Romeo And Juliet by William Shakespeare

Romeo And Juliet by William Shakespeare

In Romeo and Juliet the beauty and ardour of young love is seen by

Shakespeare as the irradiating glory of sunlight and starlight in a

dark work. Discuss the techniques that Shakespeare would have used to

capture this dominating image of light.

In the time of Shakespeare, his plays would have been performed during

the day, using natural light from the open centre of the theatre.

Since there could be no dramatic lighting and there was very little

scenery or props, Shakespeare used actors' lines and stage directions

to supply the time of day and year, the weather, location and mood of

the scenes. Props would also be used for this purpose. For example, if

a scene was set during the night, there might be a number of torches

on stage to depict darkness. The actors would carry swords ready for

fight scenes and the actors playing servants would be seen carrying

pots or items of clothing to convey their station.

Shakespeare uses costume to tell the audience information. The higher

class people would wear expensive formal clothes and the servants

would wear much simpler clothes so the audience could distinguish

between them. Also the Montagues would have worn different clothes

from the Capulets. In many film and television adaptations of the

play, members of each of the houses would wear different clothes e.g.

the Capulets might wear green clothes and the Montagues might wear

red. This would help the audience distinguish between members of the

two houses, especially in fight scenes. Also, the costumes the actors

wore might reflect their mood or character. For instance, Mercutio,

who is probably...

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dark away from all the unsettling events of the day. It could be seen

that the love between Romeo and Juliet can only exist away from the

unsettling events of the daytime so it flourishes during the night.

The violence and disorder of the two families takes place during the

daytime while the love takes place at night.

Tragically, it is the love between Romeo and Juliet that causes their

deaths. The 'light' of their love is snuffed out in its infancy by all

the darkness happening around it. The young lovers' deaths are the

price that is paid for peace between the two families.

To conclude Shakespeare uses the language, stage direction, costume,

props and themes of the play (conflict and love, ie darkness and

sunlight) to capture the dominating image of light that is the young

love between Romeo and Juliet.