Romeo and Juliet: Sources, Themes, and Obscenity in Shakespeare's Masterpiece, Appunti di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica Romeo and Juliet: Sources, Themes, and Obscenity in Shakespeare's Masterpiece e più Appunti in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! ROMEO AND JULIET Sources of Romeo and Juliet and the idea of the new comedy. The major source for Romeo and Juliet is the Metamorphosis by Ovid. Shakespeare knew it very well and probably it was his favourite book. He knew Ovid at school, studying Latin and thanks to translation by Golding (it's very important to know because he was influenced by Latin and English of the translations). He is influenced by the story of Pyramus and Tisbe, two lovers separated by a wall constructed by their families who don’t want them to meet. They run away together, but when they went a lion comes and eats one of them, while the other commits suicide. Also, in Midnight's summer dream we find references to this story. Shakespeare was influenced also by translations into English of works by Italian writers, such as Matteo Brandello, Luigi d’Aporto who wrote different versions of the story of P and T. One ofthis version was translated into French and the French version was translated into English, what a wonderful chain of translation and translation! A particularly version which S. read was the version by William Painter, who recollected a series of translated novels in a volume called The palace of Pleasure. The first translation by Arthur Brooke and Painter (the two versions of R&J circulating in England at the time) both condemned Romeo andJuliet of being two transgressive young who couldn't control themselves, their libido, their sexuality. In consequence they fought against their parents and didn't do what they wanted. At the end of the story the death is a punishment because they behaved badly as children. But it wasn't the perception of Shakespeare. Once again, what he's doing is subverting expectations: people knew the story, they went to the theatre knowing the story , they identified themselves with the story, and Shakespeare in a certain sense knew this. He didn't present death as a punishment. He knew that his audience had some expectations and his aim was to overturn the expectations, and then attention it's established between of what Shakespeare does and what the audience expects him to do. He manipulated their expectations. Ironically, it's when Romeo does what the society expects that's the tragedy begins. In other words, up till a certain moment in the tragedy, it's almost the comedy: we see the union between two young lovers (that's comedy) and in a certain point Romeo does what his society expects him to do. At this moment the play begins to move towards tragedy. Completely different from Brooke and Painter the tragedy begins when Juliet denies her society. When we say that play is moving towards comedy, what do we mean? We refer to what is called new comedy , not the comedy you laugh at but we refer to the technical sense. And what is comedy in the technical sense? In this sense we go back to Roman comedy, in particular Plauto, Terence who were in turn influenced by Menandro, who was a Greek writer, in order to distinguish from the old comedy by Aristophanes, in which we have social criticism, a robust and even scatological humour, the time of humour you laughed at. In case of Menandro you stopped laughing because the dynamic and the mechanism of the play is different: the fundamental energy is Eros, love, two lovers who want to come together but they're impeded by the old generation, a ridiculous prohibition. But during the poem something happens that make possible for the two young lovers to come together: the TRICK , makes possible the elimination of impossibility, makes able two things: lovers come together and also the over and young generations come together, the unity. The young generations has not compromised, and the two generations reconcile. Typically in a new comedy at the end, people come together, they marry of whatever, or at the same time the split between the old and the new generation disappears and there's a sense of continuity, so we a feast, a party that represents the unity. Not necessarily we have two young lovers who are separated, but we can have a white boy and black girl, or a Jewish boy and an Iranian girl or they can be homosexual lovers, an old person with a younger one, in all we have the same fundamental idea: the prohibition comes from the older generation we must circumvent. Plot Now , what we have in Romeo and Juliet? The play is setting on Verona, we have 2 young people belonging to two different families which have been fighting one another for years, years and years. We have no idea they're fighting about, they don't remember. One family the Capulets has a daughter, whose name isJuliet; the other family the Montagues has a son named Romeo. At the beginning of the play, Romeo is fell in love with a girl named Rosaline, but we don't see her. His friend Benvolio says him to go to a party, forget Rosaline and find another girl. He says that's impossible, but he goes to the party. cheer to chance: here there’s a servant of the Capulet’s family who has a list of names, they pretend to be invited to the party at the Capulet’s house and fortunately the servant can't read. He encounters Romeo in the street and says him “Can you read?” yes, Romeo can read. He immediately reads the list of names and Benvolio says “why don't you go to the party at Capulets?”