Discuss Shakespeare's use of the chorus in Romeo and Juliet paying particular attention to the language and its dramatisation.

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Discuss Shakespeare’s use of the chorus in “Romeo and Juliet” paying particular attention to the language and its dramatisation.

The chorus appears at the beginning of act one and at the beginning of act two. In the first chorus in act one they basically say that there are two households that are both arguing lover a long term grudge and that because of this both families children (Romeo and Juliet) are going to die. This happens because they are both madly in love with one another. Shakespeare tells us that our two main characters are going to die at the start because it makes the audience tense and then Shakespeare can focus on how it all happened rather than what happened.

        In act two the chorus stresses the problems with Romeos new found love and how after all this time of loving Rosaline he just pushes her to one side for Juliet. It carries on to talk about how they cannot meet up and it has to be a secret. There are a lot of problems with this.

        In each speech in the play of Romeo and Juliet there is a very odd language that is quite poetic in a way that very few can understand. Shakespeare loves to play with words rhymes and phrases to create a whole new language.  In each speech Shakespeare uses phrases, which to a first glance you, cant understand but if you read it carefully and analyse it you can understand the speeches and see what he means. For example in the chorus it suggests that both families have pride; “both alike in dignity,” and that this certain feud has been going on for a long time, he suggests this by using the word “ancient.” This makes the language more interesting and it makes the audience wonder why this feud had been going on for such a long time. When using the phrase “civil blood,” this changes the mood and makes it very criminal as if things are going on which should not be, if not possibly making the audience come to the conclusion of murder as “civil blood,” means innocent people killed. In lines 5-6 the mood of the prologue changes dramatically again and in this part of the speech “From forth the fatal loins of theses two foes, A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life,” refers to the death of the two lovers and how this relationship was doomed to fail from the start as the lovers, (Rome and Juliet), were born from two families, Montague and Capulet, who have been feuding for many years. Shakespeare shows that this relationship was not such a good idea by using the word “misadventured” (in line 7). This emphasises that this was not intentional and is used in the prologue instead of  “not intentional” or “happened by accident” because this is not such a good language and these phrases are not poetic, and also they do not set a good atmosphere. The word “misadventured” is a more formal and sophisticated way of language and so makes the prologue sound better. Misadventured makes the atmosphere change, maybe for the worst, but, further on in the speech the atmosphere is again changed by Shakespeare by cleverly slipping in a word; “fearful.” This word makes the atmosphere more tense and scary and gives a sense of you want the fighting to stop but the audience cant stop it, so therefore the audience is then scared by the thought of this. This sort of wording in the chorus sets the mood for the rest of the story and keeps the audience in suspense, making them wonder how all this came to be as Shakespeare has told them what is going to happen but not why or how.

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        The chorus at the start of act 2 sets a different mood altogether and is talking about Romeo and his lovers.

        In the first 5 lines of act twos chorus Shakespeare does what he does best and plays with words, rhythms and styles to remind us of Romeos infatuation with Rosaline and how now all has changed, “Now old desire doth in his death-bed lie, and young affection gapes to be his heir; That fair for which love groaned for and would die, With tender Juliet matched is now not fair.” This phrase is talking about how Romeos desire for ...

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