. He helps keep the family quarrel alive.

Abraham
Servant to the Montagues. He also helps keep the family quarrel alive.

3. Romeo and Juliet Plot

The following is a summary of events that occur during the play Romeo and Juliet.  Please read this first, before reading the play, so that you have an idea of what is happening and you can interpret the wording more easily.

On a hot morning fighting by young servants of the Capulet and Montague families is stopped by the Prince who tells them that the next person who breaks the peace will be punished with death.

Capulet plans a feast to introduce his daughter, Juliet, who is almost fourteen, to the Count Paris who would like to marry her. By a mistake of the illiterate servant Peter, Montague’s son, Romeo, and his friends Benvolio and the Prince’s cousin Mercutio, hear of the party and decide to go in disguise. Romeo hopes he will see his adored Rosaline but instead he meets and falls in love with Juliet.

Juliet’s cousin Tybalt recognises the Montagues and they are forced to leave the party just as Romeo and Juliet have each discovered the other’s identity. Romeo lingers near the Capulet’s house and talks to Juliet when she appears on her balcony. With the help of Juliet’s Nurse the lovers arrange to meet next day at the cell of Friar Lawrence when Juliet goes for confession, and they are married by him.

Tybalt picks a quarrel with Mercutio and his friends and Mercutio is accidentally killed as Romeo intervenes to try to break up the fight. Romeo pursues Tybalt in anger, kills him and is banished by the Prince for the deed. Juliet is anxious that Romeo is late meeting her and learns of the fighting from her Nurse. With Friar Lawrence’s help it is arranged that Romeo will spend the night with Juliet before taking refuge at Mantua.

To calm the family’s sorrow at Tybalt’s death the day for the marriage of Juliet to Paris is brought forward. Capulet and his wife are angry that Juliet does not wish to marry Paris, not knowing of her secret contract with Romeo.

Friar Lawrence helps Juliet by providing a sleeping potion that will make everyone think she’s dead. Romeo will then come to her tomb and take her away. When the wedding party arrives to greet Juliet next day they think she is dead. The Friar sends a colleague to warn Romeo to come to the Capulet’s family monument to rescue his sleeping wife but the message doesn’t get through and Romeo, hearing instead that Juliet is dead, buys poison in Mantua.

He returns to Verona and goes to the tomb where he surprises and kills the mourning Paris. Romeo takes the poison and dies just as Juliet awakes from her drugged sleep. She learns what has happened from Friar Lawrence but she refuses to leave the tomb and stabs herself as the Friar returns with the Prince, the Capulets and Romeo’s father. The deaths of their children lead the families to make peace, promising to erect a monument in their memory.

4. Romeo and Juliet Life and Times

Here are a few interesting details about the Life and Times of Romeo and Juliet and Shakespeare:

Date of Composition

Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet early in his career, between 1594-1595, around the same time as the comedies Love's Labour's Lost and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Scholars often group these plays together because they explore the themes of love, courtship, and marriage. The plays also share a similar poetic quality in the language used, as they incorporate sonnets and the conventions associated with them such as falling in love at first sight.

First Performance

The first performance of Romeo and Juliet took place in the autumn/winter of 1594, when the playhouses reopened for the first time after a sustained outbreak of the plague had forced the authorities to close all the playhouses in London in January 1593. During this period, over 10,000 people in London alone died from the disease, and Shakespeare emphasizes the relevance of the plague for his audience by using it in Romeo and Juliet to prevent Friar Laurence's message from reaching Romeo in Mantua.

The first performance of the play was at the playhouse called the Theatre where Shakespeare and his company the Lord Chamberlain's Men were based until 1597. The Theatre was the first purpose-built playhouse in London and could hold over 1,500 people. It was a large, octagonal-shaped building with a thatched roof just around the perimeter so that the yard below was open air. Most of the audience, referred to as groundlings, paid a penny to stand in the yard surrounding the stage. Wealthier playgoers preferred to pay an extra penny to sit in one of the galleries so that they could watch the play in comfort and more importantly, be seen by the rest of the audience.

In the first performance of Romeo and Juliet, Richard Burbage, the company's leading actor, who was in his mid-twenties, played Romeo. Juliet was played by Master Robert Goffe; young boy actors often played female roles because women did not legally appear on the stage until the late 17th century.

Cultural Influences

During the 16th century, many English dramatists and poets adapted a wide range of Italian stories and poetry to create their own material. The availability of these sources reflects the English interest in Italian culture during this period as the influence of the Italian Renaissance spread. The term Renaissance means "rebirth" and refers to the period after the Middle Ages when a revival of interest in classical Roman and Greek culture emerged. Beginning in the mid-14th century in Italy, the Renaissance was a period of rapid discovery and development, gradually moving northwards across the rest of Europe.

One Italian source that Shakespeare draws upon in Romeo and Juliet is Francesco Petrarch, 1304-1374, an Italian scholar and poet, who was responsible for developing the sonnet. The poems, which Petrarch wrote for the lady he admired, describe the process of falling in love and courtship, according to medieval ideas of courtly love and chivalry. Translated into English and published in 1557, the sonnets were extremely popular, so English sonnet writers imitated and developed Petrarch's conventions.

5. Romeo and Juliet - Reading the Play

Now is the time to start reading the play.  Please open your book and being with the introductory pages and Act 1.

6. The English Sonnet

Shakespearean Sonnet Basics: 

IambicPentameter and the English Sonnet Style

Shakespeare's sonnets are written predominantly in a meter called iambic pentameter, a rhyme scheme in which each sonnet line consists of ten syllables. The syllables are divided into five pairs called iambs or iambic feet. An iamb is a metrical unit made up of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable. An example of an iamb would be good BYE. A line of iambic pentameter flows like this: 

baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM. 

Here are some examples from the sonnets:

When I / do COUNT / the CLOCK / that TELLS / the TIME (Sonnet 12)

When IN / dis GRACE / with FOR / tune AND / men’s EYES
I ALL / a LONE / be WEEP / my OUT/ cast STATE (Sonnet 29)

Shall I / com PARE/ thee TO / a SUM / mer's DAY? 
Thou ART / more LOVE / ly AND / more TEM / per ATE (Sonnet 18)

Shakespeare's plays are also written primarily in iambic pentameter, but the lines are unrhymed and not grouped into stanzas. Unrhymed iambic pentameter is called blank verse. It should be noted that there are also many prose passages in Shakespeare’s plays and some lines of trochaic tetrameter, such as the Witches' speeches in Macbeth.