. Romeo says ok even if he believes Rosaline is the most beautiful, nobody is like her, so fort and so on. But finally they go. Romeo is dressed with a mask, everybody has a mask on. While he's dressing the mask he sees Juliet , even if she's wearing a mask, and in only 30 seconds he falls in love with her, forgetting Rosaline. Juliet too fall in love with him. Romeo leaves the party and Juliet wants to finds out who was the young boy. They find themselves in a oxymoron situation because they fell in love with the enemy. Then we have the most famous scene, the balcony scene in which they speak one another declaring their love. She says “Romeo, are going to marry me?” because she's a very practical person... Romeo would make an arrangement to her nurse and sooner or later they'Il be married. Romeo goes to his priest, Friar Laurence. He makes a lot of comments on it. It could be a good idea because the marriage could bring unity to the families of Verona. Friar Laurence arranges thing and the two lovers get married and while he's going to Juliet to spend the night with her, Romeo encounters Juliet's cousin, very hostile to Romeo and to all Montagues. He starts fighting with Romeo, and in the course of the fight Romeo tries to avoid hurting Tybalt, he's under the influence of Juliet... but he kills Tybalt. At this point we're moving perfectly to comedy: two young lovers separated by an artificial prohibition (the fight between the Capulet and Montague). Romeo stats acting no longer as a man fell in love with Juliet, but as a man belonging to the Montagues. At this point what's comedy stops being a comedy and it's moving into the direction of the tragedy. Romeo is going to be exiled from Verona, the father of Juliet imposes her daughter to marry somebody else, Paris. Juliet goes to the Friar and says what can | do? He gives her a bottle of medicine which make asleep for a certain period of time, Romeo will come back to Verona and he will be there when she’Il wake up and leave to go on honeymoon. Romeo has gone in another town, Mantua, Friar Laurence sends him letters which never arrived. He hears about Juliet's dead, and he think she’s really dead. He comes back to Verona, he sees her lying on her tun, then he commits suicide by poison. A few seconds afterwards Juliet wakes up, she sees Romeo is there dead, she also commits suicide. *The colloquial language S. is using here is very difficult to understand and translate. He uses a lot of puns, such as the sound of “I, Ay” meaning I, eye and yes. Remember when S. was writing he performed. Analysis of the play TITLE The full title is THE MOST EXCELLENT AND LAMENTABLE TRAGEDY OF ROMEO AND JULIET: it's telling us it is going to end as a tragedy. Once again Shakespeare is playing with us, he writes a tragedy using so many comic elements, in order to make us think it's a comedy, only to reveal the real tragedy of its end. THE PROLOGUE The play begins in an usual way: in the prologue, the chorus begins with a sonnet. It's a perfectly English sonnet derived from the one by Petrarch. The English one consists on 3 quatrains and a rhyming couplets: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, the metric is a pentameter. We know we're in Verona (he orients the audience) and he insists on the 2 families. This play is going to depend on what room). He's acting like this because he's unhappy and fell in love. Everybody knows that Romeo is suffering but nobody knows the cause. Then Romeo enters. Montague and his wife leaves and leaves Benvolio interviewing Romeo. We meet Romeo. The first his words are “Ay me” (ahimé), “Was that my father that went hence so fast?”, we begin to understand the wrong idea of Romeo. He's very self- conscious. Romeo doesn't have what he wants, and for this his hours are strengthen. We don’t know about Rosaline yet. Romeo is a very verbal man, very self conscious, very clever, very quickly. We have the impression he's not in love with Rosaline but in love with the love. We find Petrarchian convention: we must be in love with something, no matter what or who. Just love them, it's the excuse for your poetry; the idea is being in love to have the energy to write poetry. Romeo is in love but he hasn't her favour. Another characteristic of being in love is losing the appetite but he's hungry “Where shall we dine? O me!” He wants to be in love, he pretends to be in love but he isn't really in love. “Here's much to do with hate, but more with love. Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!” : here again the contrast between HATE and LOVE, here other oxymora: “O any thing, of nothing first create! O heavy lightness! serious vanity”, “Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!” The first impression of Romeo we had, he was a lover full of melancholy , alone in the wood in the darkness, making himself an artificial night but we meet a young man who's enjoying himself with the language and he wants to be admired for his verbal characteristic. He says this is not the real Romeo, l’ve lost my own identity (later we will see the problem of name). S. is playing with this. Romeo is somewhere. This is what S. was worried about all his life “What am I? What means I?”. Romeo says he's in love with a woman, Benvolio knows it, but he's not giving a name. Mythological references: Cupid, Venus's son, should arrow her... Diana is associated with virginity and moon. But in a certain sense she escape from Cupid and preserve her virginity. Here there's the idea that a beautiful person should reproduce herself in order to preserve the beauty (the conventional idea in the sonnet. Romeo is expressing something that S. expresses in Venus Sanadores). Romeo is expressing the idea present also in Venus Sanadores, he”s alive but really dead (another oxymoronic situation). S. anticipates what happens in the end, he's preparing everything. Benvolio advices him not of think of her, it's the best way to forget her. The best way is looking the other women. Now she is not named... she will be named twice or three times but she remains only a name, he never meets her. Looking at the other women, it will remind me how much and more beautiful she is, the woman he cannot have. 09/10/17 Scene Il Capulet, Paris and a servant enter. Paris is a young man who's gonna die sooner, is the perfect man who belongs neither to the Montagues or to the Capulets. Here Capulet says it's not impossible to Capulets and Montagues to keep the peace. Indeed, the first impression of Capulet is he seems to a quiet old man, he's going to change during the play. Capulet and Paris are talking about Juliet, she's 14 years old (even for Ss standards) and too young to marry but let 2 years pass, when she’Il be 16 she’Il be ready for marriage. “The earth hath swallow'd all my hopes but she, She is the hopeful lady of my earth” we understand that Juliet has no brothers or sisters. AII brothers she had, have been buried, now all depends on Juliet for the perpetuation of the family. “But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart, My will to her consent is but a part; An she agree, within her scope of choice Lies my consent and fair according voice”: We love Capulet because he seems a modern father, he's reasonable, a very tolerant man who says his daughter has to choose her husband (we read about fathers choosing her daughter the husband). He tells to Paris to woo Juliet and try to win her hand for himself. He's gonna change the patriarchal mentality of the age. Capulet says it's her own choice, and when she”! find the right person for her, he will agree with her choice. Once again the image of darkness becoming light: “Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light”, what does he refer to? He's not speaking literally about stars, but to the party and women. All these beautiful women will bring light to the dark. (Romeo makes artificial night). Capulet says to Paris to go to the party, see all young women and they"Il make dark light. So he's inviting Paris to his feast. The “fresh female buds”: S. is using the images of nature, he loved gardens and in Shakespeare we find more than 100 kinds of plants. Strange it's Capulet is giving Paris the same advice Benvolio gives to Romeo: he says come to my house, look at all girls and choose who you like the most, it can be my Juliet, maybe she can't be. Here the crucial moment: he turns to a servant giving him a list of names, commanding him to go around Verona and invite all people written on the list. Now the servant is on his own and says everybody is supposed to do what they can do, he must invite all people written on the list but he can't read, he don't know how to read and he can't do the job Capulet designed him. Who arrives at thismoment? Romeo arrives. Can he read? Obviously he can read, he's intensely literate. One of the point here what does make destiny? Is something in ourselves, or something in our star, is it chance, God, Providence? What makes our life and what we are? Cheer to chances, now Romeo happens to be passing and everything is going to develop from this moment. Here Benvolio is giving the same advice earlier, falling in love with another woman in order to forget Rosaline. But as usual Romeo is exaggerating, he feels imprisoned, tortured, so fort and so on. Then he sees the servant. “SERVANT God gi’ god-den. | pray, sir, can you