William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare's best known and best loved

plays. It is the story of two 'star-crossed lovers' caught in the

middle of a feud between their two families and destined to not be

together. It is set in 'fair Verona' which is very appropriate for

this tragedy as it is seen as a very wealthy country with a history of

family feuds and a society full of father domination.

Although Shakespeare's version of "Romeo and Juliet" is the most

famous, he did not entirely come up with this play. One of the main

sources of Shakespeare's play was written by Massucio Saternitano's as

early as 1476. The main source though was that of Arthur Brookes who

bought his poem version "The Tragicall Historge of Romeus and Juliet"

to England.

The main differences between these two plays are that the time span is

different. Brookes' play is set over a 9month period, while

Shakespeare's version takes only four days. Shakespeare has compressed

his version to make it more intense. Also Shakespeare has changed the

age of Juliet from 16 to 14 in order to make the swift romance of

Romeo and Juliet more believable.

Romeos character at the start of the play is very depressed and

difficult. He is infatuated with a girl named Rosaline but she does

not feel the same way and "she hath sworn that she will live chaste."

This making him the Petrachan Lover, as he uses oxymoron's "feather of

lead, bright smoke, cold fire" to show his confusion. He also

expresses his love by using elaborate conceits,

"mark-man…..aimed….hit…..arrow" and ingenious imagery, these all

characteristics of the way Petrachs lovers were suppose to behave when

in love. He is almost obsessed "love is a smoke made with the fume of

sighs" and uses very poetic language, and uses opposites to show his

turmoil. He is a broken man and seeks the night "is the day so young,"

but by the time he meets Juliet his mood and language totally change