The play starts off with the prologue outlining what has happened in Verona. Shakespeare used Verona as the setting for his play as it was known to be a place of murderous feuds and passionate love affairs. The prologue immediately introduces us to the feud and hatred shared between the two families, Capulet’s and Montague’s. “From ancient grudge break to new mutiny”. Here the audience is left with an unanswered question as to how the feud started and from the prologue we are left wondering if anger and hate will lead to the death of the two “ star crossed lovers”.
This is emphasised with the fact that the two young lovers foreshadow their own death. Therefore this creates dramatic irony in that the audience know how the story is going unfold and the course of Romeo and Juliet’s’ lives but they do not know themselves. Shakespeare unravels the story whilst cleverly creating twists which brings sympathy upon the audience. The play starts with a prologue which is how Shakespeare begins to create a sense of sympathy for Romeo and Juliet. Here, the audience is told that the couple are ‘star cross’d lovers’ and that their love is going against the stars and that they are therefore doomed in disaster.
In the play Romeo and Juliet, the audience often leaves thinking “if only… then…” they remember back to the parts that could have easily been avoided which would have made the ending turn out differently, and perhaps Romeo and Juliet would not have suffered such a tragic end. Shakespeare purposely wrote the prologue, which clearly states the end, “[a] pair of star-crossed lovers take their life… Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife,” (Prologue 6, 8), to send a message to the audience. There is a common misconception that the prologue is a foreshadowing of the two lovers’ end because foreshadowing is when there is a hint, but the prologue declares the ending, so it is not a forshadow. Shakespeare’s purpose of the prologue is to
Romeo AND Juliet In one of the most celebrated and retold plays in history “Romeo and Juliet” written by William Shakespeare depicts many tragedies and unforeseeable events, that all contribute to the eventual demise of the main characters. Shakespeare manages to stress that the deaths endured at the hands of the Romeo and Juliet were mainly not preventable as misguided and poor decisions made at hands of the elders involved meant that disaster was inevitable. Fate also hints at the fact that tragedy was going to be around the corner as Romeo and Juliet were willing to test the boundaries as to how far their relationships would go, although such a catastrophe could have been prevented through the mending of ties between the feuding families. A contributing factor as to why the deaths of the main characters were predominately not preventable was the profound fact that both Romeo and Juliet were clearly misguided by those around them. Shakespeare employs Friar Lawrence as one of these characters that abets the death of Romeo and Juliet as he fails to deny the two “star crossed lovers” any part in marriage instead aiding their eventual demise through the careful yet greatly flawed plan where Friar Lawrence “gave thee remedy” that formed the basis of the two characters deaths.
Shakespeare quite obviously plays with the conventions of Petrarchan characters and their views of desire throughout the play but most significantly towards the beginning. Romeo is introduced as a character that seems to be blinded by love, his desire for Rosaline is over powering, shallow and foolish – “He that is strucken blind cannot forget / The precious treasure of his eyesight lost” (1.1.225-226). Shakespeare has created Romeo to resemble the typical ‘Petrarchan lover’ speakers that are found in Petrarch’s sonnets, we hear Romeo obsessing over Rosaline whom like ‘Laura’ from Petrarch’s sonnets is unattainable to Romeo, as she is choosing to remain celibate - "She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow / Do I live dead that live to tell it now” (1.1.216-217) Shakespeare has purposefully created Romeo and Rosaline with these similarities to Petrarchan conventions in mind as he is able to successfully critique the discourse of desire through the growth of Romeo in the play and the introduction of Juliet. Shakespeare also relies on the fact that his audience are aware of ‘what’s in store’ for Romeo, allowing him to create a clichéd and conventional character - “The theatre audience knows that
However, Shakespeare presents Benedick’s change in a more positive and light-hearted manner, whilst Macbeth’s change revolves around negativity and wrong-doing as the approach to each individual genre is different, where comedies are humorous and happy, whilst tragedies are gloomy and grief-stricken. INTRO: The opening scene of the play, ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, is significant as Shakespeare introduces the genre of the play as a romantic comedy through the comic names given to Benedick and Beatrice by each other. Beatrice nicknames Benedick as “Signor Mountanto”, which uses sexual innuendo expressing their love hate relationship, created by the definition of the word ‘montanto’ (technical term for an upward thrust in fencing). This insulting, but hilarious comment would have only been understood by the Shakespearean audience. Opposing this, Benedick personifies disdain in the form of Beatrice, by calling her “Lady Disdain”, suggesting that she is in fact, the epitome of disdain or contempt.
Throughout Shakespeare's play 'Romeo and Juliet', one of the main themes is conflict and conflict gradually escalates as the play reaches its tragic climax. From the start of the play, in the prologue, we are told of the futility of conflict as suggested by ‘ancient grudge’. The word 'ancient' suggests that the 'grudge' started long ago, meaning the real reason for it is long since forgotten, and therefore, the 'grudge' is petty though the resulting conflict is not. Additionally, the word 'grudge' suggests the consequences of the conflict are long lasting. We are also told how contagious conflict and the 'ancient grudge' can be, ‘civil blood makes civil hands unclean’.
Shakespeare presents villains in a way that entices the audience through his way or words and techniques used. He makes us wonder who the actual villain is in this story and plays with emotions such as guilt, sympathy and paranoia. I will be analysing Shakespeare's use of language, how he shows the change of character in Macbeth through his choice of words, and what the true meaning of a villain actually is by comparing Shakespeare's work and use of literature with three other well known poems. Throughout the story line of Macbeth, Shakespeare has shown a stark contrast between Macbeths' original personality to the one that he had finally developed. Starting from a victorious, respectable, glorified hero who was a ruthless killing machine, Macbeth then turns into a paranoid, merciless and unstable character which Shakespeare is able to shape, due to the various factors that would change Macbeth.
Shakespeare presents villains in a way that entices the audience through his way or words and techniques used. He makes us wonder who the actual villain is in this story and plays with emotions such as guilt, sympathy and paranoia. I will be analysing Shakespeare's use of language, how he shows the change of character in Macbeth through his choice of words, and what the true meaning of a villain actually is by comparing Shakespeare's work and use of literature with three other well known poems. Throughout the story line of Macbeth, Shakespeare has shown a stark contrast between Macbeths' original personality to the one that he had finally developed. Starting from a victorious, respectable, glorified hero who was a ruthless killing machine, Macbeth then turns into a paranoid, merciless and unstable character which Shakespeare is able to shape, due to the various factors that would change Macbeth.
In doing so, the function of the magical world will be identified, and by the finality of this essay the representations of magic and its construction of out-of-balance love will be understood. From the onset, Shakespeare precisely depicts the lovers as being out of balance, a theme which generates stress during the play. For symmetry’s sake, the audience desires the four lovers to be arranged into two couples; as an alternative, Lysander and Demetrius love Hermia, and Helena is left out. Hermia and Helena are therefore in opposite positions, increasing the feeling of fundamental imbalance. This imbalance is introduced and reinforced in Act I, Scene I, when Lysander says “The course of true love never did run smooth” (136).