read? ROMEO Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.” : obviously he can read. He belongs to a literal universe and belonging to this universe makes him in a certain sense responsible of what happens after. “ROMEO Ay, if | know the letters and the language”: the word “letter” is going to be very important, a non received letter leads to the tragedy. We understand here Romeo belongs to the world of letters which can amplifies your existence but it can be potentially destructive. The servant cannot read the names and Romeo is now entering the world of letters. By reading the names hell go to the party and stars developing the tragedy. Romeo reads all name in which we find the name of Rosaline. “ROMEO: Whiter should they come ? SERVANT: Up.”: here another opposition UP and DOWN. The servant invites Romeo to the party if he's not a Montague, but he is. Benvolio knows very well who's the girl Romeo is in love with. “BENVOLIO: And | will make thee think thy swan a crow.” The swan is white, the crow is black. When you go to the party you'll see Rosaline being not a swan but a crow, the other women will be brighter than she is (once dark becomes light, black becomes light). Romeo says “if | think that Rosaline is not the most beautiful woman, l’Il be heretic. My eyes should burn like heretics are burnt. This woman, Rosaline, is the most beautiful woman ever in history since the world began.” Benvolio compares eyes to a balance/ scale, which has to be balanced as in the eyes, you can see yourself reflected in somebody's eyes: when he sees Rosaline he sees himself in both eyes. Until now he saw yourself in both eyes, but Benvolio will let him see Rosaline in one eye and another girl in the other, finally Romeo will see the most beautiful and interesting woman. Romeo says “yes, l’Il come to the party, not because | believe you but to confirm Rosaline is the most beautiful”. Scene III Now were back to the Capulets’ house. The nurse is swearing on his virginity of the 12 years old, after 12 she was no longer virgin. Well see the nurse has a peculiar conception of sexuality. Then Juliet enters. Lady Capulet sends the nurse away, then she lets her come back again. Now we've a digression (off topic): the nurse has not 14 teeth because she’s older...and again we have the theme of TIME, chronological, of calendar, of years, minutes, seconds. How old is Juliet? The nurse is who gave Juliet milk...and refers to her daughter Susan who's dead. “That shall she, marry; | remember it well. ’Tis since the earthquake now eleven years; And she was wean'd,—I never shall forget it,— Of allthe days of the year, upon that day: For | had then laid wormwood to my dug, Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall; My lord and you were then at Mantua:— Nay, | do bear a brain:—but, as | said, When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool, To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug! Shake quoth the dove-house: ’twas no need, | trow, To bid me trudge” this is a reference to an earthquake. Some critics believe that we can date Romeo and Juliet in reference to an earthquake that took place in London, a certain period of time before. But more directly and obviously explained is the reference to the name of Shakespeare, shake, he's playing with his own name (in Bergsonian terms, dureé, the time we experience). “And since that time it is eleven years; For then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood, She could have run and waddled all about...” : Now we have a reference to Juliet's sexuality and we see the way the nurse sees the sexuality. Remember that this conversation is taking in front of the mother, a very solemn, respectable woman. She is remembering the times when Juliet was walking around and she fell upon her face. And nurse’s husband said to Juliet “now you're falling upon your face, when you're older you'll fall on your back”: it's an explicitly sexual reference. Juliet says “Ay”, they're thinking it's very very funny. Then she repeats the joke over and over. Lady Capulet becomes impatient because she don't like talking about this. But the nurse continues and repeats the same thing. NOTICE THE REPETITION OF THE SOUND AY, |. The nurse wants to see her married once. Juliet's mother wants her to marry Paris. “what say you, can you love the gentleman?...” here the description of Paris by Lady Capulet. She is describing Paris in terms of a book: here’s the concept of sexuality according to the lady. A man should be elegant, respectable, belonging to men of Verona, Paris is a handsome young man, Juliet is a pretty young girl and they make a wonderful couple, not thinking about sexuality or procreation (instead the nurse is thinking about procreation allthe time). “Read o’er the volume of young Paris’ face, And find delight writ there with beauty’ s pen”: here the world of letters again. “Content” in the sense of happiness and in the sense of the content of a book. Paris is like a book