Maria Carballo
February 27, 2014
English
Romeo and Juliet
During the Renaissance in 1405 through 1650, the people of England lived through various events in time in which hopes and fears arose, along with various movements. Humanism was one of them. This movement was founded by Petrarch with reference to his view that God gave the people ability and talents so you can achieve great things. They were to celebrate the fact that they achieved these things which is why Humanists seeked and trained their abilities and talents. In addition to this, Christian Humanism was created which tied in more with the Catholic church and people’s relationship with God. This was founded by Erasmus. His idea differed but it had some similarities to Petrarch's; The abilities and the talents that you had received from God must be used to make a more perfect Christian world. This can be found ironic due to the fact that the Catholic church had many ongoing issues that were yet to be solved. A great majority of priests and churchgoers or members of the church were purchasing and selling indulgences along with the situation of people going against the church as well. The Renaissance was also a time where people started acting as individuals, and not wanting to get caught up in the corporate identity. It is said that the Renaissance was when individualism was created. Martin Luther was a person who greatly valued individualism. He believed that anyone could be their own priest for the reason that all believers were equal and none possessed more piety and power then the other. These movements and ideas were fully seen in Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet. The play reflects the concern of people living in England during the Renaissance .
In Romeo and Jul...
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... are many types of arranged marriages such as arranged exogamous marriage, arranged endogamous marriage, and consanguineous marriage. Arranged exogamous marriage is where the bride and groom are not in the same social, economic, and/or social group. Arranged endogamous marriage is where the bride and groom are selected from a specific social, economic, and/or social group. Consanguineous marriage is similar to endogamous marriage, but instead its where the bride and the groom share a parent or ancestor. In Romeo and Juliet, a form of arranged marriage is seen. Over 50% of self arranged marriage finished in a divorce. This proves that it’s not always a good thing to select your own partners. Romeo and Juliet did not end up divorcing, but they did end up taking their own lives because of their marriage and their loved ones not being able to accept their decisions.
Romeo and Juliet is a play by William Shakespeare that tells the tale of two young lovers who come from opposing families. At first they don’t even know that the other exists; However, that all changes one night at a party that Juliet’s father, Lord Capulet, throws. Romeo and Juliet fall madly in love and rush to get married. Sadly, these two don’t get a happy ending, and one question remains: who or what is to blame for the lovers’ tragic end? Is it fate or human choice?
Who would be willing to die for their loved ones? Romeo and Juliet would and did. Romeo and Juliet’s love and death brought two families together who could not even remember the origin of their hate. When the parents saw what their children's love for each other, they realized that their fighting had only led to suffering and insoluble conflict. Romeo and Juliet loved each other to an extent that they killed themselves rather than live apart. They did it with no hiatus. Juliet says before she kills herself, “O happy dagger, This is thy sheath. There rust and let me die.”( 5, 3, 182-183) demonstrating how she would rather die than not be with him.
The Renaissance was a period of time after the Middle Ages that brought the rebirth of classical culture and a new age of critical thinking based on Greek and Roman literature. With the perspective of culture changing during this time, ideas of society were transforming. One of the biggest ideas to come out of the Renaissance was the idea of humanism, which was basically the belief that humans are great and capable of doing many things in life and society. Instead of just going through life, humanists brought the idea that people have real potential and instead of living according to the church should live an active, secular life. With that being said, Italian Renaissance humanism changed the ideas about an individual’s role in society through
Established in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to counter the limited ideals of medieval scholasticism, Renaissance Humanism were educational and social reform ideals that sought to emphasize individualism as a central value in contrast to religious beliefs. Humanists revered the dignity of human kind and called for a life of virtuous action. The writings of Petrarch and Pico exemplify humanist thought by displaying the values of self-knowledge, individualism, and studying lessons from the past; appealing to the authorities of the Greek and Latin classics by Cicero, Vergil, Horace, Plato and Livy. Petrarch and Pico’s thinking can be constituted as a marked departure from medieval attitudes and beliefs, due to the origins of humanist resources being classical and biblical rather stemmed from medieval philosophers and theologians.
