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Collins Classroom Classics
ROMEO AND A CHRISTMAS JULIET CAROL The Alexander Text
William Shakespeare Charles Dickens Edited by Peter Alexander With an editor introduction and glossary General R.B. Kennedy by Richard Vardy With an introduction and a theme and character index by Mark Roberts
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Contents Introduction Shakespeare’s theatre Timeline Romeo and Juliet List of characters Act 1 Act 2 Act 3 Act 4 Act 5 Theme and character index
iv xiii xviii 1 3 63 121 185 221 256
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Introduction The year is 2019. Tourists and young lovers flock to a medieval house in the picturesque, sun-kissed Italian city of Verona. They have come to see the balcony at Casa di Giulietta, which claims to be the inspiration for perhaps the most famous of fictional love stories. Swayed by the promise of eternal love, couples scribble notes and stick them to the walls, hopeful that fate and fortune will bestow a romance ‘as boundless as the sea’ (Act 2, Scene 2, line 133). Now let’s travel back to the mid-1590s. A gang of restless young men stride the streets of London, searching for distraction. Fashionably dressed, they carry weapons designed to stab or slice with maximum efficiency. These young bucks with ‘mad blood stirring’ (Act 3, Scene 1, line 4) head beyond the city walls to the Curtain Theatre, Shoreditch. The play they have come to see – Romeo and Juliet – begins with a quarrel. Edgy young men from rival mobs provoke each other, throwing insults and thrusting swords. A huge and dreadful brawl erupts, quelled only by the arrival of the law. When we think of Shakespeare’s popular play Romeo and Juliet, our first thoughts may be of its central romance – of the two young lovers mesmerised by an intense and passionate attraction. Yet the play begins with an outbreak of violence, paralleling the violence on the streets of Elizabethan London, and ends in the death of the two protagonists. So, is Romeo and Juliet a play about two young lovers – or about the endless quarrel between the forces of love and hate?
Themes in context
Violence In the first scene of the play, the Capulet servants Sampson and Gregory set eyes on their Montague counterparts; immediately, a ‘naked weapon’ (Act 1, Scene 1, line 31) is drawn and violence ensues. While the play is set in 14th-century iv
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Timeline Shakespeare: A Timeline Very little indeed is known about Shakespeare’s private life: the facts included hereabout are almost the only indisputable ones. Very little indeed is known Shakespeare’s private life: the facts The dates of Shakespeare’s plays are those on which included here are almost the only indisputable ones. The dates ofthey were first produced. Shakespeare’s plays are those on which they were first produced. 1558 Queen Elizabeth crowned. 1561 Francis Bacon born. 1564 Christopher Marlowe born.
William Shakespeare born, 23 April, baptised 26 April.
1566
Shakespeare’s brother, Gilbert, born.
1567 Mary, Queen of Scots, deposed. James VI (later James I of England) crowned King of Scotland. 1572 Ben Jonson born. Lord Leicester’s Company (of players) licensed; later called Lord Strange’s, then the Lord Chamberlain’s and finally (under James), the King’s Men. 1573 John Donne born. 1574 The Common Council of London directs that all plays and playhouses in London must be licensed. 1576 James Burbage builds the first public playhouse, The Theatre, at Shoreditch, outside the walls of the City. 1577 Francis Drake begins his voyage round the world (completed 1580). Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland published (which
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xiii xviii
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ROMEO AND JULIET
ACT 1 THE PROLOGUE This is an introduction to the play spoken by one of the actors and in this case he tells us, in general terms, what the plot of the play is going to be. 2. Verona a town in Italy. 3. ‘Their old quarrel erupts into new violence.’ 4. civil blood blood shed in fighting between people of the same town. 6. star-cross’d lovers who are ill-fated because of the influence of the stars. In Shakespeare’s time it was widely believed that people’s lives were affected by the position of the stars when they were born. This is why Shakespeare tells us right at the start, that the love of Romeo and Juliet will come to a tragic end, not because of their own faults but because it is destined to do so. 9. death-mark’d marked out for death. This phrase emphasizes the warning that they are doomed. 11. but except for. 12. two hours’ traffic Elizabethan plays usually lasted about this time: the words were probably said briskly and there was no stage-shifting to waste time. 14. This means that whatever failings the play or performance has – the actors will try to make up for them by their hard work.
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ACT 1 Prologue
ACT 1 Prologue [Enter CHORUS .] Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life; Whose misadventur’d piteous overthrows Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife. The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love, And the continuance of their parents’ rage, Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove, Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage; The which if you with patient ears attend, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
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[Exit.]
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Theme and character index LOVE AND HATE Romeo and Juliet is a play of extremes and opposition, and the defining theme of the play is the counterpoint of love and hate. Scenes of acrimony and conflict sit alongside scenes of love and lust. Love that is excessive is portrayed as dangerous: the Friar’s warning ‘These violent delights have violent ends’ (Act 2, Scene 6, line 9) can be seen as the moral of the story. Key scenes: 1.1 155–232 (Romeo’s unrequited love for Rosaline); 1.5 (Romeo and Juliet’s first meeting and Tybalt’s desire for revenge); 2.1 Mercutio’s mockery of Romeo; 2.2; 2.3 39–94 (the Friar’s advice about love and its dangers); 2.6; 3.2; 5.3 22–170 (deaths of Romeo and Juliet) and 295–303 (the families’ remorse and grief) HONOUR While the key idea of Romeo and Juliet is the opposition of love and hate, and fate provides the driving force behind the play’s structure, the male characters’ behaviour is inspired by the concept of honour. Honour is often closely associated with the theme of violence. Key scenes: 1.1 1–109; 1.5 52–90 (Tybalt’s fury at the presence of a Montague); 3.1 (particularly the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt); 3.5 126–196 (Capulet’s belief that Juliet has brought dishonour to the family) RELATIONSHIPS The central relationship of the play is the romance between Romeo and Juliet. Other key relationships focus on the gulf in understanding between younger and older generations. Family conflicts expose not just the recklessness of youth, but the fallibility of adults.
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