Presenting Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to a modern audience is very difficult as there are many obstacles and barriers which must be overcome.

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Presenting Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to a modern audience is very difficult as there are many obstacles and barriers which must be overcome.

The most obvious barrier is the language used by the great writer,  Romeo and Juliet is written in an archaic form of English, a form which most people find very difficult to understand.

The first meeting of Romeo and Juliet is very well written. We know instantaneously that they are meant for each other because their first conversation creates a sonnet. At the time the play was written the sonnet was the most romantic form of poetry.

Secondly there is the fact that when the play was first written there had been no need to put in stage directions so none had been written into the play. Thus modern publishers have had to make their own judgment as to where there should be stage directions and what they should be. Unfortunately this has led to opposing views on how certain, crucial scenes should be acted out. For example, the Cambridge edition of Romeo and Juliet sees the ‘star crossed’ lovers kissing one line after the final line of the sonnet (Act 1 Scene 5 Cambridge) and then kissing for a second time after Romeo says, ‘…Give me my sin again’. The Macmillan edition however only has one kiss and that sole kiss is at the end of the sonnet, Arden’s edition is the same as the Cambridge edition. Analysing the text shows that Cambridge and Arden have the most suitable directions as they fit in with the protagonists’ conversation.

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        ROMEO:         Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged.

        JULIET:         Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

A kiss seems appropriate between these two lines. The ‘sin’ they talk of is the metaphor they have used instead of kiss (their whole sonnet is based on the analogy of a pilgrim visiting a shrine). Juliet’s line talks of the sin being taken in the past tense so we must presume that she’d been kissed at this point.  Then we get this exchange:

        ROMEO:        Give me my sin again

        JULIET:        You kiss by th’book

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