William Shakespeare’sRomeo & Juliet

Background notes about William Shakespeare and the play

William Shakespeare

• Born in 1564 in Stratford, England

• Died in 1616 on his birthday

• Nickname- The Bard

• Married Anne Hathaway and had three children.

William Shakespeare

• He worked as an actor, a poet, and a playwright.

• He thrived as a playwright during the monarchs of Elizabeth I and James I.

• Founded and wrote plays for the theatrical company The Lord Chamberlain’s Men

16th-century Elizabethan Theatre

• Religious groups condemned theater for the immorality in the plays.

• All of society attended the theater, including royalty.

• Plays were meant to be performed-- not seen as literature, therefore only rough copies of Shakespeare’s plays survive today.

• Only men were actors at the time, even for female roles.

The Globe

• Shakespeare’s theater group constructed The Globe, an open-air round theatre.

• The original theatre burned in 1613. A new Globe Theatre was built in London in 1997.

Romeo and Juliet• Romeo and Juliet was written in Elizabethan

English circa 1595.• Shakespeare derived the plot from another play,

which was common at the time.• Like his other works, this play was celebrated for

its experimental and exciting language.• This was one of his first tragedies; he had mainly

written comedies until this time.– Tragedy- a play dealing with tragic events; usually has

an unhappy ending, culminating in the main character’s downfall

– Comedy- a humorous play where the characters triumph over adversity

Romeo and Juliet• This play is an unusual

tragedy because Romeo and Juliet is about love.

• Shakespeare had a flair for mixing comedy, tragedy, and romance in his writing.

• At the time, marriage was not always viewed as a result of love. People married for reasons other than love.

Iambic Pentameter

• Shakespeare wrote in iambic pentameter.– Iambic pentameter- a type of meter with 10

syllables per line (1 unstressed syllable,

1 stressed syllable [5x] in each line)– iamb= foot pent= 5 5 feet per line

Iambic Pentameter

• This type of meter was originally used in dance and by actors to remember lines in theatre.– The regular rhythm helps dancers keep the beat

when dancing and the actors keep the beat when speaking.

• When lines in iambic pentameter do not rhyme and are not grouped in stanzas, they’re called blank verse.

Rhyme Scheme

• Rhyme scheme is the ordered pattern of rhymes at the ends of the lines of a poem.– Letters of the alphabet are used to assign

the pattern, e.g., aabbcc.

Sonnet• A sonnet is a fourteen-line rhyming poem in

iambic pentameter.• Shakespeare’s sonnets contain three four-

line stanzas (quatrains) and one couplet.• The rhyme scheme for a Shakespearean

sonnet is abab cdcd efef gg.• The chorus, or narrator, in Romeo and Juliet

speaks in sonnets.• In Romeo and Juliet’s first meeting, their

dialogue is a sonnet.

Themes

• A theme is a story’s insight about life.• Themes in Romeo and Juliet:

– The Power of Love– Love vs. Family– Family Ties– Revenge– The Power of Attraction, specifically of opposites– Arranged Marriage

Motifs

• A motif is a recurring element that usually relates to one of the story’s themes.

• Motifs in Romeo and Juliet:– Young/Old– Love/Hate– Wisdom/Passion– Light/Dark– Night/Day

• All the motifs are opposites of one another.

Foreshadowing

• Foreshadowing is the use of hints to suggest what will happen later in the story.– Shakespeare uses foreshadowing

throughout Romeo and Juliet to provide clues about the fate of the characters in the play.