In Romeo and Juliet the beauty and ardour of young love is seen by Shakespeare as the irradiating glory of sunlight and starlight in a dark work - Discuss the techniques that Shakespeare would have used to capture this dominating image of light.

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Romeo And Juliet Essay

James Murray 5G

In Romeo and Juliet the beauty and ardour of young love is seen by Shakespeare as the irradiating glory of sunlight and starlight in a dark work. Discuss the techniques that Shakespeare would have used to capture this dominating image of light.

In the time of Shakespeare, his plays would have been performed during the day, using natural light from the open centre of the theatre. Since there could be no dramatic lighting and there was very little scenery or props, Shakespeare used actors’ lines and stage directions to supply the time of day and year, the weather, location and mood of the scenes. Props would also be used for this purpose. For example, if a scene was set during the night, there might be a number of torches on stage to depict darkness.  The actors would carry swords ready for fight scenes and the actors playing servants would be seen carrying pots or items of clothing to convey their station.

Shakespeare uses costume to tell the audience information. The higher class people would wear expensive formal clothes and the servants would wear much simpler clothes so the audience could distinguish between them. Also the Montagues would have worn different clothes from the Capulets. In many film and television adaptations of the play, members of each of the houses would wear different clothes e.g. the Capulets might wear green clothes and the Montagues might wear red. This would help the audience distinguish between members of the two houses, especially in fight scenes. Also, the costumes the actors wore might reflect their mood or character. For instance, Mercutio, who is probably the liveliest character in the play is seen in the 1997 film version wearing bright and colourful clothes, whereas Benvolio, who is a more tense and bitter character is seen wearing black and dark colours. This would have also been done in Shakespeare’s time to help audiences identify the characters’ moods and feelings.

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The play opens with the poetic form of a sonnet being read by the chorus. This sets the scene and introduces the story of two young lovers caught between their families and ending with the lovers’ deaths,

“Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny”. (Prologue)

A sonnet is usually defined as being written from a lover to his beloved. This therefore has special relevance to the play. As sonnets are a very structured type of prose, Shakespeare cleverly contrasts the order of ...

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