without a cover, he needs a cover, who”s gonna be the cover? Juliet! “NURSE : No less! nay, bigger; women grow by men.”: the nurse continues to make this joke. Women become bigger because they become pregnant. Once again the nurse thinks of only sexuality and reproduction. AII people go away and Juliet calls the nurse, asking her not directly who's the young man, but asking slowly about the other gentlemen. Juliet is completely in love with Romeo: again opposites, her wedding bed will be her grave. “JULIET My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late! Prodigious birth of love it is to me, That | must love a loathed enemy”: she's expressing things come from their opposites: love comes from hate; early and late. So we have this oxymoronic situation: she loves her only enemy. Juliet is called. 11/10/17 ACT II It begins with another prologue, with another chorus. It's another sonnet, not so successful as the first atthe beginning of the play. The old desire, Rosaline, now is forgotten and she’s no longer beautiful. Why? Romeo fell in love with Juliet. “CHORUS Now old desire doth in his death-bed lie, And young affection gapes to be his heir; That fair for which love groan’d for and would die, With tender Juliet match’d, is now not fair.” Scene | Now we are going to have the most important scene of the play: the balcony scene. (the stages of S. time were not like the stages today, they were so different. There were theatres in which around the all theatre were galleries where people sit; but there were also stages that were not something withdrawn, but they were projecting into a yard. Furthermore people who didn't have much money would go to the theatre and stand around the stage, so they didn't sit. At the balcony stage there was a balcony and Shakespeare used very often this balcony. But in this scene he didn't involve a balcony, he must used a balcony but it doesn't mean it's a balcony. There's a window that leads inside). Romeo has just left the Capulet's house and he’s alone, he separated from his friends. “ROMEO Can | go forward when my heart is here? Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.” Then he withdraws and Mercutio and Benvolio enter. They're going to have a very obscene conversation referring to sexuality in a very mechanical way and this vulgarity would contrast the intense conversation between Romeo and Juliet. Scene Il Now we have Romeo. Here we sees Romeo's best poetry. Poetry that correspond to a certain emotional state. “But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet isthe sun.” : LIGHT again. But there was night and we know at Shakespeare's time play weren’t performed in the night, but in the afternoon. We imagine that's dark, Romeo sees Juliet staring at the window, that's the east and Juliet is the sun; the sun grows at the east: light coming from the darkness. Juliet's eyes are stars of heaven, they are so bright the birds think it's day, so again dark turns to be light. He would be the gloves on Juliet's hands and touch her face. It is not an idealised love, he wants her physically, in terms of sexuality, he wants to liberate himself physically. It's a physical love, but with emotions, feelings, not only physical. Once again, he considers her in religious terms, as an angel up on his head. “JULIET: O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And 1’Il no longer be a Capulet.” : we find in a paradoxical situation: she asks him to refuse his name, names in this play are very important. Romeo, why are you Romeo? The name Romeo has now two meanings: she thinks about him, as a young man who she is in love with, but it's also the name of enemies of her family. Why are you the man who belongs to the Montagues? The NAME is the way we identify each other, all of us has a name, symbolises a public identity. The name is something private, we identify ourselves with our names, but it's something which links us to a community in where we are born. Shakespeare decided to represent the identities in a particular way: Romeo is in the garden and he's looking at Juliet, who is standing at the window in her house. This means that Juliet is in a particular social position: she is in her house, in the Capulets’ house. She belongs to the Capulets family and she’s looking at the garden where's Romeo. She in the Capulet’s reality separated from Romeo's one out there. You see Juliet goes back and forward between her reality, because it's what happens in Juliet herself, between the public aspect and the private aspect. Romeo andJuliet are in love one another, the names separate them, social conventions separate them. She speaks aloud and he hears her. Now a wonderful speech: “JULIET: ’Tis but thy name that is my enemy; Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet; So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d, Retain that dear perfection which he owes Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name, And for that name which is no part