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English : Romeo and Juliet : Shakespeare

Play Analysis

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous essay on Romeo and Juliet based on his legendary and influential lectures and notes on Shakespeare. Source: http://absoluteshakespeare.com/guides/romeo_and_juliet/essay/romeo_and_juliet_essay.htm

 

Shakespeare adapts Brooke's poem for the stage, developing the characters, condensing the timeframe, and adding certain scenes to underscore his own themes. For example, Shakespeare reduces Juliet's age from 16 to 13 to emphasize her youth and vulnerability...Shakespeare compresses the action from months, as it appears in Brooke, to just over four days...Shakespeare also develops the plot by adding the scene in which Capulet brings the wedding forward from Thursday to Wednesday. These developments are used to indicate the speed with which Romeo and Juliet rush headlong into love, while creating intense pressure as events conspire to bring the lovers to their tragic deaths. Source: https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/romeo-and-juliet/about-romeo-and-juliet-2

 

Despite the enmity of the Montague’s and Capulet’s, the attraction between Romeo and Juliet is instinctive and strong.  Upon their first meeting, the “star-cross’d lovers” appear spontaneously attracted to each other and unaware of each one’s enemy status. Romeo emphasises how Juliet’s beauty stands out from the crowd. She is a “snowy dove trooping with crows.” He is immediately respectful towards her even though she is a Capulet, and his love is more heartfelt than his pretentious show of affection towards Rosaline. Source: https://www.englishworks.com.au/romeo-juliet/

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