Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Four hundred years ago, William Shakespeare wrote The Tragedy of Romeo

and Juliet, a popular play that continues to capture the imagination

and emotions of people around the world. The drama portrays the

passionate, violent and often desperate lives of the youth of Verona.

Even today, the tragedy resembles a blueprint of the problems that the

adolescents of the twentieth century must face each day. In this play,

Shakespeare explores the pitfalls of young love and the consequences

they receive from their actions.

The opening scene of any play is extremely important because it can

play a major role in establishing key elements throughout the rest of

the performance. The main elements are the characters, themes,

language, settings and plot. The audience can form a basic idea of

these elements involved to spark their interest in the play. At the

end of an opening scene the audience have usually had an insight into

the typical mood and language of the play. It also enables the viewers

to have a taster of the style of the author's writing. In Elizabethan

England, when Shakespeare's first plays were being shown, the language

in the opening scenes was particularly important. The plays were shown

in open-air theatres, with no props, lighting and scenery and

therefore the main factor, which could keep the audience interested,

was the language. The opening of any play is always the most critical

time. If a dramatist can't grasp an audience's attention in the first

ten minutes, it's unlikely that he/she will succeed in holding it for

the duration of the performance.

The first thing that appears in...

... middle of paper ...

...nlike the

prologue this is a more original sonnet as it is based about love.

Within this sonnet there are rhyming couplets which also describe

love. Shakespeare does this to clearly display that the couple are

falling in love and from this we think that Tybalt will suddenly lash

out at Romeo if he discovers this. Romeo also uses religious imagery

to describe his love for Juliet, he does this because he thinks that

their love is pure and perfect and that he believes in Juliet as much

as his faith.

The more that Romeo talks about his love for Juliet the more we start

to feel sorry for him because he does still not yet know that Juliet

is a Capulet, that her cousin wishes to kill him and that in fact she

is due to marry Paris. It seems that their love for each other at this

point would only cause harm or even death.