of thee Take all myself”: your name is my enemy, not you. Romeo stops being Romeo, and l’Il stop being Juliet. The names separate us, the name doesn't belong to you or to your body, it's only a social convention, arbitrary, artificial convention. Even without a name, the rose would be a rose, Romeo would be Romeo (rose: Rosaline and the war of Roses). Romeo agrees with Juliet. “ROMEO | take thee at thy word: Call me but love, and l’Il be new baptized; Henceforth | never will be Romeo.” Shakespeare seduces us: Juliet maybe is right, maybe she's wrong, or right and wrong at the same time. Yes, on one side names are artificial, an obstacle, on the other side name can have a cultural meaning (The War of Roses). They're trying to abandon their name, even if they couldn't delete their social position. They try to create a wall, a private universe without names but they can’t do it. Romeo being Romeo determines his destiny, Juliet being Juliet determines her destiny. She hears Romeo and asks him Who are you? He has just abandoned his name, he has a name anymore. Juliet asks him the name in order to identify the man which she loves even if name is the base of antagonism. Romeo says he flew over the wall, there's no obstacle for their love, he's not afraid of her parents. She is more practical than Romeo, she says if they would see him, they would kill him. but he continues to be even more poetical. But at this point poetry is more serious even if he left poetry taking control of him, more serious because he feels strongly, emotions for Juliet. Juliet remains very practical, and brave. 13/10/17 Juliet is speaking on her own, she's confessing her love for Romeo before seeing him. In this beautiful speech she declares her love, maybe she should have not done, she has been immodest probably, but she declares. As usually, Romeo becomes poetic: instead of answering if he loves her, he starts asking with an elaborated formula. He swears by the moon... then Juliet stops him, she tries to restrain Romeo”s poetry: the MOON is a complicated symbol at these time. It is associated to sexual chastity, moon was Diana; moon also changes, sometimes there’s full moon, sometimes a new moon and therefore it is associated to what is mutability, things change. Romeo is swearing by the moon in a way, Juliet is interpreting the moon in another way, symbol of changeableness. Romeo wants to swear by something, he's a poet, he has to swear instead of answering yes or no. Juliet says don't swear by nothing, but if you have to do it, swear by yourself. “Well do not swear”: Juliet stops this game. “JULIET Well, do not swear: although | joy in thee, | have no joy of this contract to-night: It istoo rash, too unadvised, too sudden; Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be Ere one can say “It lightens.”: this love would last few days, a love that leads to the death. She is making a kind of prophecy with the image of lighting, light appears into the dark, retreats into the dark she's comparing the love to a light. The language of Juliet is poetic too, in a different way from Romeo. She compares their love to the growing of a bud, a flower which begins to grow. “ROMEO: O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied? JULIET What satisfaction canst thou have to-night?” Romeo wants to go to the bed with Juliet , but for her it's earlier. She repeats how much she loves him and she would repeat it again. Now what happens? Somebody is calling Juliet from the inside. Romeo is afraid of it could be a dream because it's night being a dream it could be unsubstantial. Then Juliet comes back again: she is practical again, she wants Romeo to make an arrangement to get married. Once again the nurse calls her. she is moving back and forward between the public world and the private world, the garden and the house. And Romeo “ so thrive my soul”, of course “I'm gonna marry you”. Juliet comes back again, she's fluctuating. She wants to repeat the name of Romeo, for her it has a private meaning. She compares herself to the lymph Echo. “JULIET At what o’clock to-morrow Shall | send to thee? ROMEO At the hour of nine” Juliet becomes practical again. They were in a timeless dimension, but we need chronological time and she wants to know what time she should sent her messenger tomorrow. The day is tomorrow but for the subjective time it will be like 20 years. Then she exits again. Romeo has to go to the his priest and tries to organise the marriage. Scene III Friar Laurence is going to speak about opposites and about the way things are reversed. He enters the stage carrying a basket, friar is connected with herbs used for medicinal purposes. He will speak about things which are really poisoned, if taken in the right dose, they can be used for medicines. And the things seemed medicine taken in the wrong dose, can be poison. Things can be opposite one another. And he speaks also about spiritual values. The earth is the womb but the womb is the