The scene that I have chosen to analyse is Act II, Scene 2 or more commonly known as the balcony scene. I think that it is very important, as it is the scene where Romeo and Juliet declare their love for each other

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Aarohi Shah 10F        Shakespeare coursework        08/05/2007        

Analyse the dramatic and linguistic significance of your chosen scene from “Romeo and Juliet.

“Romeo and Juliet” is probably the most famous play in the whole world written by probably the most famous playwright of all time, William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare was born in April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England to John and Mary Shakespeare. He studied in Stratford Grammar School from the age of six or seven. During his time, the primary language of learning was Latin. Therefore, most of the literature that Shakespeare read in his childhood was in Latin and by authors such as Seneca, Cicero, Ovid and Virgil. When he was thirteen, Shakespeare was removed from school due to his father’s financial situation. However, these authors continued to be an inspiration to him as is viewed from his plays and other works. Not much else is known about his early life until his marriage.

Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway when she was three months pregnant with their first child, Susanna. Later, the twins, Hamnet and Judith, were born. Again, not much is known about Shakespeare’s life from then until after the death of Hamnet, when he was eleven. By then Shakespeare was a fairly well known actor in London. He had also written some of his earlier plays; Henry VI and The Comedy of Errors. He had his break in 1593 where he caught the attention of the Earl of Southampton who became his patron and with whom he wrote some of his greatest sonnets. Later, he went back to the theatre and he wrote “Romeo and Juliet” along with several other plays in 1594. Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616.

“Romeo and Juliet” is hailed as the world’s greatest love story as well as one of Shakespeare’s finest works. It is a story of forbidden love, a story of “star-cross’d lovers”, a story of “ancient grudge break to new mutiny”. There are two main rival families in the play; the Montagues and the Capulets. Their children, Romeo and Juliet, fall in love with each other and secretly get married. However, there is a conflict and Tybalt Capulet, who is Juliet’s cousin, stabs Mercutio, who is Romeo’s best friend and an ally of the Montagues. In a fit of blind fury, Romeo kills Tybalt and is therefore banished from Verona. Juliet’s parents try to get her married to a man called Paris, as they don’t know that she is already married. In desperation, she takes a sleeping potion that makes it look like she is dead. The plan is that she will “die” and then she can escape from Verona and join her husband. Unfortunately, Romeo doesn’t get the message right and he thinks that Juliet really is dead. So he goes back to Verona and breaks into the Capulet vault. He takes one last look at his wife and then drinks poison to kill himself. A few minutes after Romeo dies, Juliet wakes up. She sees Romeo dead and her grief is so great that she stabs herself to death too. The next day, the two families come together and see what their hate has done to their children. They finally make peace. All this happens in a space of five days.

“Romeo and Juliet” comes under the category of tragedy. However, it is actually remembered more as a romance and is not as popular as some of Shakespeare’s other tragedies with people who like that genre. As it was Shakespeare’s first major tragedy, we see that its style is very different to most of his other, more famous tragedies. In this case, the tragedy occurs as a result of the circumstances that the characters are in, rather than a fault in their personality. Critics say that this means that the characters are not as well developed as those in other tragedies such as “Macbeth”  “King Lear” or “Othello”. The focus of “Romeo and Juliet” is more on the plot than the characters. In spite of this, Shakespeare’s style of writing and his story have made “Romeo and Juliet” his most popular play. Evidence is that even today, a ladies’ man is called a Romeo.                    

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 “Romeo and Juliet” has many themes. Love, hate, violence, passion, selfishness with love being the predominant. There are several types of love in the play. There is the earlier love that Romeo had for Rosaline, which actually turned out to be infatuation and the love that Romeo and Juliet have for each other. The differences in these loves can be seen by the way Romeo speaks. “It is my Lady; O it is my love...” He says this about Juliet and we can see that it is totally different from what he said about Rosaline, “She’ll not be hit ...

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