The first meeting of Romeo and Juliet is written as a sonnet. All the important scenes in the play are written as poetry, which emphasises the key moments. Having them as poetry would have appealed to the audience of the time; people of the Elizabethan period would have been able to relate to the poetry in Romeo and Juliet because sonnet writing was a popular and highly appreciated, and enjoyed activity at Queen Elizabeth’s court.
I have already mentioned Romeo’s immediate reaction on first noticing Juliet; clearly he has a similar effect on Juliet. When she asks the nurse who he is she replies “His name is Romeo, and a Montague, the son of your only great enemy,” Juliet is upset because she feels the same love and admiration towards Romeo as he does her, but she thinks that their love will never amount to anything except trouble because “my [Juliet’s] only love sprung from my [Juliet’s] only hate [The Montagues].”
The dramatic impact on this scene is when they kiss for the first time- “thus from my lips, be thine, my sin is purged” this is a quote form line 106, it is Romeo saying, if it is a sin to kiss Juliet, then I am a sinner, its worth it because I am in love, after this quote the book says that they kiss. After the kiss, the nurse asks for Juliet, she says her mother wants to see her, Romeo asks who her mother is and the reply by the nurse is “Her mother is the lady of the house” on line 112, Romeo is heartbroken, because he only just finds out that his “true love” Juliet is a Capulet, this is also a high point of tension in the play because it becomes clear that it is going to be impossible that the story will finish “and they all lived happily ever after.”
It is important to remember that Romeo and Juliet is not a novel, but a play which is intended to be performed; the actors and the audience, or anyone reading the play has to invent the characters in their own imagination. In this scene, even though Romeo and Juliet are looking into each others eyes and believe they are profoundly in love, of the many people around them, no-one else apart from the nurse notices them; they are ‘alone in a crowd.’
The second dramatically important moment which I think illustrates how Shakespeare creates dramatic impact is the death of Tybalt.
“O, noble Prince I can discover all
The unlucky manage of this fatal brawl
There lies the man, slain by young Romeo
That slain thy kinsman, brave Mercutio!”
- This is how Benvolio explains, to the Prince, all that has happened. He is explaining the sequence of events that led to the two deaths.
Mercutio was Romeo’s best friend. Romeo discovered him fighting with Tybalt. Romeo tried to stop the fight, shouting
“Gentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage! Tybalt, Mercutio, the Prince expressly hath forbid this bandying in Verona streets” (from act three, scene one, line eighty.)
Romeo steps between them, and Tybalt, under Romeo’s arm, “thrusts Mercutio in.” Mercutio says:
“Why the dev’l came you between us?”
“I thought all for the best” was Romeo’s reply.
Mercutio responds bitterly:
“A plague a’both your houses! They have made worms’ meat of me.”
Benvolio takes Mercutio to safety but returns to tell Romeo that he has died. Romeo feels he must avenge his death, saying to Tybalt
“Either thou or I, or both, must go with him.” (from line 120)
The stage directions tell us that “They fight; Tybalt falls.” Benvolio, who immediately realises the danger he is in, tells Romeo to get away swiftly, warning him:
“The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain.
Stand not amazed, the Prince will doom thee death
If thou art taken.” (from line 125)
Romeo responds “O, I am fortune’s fool.” (from line 127) In fact the Prince spares his life but, he is “banished” from Verona which leads to the fatal consequences in the final Dramatic moment that I have chosen.
The final events are brought to a head because of Romeo’s disappearance from Verona, the decision, by Juliet’s father to marry Juliet off to Paris very quickly. These two important facts make it necessary to act urgently (within the two days before the wedding ceremony) and Friar Lawrence proposes a plan to Juliet. The audience know of this plan, but Romeo dose not, and could not have predicted it. For the plan to happen as expected, Romeo needs the information which the audience knows, but he dose not, and the message sent to him, fails to arrive. However he dose hear that Juliet is dead, and decides that he will kill himself, so he gets some deadly poison, and rushes straight back to Verona. He fights with Count Paris and kills him, he sees Juliet’s body, and drinks the potion, and he dies, after he kisses her. Then Juliet wakes, as planned, to see Romeo’s dead body, she cant bear to go on without him, so she too commits suicide, she takes Romeo’s dagger and stabs herself in the heart with it.
Only then dose the friar arrive too late, he sees the two bodies lying next to each other.
Shakespeare achieved dramatic impact on the last couple of events by making them quickly happen and then the final ‘crunch point’ is when they both die, in all the other dramatic moments in the play they go up slowly and gradually build up in importance, till it gets to the last scene, when they die. The tension starts before the party, when Romeo is thinking to himself about how this night is going to be the start of something that can only end in disaster, also when Tybalt is told to leave Romeo and his friends alone he thinks that it something bad will happen that will only lead to misfortune and his death.