tomb: once again, things which seem opposite, are not so opposite. sweet Juliet, Thy beauty hath made me effeminate And in my temper soften’d valour’s steel!”: Romeo thinks he acted like a coward, Juliet's beauty has made him effeminate, in the sense not of acting in female way, but because he became soft, sentimental, emotional as Juliet is compromising his masculine identity. He goes back to his social identity, a young man would have fight against the insults and defend his honour. At this point his destiny becomes clearer. Mercutio is dead... once again the inevitability of what is going to happen. Now Tybalt comes back. Romeo and Tybalt fight. Romeo wins and Tybalt is hurt and falls. Remember what the Prince said at the beginning of the play: anyone who spreads blood in the streets of Verona, would die. Benvolio explains what happened. The Prince sends Romeo on exile. Scene Il Now we go back to Juliet's room and she’s thinking of what happened. She's waiting for Romeo and we read the feelings, the desire which is trembling. She refers to Phaetonian song, written in occasion of a marriage. She ‘s making a lot of mythological references: to Phaeton who steals the sun’s carriage who drives the carriage across the sky. Through this beautiful poetry she's expressing her physical desire. “Come thou day in night”: Romeo is a source of light for Juliet and Juliet for Romeo. So once again light and darkness: Romeo is associated with light coming into the darkness. We have another scene in which the nurse comes with news and Juliet depends on her news which will be tragic. The nurse says “He's dead” but we don't know who she's referring to, Juliet obviously thinks of Romeo. After Shakespeare's joking on the word I, Ay, eye, we don't still know who's dead. The nurse is speaking about Tybalt 's wound but of course Juliet is thinking of Juliet. She wants to die and be buried where lies Romeo. Now the nurse uses the name Tybalt, Juliet of course continues to not understand. The nurse explains everything and Juliet revolts to Romeo not a snow upon the wings of a raven but as the contrary: you're the opposite of what you seem to be. Inside you're beautiful, outside you're evil. Even if Juliet is a dismay situation, the nurse is always ironic, she plays with the genra. She refers again to Romeo and she regrets having said such bad things to Romeo. Now in this play name, names will be more important, more powerful, something that can manipulate. She has insulted Romeo’s name, she mangled it, as a physical violence. And why is she weeping? She should be glad. A word can murder her, words have the power to destroy us. The word banished killed her and everybody. Scene III We move into Friar Laurence's cell. During this situation Juliet grows in this way but Romeo is still immature, he hasn't grew up as Juliet. Romeo has been condemned to the exile. Here once again the power of the word can be danger and can kill/destroy. “ROMEO There is no world without Verona walls, But purgatory, torture, hell itself.” : Here we have a Catholic reference (remember the Anglicans eliminated the purgatory), he means being exiled from Verona, it means be exiled from the world...and banished from the world means to be dead. Romeo continues to insist on the power of words, and the world of language can be destructive and maybe you can protect yourself from that word with an armour, says the friar. During the conversation we understand that Romeo is rolling on the ground...he's acting like a boy. Somebody is knocking at the door...maybe someone wants him. it's the nurse searching for Romeo. As usual the nurse is vulgar, and very obscene. It's a very beautiful description of the two lovers: they're going up, then falling, then going up and weeping, then falling... when Juliet says the name of Romeo she falls down on her bed... it's like a bullet in the gun and shoot her. “O, tell me, friar, tell me, In what vile part of this anatomy Doth my name lodge? tell me, that | may sack The hateful mansion”: Romeo makes the name a concrete element, something that belongs to a part of his body. Friar Laurence gives Romeo advice: he's alive, he”s killed the man who wanted to kill him, Juliet is alive. Look this situation on the positive side. He explains his plan: go to Juliet now, spend the night with her (the marriage has to be consummated), then he must go to another town, Mantua, he must do this by a certain time (again the time), sooner or later they could tell they're married and be back again. Scene IV Now we go back to the Capulet’s house. And we find Capulet, Lady Capulet and Paris. Paris is still there because he wants to marry Juliet, but because of Tybalt's death, Juliet can't herself. At the beginning Juliet's father said Juliet could marry whoever she wanted. But now he chooses her destiny, he will give Paris his consent. Now, as Romeo goes back to the stereotypical young man of Verona, Capulet goes back to be a stereotypical old man of Verona. He