Shakespeare's Use of Language in Romeo and Juliet

Shakespeare's Use of Language in Romeo and Juliet

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Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is a tragic love story set in Verona,

Italy. Two families, Capulet and Montague are involved in an ancient

quarrel from which an ill-fated love blooms, and which even their

children's death could not end.

It is said that Shakespeare got his inspiration for Romeo and Juliet

from a poem written by Arthur Brooke in 1562 called 'The Tragicall

Historye ofRomeus and Juliet' however he may have also read the

'istoria novellamente ritrivata di dui nobili amanti' which translates

to 'a story newly found of two noble lovers' which was written by

luigi da Porto in 1530-1550 in which the lovers are named Romeo and

Giulietta and the two families are called Montecchi and Capelletti.

There is a friar Lorenz, and he invented Marcuccio and Thebaldo. Also

in this story Romeo goes disguised as a nymph to a carnival ball at

his enemy's house in the hope of seeing a lady who scorns his love.

The lovers meet often at Giulietta's balcony until one night, when it

is snowing Romeo begs admittance to her room. After this point it

follows the same story line as Shakespeare. However da Porto has

Giulietta commit suicide by holding her breath. Shakespeare did not

use the original story for this because it would be known already, so

he adapted it so people would be interested to see how he interpreted

the story.

For my first scene I have chosen act 1 scene 5 in which Romeo meets

Juliet for the first time at the ...

... middle of paper ...

...quy in

which he expresses his undying love for Juliet and says his last words

to her. This helps to show you just how sad the character is in this

scene and how much he really loved Juliet. In this there is a mistake

because Romeo says

"Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks "

But the friar said earlier that "the roses in thy lips and cheeks

shall fade " so is Juliet already recovering or is this just a

mistake? This might be said as malapropisms.

Shakespeare maintains his audience's interest by using popular

language techniques like imagery and puns to capture the audience's

attention. He holds on to this by farther use of language but also use

of tension and other feelings to make you want to find out more. I

think his techniques were very effective and could be used in other

forms of writing as well.