ROMEO E JULIET

SETTINGS
Shakespeare chose Verona as the setting of this play because, to an Elizabethan audience , Italy was a place of mysterious murderous
feuds and passionate love affairs.
CHARACTERS
Romeo Montague is a man belonging to the courtly love convention. He respects a lady who is chaste and impossible to be with. Juliet
Capulet is beautiful, kind, loving and determined. She shows her independence and strength in her spontaneous declarations of love and
desire for Romeo. She is not an idealised character; she is a real woman. She is not afraid of making brave decisions.
THEMES
 Love, fate and death - Romeo and Juliet are 'star crossed lovers', meaning that their love will end tragically.
 Age and youth - The gap between the parents and children causes confusion, misunderstandings and mistakes. During the course of the
play, the children seem to get more rebellious. Their secret marriage seem very romantic, but it also means going against the wishes of
their parents and breaking away from their families.
IMAGERY
In the first act, Romeo uses the image of light, typical of courtly love. He compares Juliet to the light of torches. From the second act
onwards, there is a progression towards darkness, which becomes one of the central images.
ROMEO E GIULIETTA: ANALYSIS
1. JULIET IDENTITY
Juliet's is characterized by a double identity, because she has a public identity with Romeo and the object agency with her mother and her
nurse.In theater representation there is a balcony while in the original play/ book there is a window that represent a boundary between
Juliet's internal in the external reality.
2. THE IMPORTANCE OF A NAME
Juliet asks Romeo to change his “name” because Juliet knows that Romeo’s surname is her enemy (Montague). Juliet explains that if you
change your name to a rose (flower) the essence of those doesn't change, in the same way if Romeo change his “name” is essence doesn't
change.The name is only a label that is imposed by society and it can be modified.
3. TIME
Is very important because it is considered at destroyer: Romeo and Juliet die because of time. According to the french philosopher Bergson
we can consider it two types of time: “time of the clock”, that is a chronological time, and “time of art” that doesn't Decay because art in
general, and poetry in particular, animal. If the messenger, sent by Friar Lawrence, had arrived on time in Mantua, or if Romeo
had arrived a few minutes later on Juliet’s tomb, or if Juliet had awakened a few minutes earlier, we would have had a happy ending and
not a tragedy.
4. Romeo and Juliet's death is useful because when they die their families have the possibility to restabilish peace and conciliation. When
Romeo and Juliet die they are able to abolish time and can achieve the eternity by becoming “works of art”.
HAMLET
A REVENGE TRAGEDY
All tragedies derived from the Greek plays. The hero has to carry out the revenge. He usually has a period of doubt, which involves
complex planning. Other common features include the appearance of a ghost and the hero's close relationship with the audience through
soliloquies and asides. The play includes a lot of psychological insight, through the reflections of the hero.
HAMLET'S LANGUAGE
Hamlet is very talkative. The most striking characteristic of his language is its ambiguity. Everything he says is conveyed through metaphor,
simile and, above all, wordplay. His words have a hidden meaning.
A RELUCTANT AVENGER
Hamlet fails to keep his promise to his father to avenge his murder until the final act. There is also Hamlet's habit of delaying things.
Hamlet himself is confused by his inability to act quickly. He says he is afflicted by a form of depression, which was called “melancholy” in
Shakespeare's day. His constant doubt about his role as avenger also expresses his rejection of a barbaric way of life-whose corruption,
injustice and inhumanity he finds intolerable. Shakespeare lets Hamlet avenge his father in the end.
THEMES
Hamlet could be read simply as a revenge tragedy. Shakespeare develops a series of themes that are central to humanity, family and love
relationships, madness, action and inaction, the existence of God, life after death, and the meaning of the theatre itself. Another
important theme is “honour”. Shakespeare makes it clear that any action to correct a wrong should be reasoned, not emotional. Justice is
finally reached through the various deaths and the ascent of Fortinbras to the throne. Another key word is ambition that can be found
Claudius who usurped his brother crown.