Fate had a lot of power over the characters in the play and so I also think that an audience in the 1590’s would have connected more with the story line because in the sixteenth century there was a widespread belief in the power of Fate over individuals; whereas a more modern audience would be more likely to consider some of these events as just unfortunate coincidences. People in the sixteenth century were extremely superstitious making the storyline much more likely to happen. Romeo is initially represented as a rather self-conscious courtly lover by his elaborately styled language and long sequences of oxymoron’s:
‘O heavy lightness, serious vanity, Misshapen chaos of well seeming forms, Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health’
This is instantly recognisable to audiences, both then and now, as a very stereotypical courtly lover. His exaggerated expression ‘I have a soul of lead’ makes audiences realise he obviously doesn’t know what it means to be in love when he is speaking of Rosaline. There is such a big contrast between this and the beauty and sincerity of Romeo’s expression of his genuine love for Juliet and this shows when he speaks of Juliet as a white bird of peace, her whiteness suggesting she is very pure, fragile and innocent:
‘Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear: So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows’
This really shows us just how genuine his love is. Romeo also falls in love with Juliet at first sight which is a very appealing and romantic idea. It also emphasises Romeos sense of wonder at Juliet. Romeo first perceives Juliet as a saint:
‘If I profane with my unworthiest hand This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this, My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss’
This makes his love for her seem more as a kind of spiritual worship, yet also tender, innocent and youthful, because of this it makes their first kiss seem very sensitive and idealistic. Their love, however romantic, is also deadly serious as it is very quick and some would say rushed; on the same night they first meet they already exchange vows: ‘Th’exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine.’ Juliet is very passionate but she also thinks that all the decisions they have made is too rash:
‘It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden, too like the lightening, which doth cease to be’
This shows that even though they are very much caught up in their love they are also not unaware of how badly influenced their lives are by ‘ill-fate’. The image, which is also quite intense and destructive, is ominous as it suggests that Romeo and Juliet’s love will burn out soon. Even Romeo has a premonition of doom hanging in the near future:
“I fear too early, for my mind misgives Some consequence yet hanging in the stars”
Romeo again describes Juliet with light and brilliance but he also speaks of love giving him wings to overcome any obstacles:
“with Love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls, For stony limits cannot hold love out.”
Shakespeare uses alliteration to emphasise the image here. This quote is quite forbidding as this is exactly what happens to the lovers in the play. If the ‘stony limits’ that Romeo describes are representing life then the quote can be taken to mean that, in the end love conquers Romeos life. He dies so that his love can live on with Juliet when they are both dead. I think this is one of the images that does show a lot of meaning to the audience, as it would be seen today as quite melodramatic to end your own life just because your lover had died. However I think an audience in the 1590’s wouldn’t have thought so much of it because it wouldn’t have been seen then as such an awful act. The Lovers are then presented as birds; Juliet perceives Romeo as ‘a wanton’s bird... Like a poor prisoner in his twisted qyues.’ This image is quite ironic as the bird’s freedom of flight is curtailed by ‘a silken thread’ which quite accurately describes Romeo and Juliet’s situation; the lovers are also cut off from their own freedom by their parents and their age. Romeo also then reminds us of just how young the couple are and how inexperienced they are when he addresses Juliet, ‘My niesse?’ However the more romantic and delicate their love seems to the audience the more their deaths seem more destructive. It makes us see just how powerful an impact on their love everything is and therefore makes audiences much more sympathetic towards then and what they have to endure. We are reminded of how gentle and perfect Romeo and Juliet’s love is in contrast with the Nurse’s crude emphasis on physical attraction:
“Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.”
The Nurse shows here just how openly and closely she links the emotional and physical attractions. It shows the audience that she has no privacy when it comes to a subject such as this that she doesn’t see this as being a very intimate topic. We are reminded again of how gentle Romeo and Juliet’s love is when Shakespeare contrasts Romeo’s expression of his love for Juliet with Mercutio’s bawdy sexual innuendos:
“a bawd, a bawd, a bawd! So ho!”
Bawd meaning someone who profits by prostitution. If this is compared with some of the earlier imagery used by Romeo when speaking of Juliet we can see just how gentle his words are when describing her. Romeo describes Mercutio as ‘far and wide a broad goose’ meaning dirty-minded. Romeo and Juliet’s love is set against a backdrop of hatred and death and as a result it makes their love seem much more powerful. Romeo makes this clear near the beginning of the play:
“Here’s much do to with hate but more with love:”
Their innocence and idealism forms an appealing contrast to the ugly hatred of their families. It could be described as the only bright star on the blackest of nights. For example the first flowering of their love that the audience see is set side by side with Tybalt’s hatred of Romeo:
“I will withdraw, but this intrusion shall, Now seeming sweet, convert to bitt’rest gall.”
Even in one of the most romantic scenes of the play, the balcony scene, the image is tainted by Juliet’s vision of Romeo dead at the bottom of a tomb:
“If they do see thee, they will murder thee.”
Their rapturous love on their wedding day is followed immediately by Tybalt’s hate-filled explosion of violence. Which Romeo then responds to:
“And fire-eyed fury be my conduct now!”
The fact that their love is always mixed with some form of hate or death would have been considered by a more medieval audience as, again, a form of fate. I think the series of events would have been considered much more acceptable back then. Now, however, it seems rather extreme. I think, though, that the impact is just the same as it was then if not slightly stronger. Mainly because of how radical it seems now. The idea of being able to love someone so much or to be in love with someone so much that you would literally give your life and heart to them is considered the highest of all romantic things you could do, if not slightly drastic. I think both audiences would have been as equally moved by the ending of the play as the other. Both would have sensed a terrible loss of innocence and beauty when the lovers die mostly because it was such an undeserved fate. In a modern day theatre the audience is genuinely upset. Most are speechless and silent, some even succumbing to tears. I cannot say what an audience’s reaction in a 1590’s theatre would have been but I imagine it was much the same. Other characters in the play tell of their verdict on the young couple’s death, including the Prince:
“For never was a story of more woe Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”
I think many are of the same opinion.