starts deciding for Juliet: Juliet is going to marry Paris. Scene V Another important scene in which Juliet and Romeo are at the window together. Is it day or night? Romeo must be gone on the day. She's saying it's still night, you heard the singing of the nightingale. But finally Romeo becomes more realistic and he says that it was the lark so it's day. He must go and so he could live, if he stays hell die. Juliet insists, she wants Romeo to stay: it is not day, it was a meteor in the sky. Romeo know it’s day but he says for Juliet he would give his soul, he would pretend it's night and would stay and die. But now Juliet understands it is day. The nurse enters in the room telling to Juliet her mother's coming. “JULIET O God, l have an ill-divining soul! Methinks | see thee, now thou art below, As one dead in the bottom of a tomb: Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale”: an anticipation of what is going about to happen. She sees him be lower, as if he were at the bottom of a tomb. Romeo leaves. Now Lady Capulet enters and she's going to announce Juliet she's going to marry Paris. At this moment Juliet can't tell her mother she's married to Romeo. Her mother is insulting Romeo. In order to not make her mother understand the truth, she's using language in a very ambiguous way: she's expressing her love for Romeo in the way her mother doesn’t understand. Juliet finds out she's going to marry Paris and she starts getting very rebellious: she refuses declaring her independence and autonomy. At the beginning Juliet was docile, obedient to her parents now she's emancipated. She has to confront her father. Now we have Capulet and the nurse. In a certain sense he reverts the stereotypical figure of father in the materialistic society. This increase as the play continues, and this is what technically goes back to Roman drama, in the new comedy the old generation at a certain point get angry, give prohibitions to the younger generation. The father continues to believe Juliet is crying for Tybalt. She's crying forthe news her mother gave her. “How now, wife! Have you deliver’d to her our decree?”: it's not a choice, but a command as a decree (decreto). Now the old generation begins getting angry and saying things that are very unpleasant, something that in a certain sense becomes prophetic. “I would the fool were married to her grave!” Her mother hopes she dies in her tomb. Juliet thanks her father for what he does for her, but what you want is something that she hates. He begins to be not very nice with her, he will drag her on a hurdle thiter, a carriage used for executions. He starts insulting her physically, he gets angry, as the traditional senenx irado. He wants to strangle her “My fingers itch”. The nurse tries to clam him, but Capulet starts insulting the nurse too. If she doesn't marry, she's going to leave the house. And “if you're mine, l’Il give you to my friend”: the woman as an object, the man owns the woman. In Juliet's word again the association the bed of bride to the tomb (death and marriage associated one another, it's prophetic because Juliet is gonna to die. at this point her mother can’t do anything, Juliet has to decide herself. The nurse says her it's better to marry Paris, ‘cause Romeo is away, she refers to sexual use and starts pleasing Paris. At this point Juliet separates form the nurse, she was the last person who can trust, she can't no longer trust her nurse. If she has nothing to do, she will kill herself. ACTIV Scene | Now Paris is arranging the marriage with Friar Laurence. Then Juliet incomes. If the friar won't find a solution, she will kill with her knife rather than marrying Paris. Friar Laurence has the solution, but Juliet has to accept death anyway, this solution is near death. But she accepts everything than betraying Romeo, and many of example she prefers, are prophetic of what is going to happen. Friar Laurence is giving her the potion to make her asleep temporary, seeming death, she will show no signs to be alive. She will be asleep for exactly 42 hours (once again chronological time ). Juliet has no fear, she's really really woman. The plan depends on two things: time and letters (which never arrive). Friar Laurence is going to send another friar to Mantua in order to inform Romeo. Scene Il As the beginning, we have other scene at Capulets’ house in which they have to invite people and serves have to read a list with names. Then Juliet comes in. She returns the docile daughter, obedient begging her fathers pardon, but we know well what she's going to do. She will marry Paris. Scene III Juliet is choosing the dress for the day of marriage. Obviously the nurse is the only one who knows Romeo is married to Juliet. Then Lady Capulet comes in. Shakespeare shows us Juliet is afraid of what she’ gonna to do, she's aware of the consequences and risk. It is a poison the friar gave her to kill her because the friar betrayed marrying Romeo and Juliet?. She's just