Overall Christian humanism relates to the Renaissance spirit of emphasizing individualism but exemplifying Christian ideas as well and it challenged the Church as Christian humanist sought a truer way of Christianity which sparked religious reformations17
Humanism is also found throughout the Reformation. Christian humanists were the people who pushed for change of the Catholic Church. They believed that in order to change society, you had to change the individual human beings who make it up. Erasmus is one of the best know humanists of the Reformation. He wanted to spread the philosophy of Christ, provide education in works of Christianity, and criticize the abuses in the church. Overall the main tie of the Reformation and Renaissance was humanism. Both groups of people during those times wanted change towards a more secular view of things.
It focused on people rather than religion. The term was first referred to in literature by Jakob Burckhardt in The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, stating that the Renaissance was mostly based upon people recognizing their own individuality, rather than the group they’re affiliated with. The Renaissance allowed people to come to themselves as their own person, who can make up their own minds, not needing God to make every decision for them. Shakespeare expressed this concept through Macbeth by showing Macbeth made his own choices (all of which would soon be his downfall), Macbeth made the choice to kill Banquo as well as to murder Macduff’s family. He believed he was making sure that what the Weird Sisters said would never be fulfilled, but all he did was play into the prophecy’s hands. The Renaissance was home to many concepts, one of which was humanism, allowing people to distance themselves from Roman and Greek views and create their own
Romeo is the only son of Lord Montague, the head of a reputed and rich
Romeo and Juliet, written by William Shakespeare, is a tragic love story about two young lovers who are forced to be estranged as a result of their feuding families. The play is about their struggle to contravene fate and create a future together. As such, it was only a matter of time before Hollywood would try and emulate Shakespeare’s masterpiece. This had been done before in many films. Prominent among them were, Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 “Romeo and Juliet” and Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 “William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet.” Both films stay true to the themes of Shakespeare’s original play. However, the modernised Luhrmann film not only maintains the essence of Shakespeare’s writings, Luhrmann makes it relevant to a teenage audience. This is done through the renewal of props and costumes, the reconstruction of the prologue and the upgrading of the setting, whilst preserving the original Shakespearean language. Out of the two, it is Luhrmann who targets Romeo & Juliet to a younger audience to a much larger extent than Zeffirelli.
‘The difference between Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo & Juliet (1968) and Baz Luhrmann’s version of Romeo & Juliet (1996) is simply a modernisation created by Luhrmann to attract a teenage audience.’
When people hear of Romeo and Juliet most think about a tragic love story of two young people who died because they could not bear being without one another, but how did that tragedy come about? Romeo and Juliet meet at a party one night and immediately fall in love. They soon find out they are from families that greatly despise one another and know that they should not be together but they are already too far fallen for one another. Romeo and Juliet's parents were bad influences on their kids because of their refusal to end a long lasting feud, teaching hate towards the opposing family and pushing their kids to do things against their will.
of his life; his life being the ship on which he talks about the sail.
A Psychological Analysis of Romeo and Juliet Romeo and Juliet was obviously not written to fit the psychoanalytic model, as the theories of Freud were not developed for centuries after Shakespeare. Shakespeare wrote about Renaissance England, a culture so heavily steeped in Christianity, that it would have blushed at the instinctual and sexual thrust of Freud’s theory. However, in order to keep literature alive and relevant, a culture must continually reinterpret the themes and ideas of past works. While contextual readings assure cultural precision, often these readings guarantee the death of a particular work. Homer’s Iliad, a monument among classical works, is currently not as renowned as Romeo and Juliet because it is so heavily dependent on its cultural context.
6. Paris is the mayor’s son and so has allot of money as well as power
Many diverse ideas flourished during the European Renaissance which had a lasting impact on the world. Humanism is a worldview and a moral philosophy that considers humans to be of primary importance. The aspect of humanism first thrived in 14th century Italy, and later spread north in the 15th century. Initially humanistic ideas about education were quickly adopted by the Italian upper class. The Italian ideas and attitudes towards life and learning impacted nobility in other parts of Europe. They were able to accept and adapt to this new lifestyle. Humanism during the Renaissance helped to spread ideas about the basic nature of human beings, how people should be educated to become well rounded individuals, and how education impacts an individual’s life.