Romeo&Juliet - Episode 1 - Meet the author and the play! - a podcast by Christy and Garry Shriver

Romeo & Juliet - Episode 1 - Meet the author you already know - William Shakespeare!

 

Hi, I’m Christy Shriver- and we’re here to discuss books that changed the world and changed us, please look down on your phone, below where you just scrolled through the episodes and hit the five star. It really means something in podcast world.  Also, please tell a podcast friend about us too. 

 

I’m Garry Shriver- this is the How to Love Lit Podcast. We are here in Memphis, TN, starting up school, and teachers across this city are pulling out those great beloved classes that have been synonymous with school teaching from what feels like the beginning of school- and so, as perhaps the most iconic of all classics-  Today, we begin our series on Romeo and Juliet. Christy, this might be the only Shakespeare play I ever read in school (if I read it, which is still slightly dubious).

 

HA!!  That’s about almost everyone- it is the one story everyone seems to know whether they read the play or not.  Everyone seems to love it- although many would say they don’t like reading Shakespeare. 

 

Here’s a stat for you…on any given year, there are over 410 professional companies performing Shakespeare, some of those will be performing for the whole year according to the World Shakespeare Bibliography.  That’s a lot especially when you think that these are mostly the same plays over and over again.  Let me put that number to you another way, if you spread out the performance hours in a row (which isn’t how it actually works, but just to get the image), there is a Shakespeare performance, on average, going on every hour of every day- always.

 

I’m really always intrigued by that.  If you ask people if they sit around and read Shakespeare- almost everyone would say no, but if you look at what people are performing, watching, paying to see, Shakespeare remains very popular.  In the summer he’s performed in parks all over the world.  His plays sell out everywhere.  Even here in small town Memphis, TN, we have the Tennessee Shakespeare Company that has its own theater, works in our schools and last year, even with Covid, had over 20 performances just of Romeo and Juliet with students working in classrooms with over 4000 students across our city.  Shakespeare moves everyone- and among the Shakespeare greats, Romeo and Juliet perhaps moves more than any other play.

 

 I wondered about that myself and  Googled how many Romeo and Juliet Movies there are- a. number I didn’t actually find; the IMB has catalogued at least 34 - the two most popular being the one produced by Frank Zaferelli in 1968, followed by the one that came out in 1996 starring Leonardo Di’Caprio and Claire Danes.  But of course, we can’t forget there are countless other movies and plays based on it like West Side Story which is set in New York; of course, it is a musical but it’s basically the same story. ( Which I would like to point out I played in the theater orchestra for a production of West Side Story and reading that music score was very challenging)  Christy, any theories about what makes Shakespeare so popular and what makes Romeo and Juliet the most popular of the popular?!  If you agree that it is.

 

Well, it’s definitely up there.  There are a couple of competing lists, but almost all of them have Midsummer Nights Dream, Romeo Juliet and Hamlet as the most produced plays he wrote.  And as far as to why?  It’s really amazing and I have my theories- although I will say his popularity is not universally accepted.  I was at the AP reading last year, which is this deal where AP teachers spend a week grading exams for the College Board.  Well, the lady who was reading essays next to me got in a discussion about this very thing, and she, as a very accomplished and successful English teacher, doesn’t really teach him anymore.  She thinks it’s too hard for students to understand and there are better things to do.  As for my part, I respectfully disagree.  I adore Shakespeare, and I’ll try to make the case for why he’s worth tackling all the big words for. Most of the reasons I love him have to do with all the great things he says about life, but that’s not the only reason people love him- that’s for sure, I’ll throw out a few of the easy ones- For one thing, theater people LOVE performing and sometimes really reinventing Shakespeare- in some way or another.  There are a gazillion ways you can interpret his work and, it’s always appropriate, he’s always relevant and the characters are easily adaptable- to just about any context without losing their essence.  Let me explain what I mean,  I’ve seen a bunch of different productions of Romeo and Juliet for example, one was very traditional.  One was in modern language.  One had Juliet in a wheel chair and everyone was a drug head.  One even had a happy ending- if you can believe that.  All of them were exceptional and enjoyable- you can’t really plagiarize a Shakespeare play- and not just because they’re 400 years old, but he copied the stories himself- you could say he refuses to accept the concept of plagiarism- and you just get the impression he wouldn’t care how you modified the details.  There is a certain freedom about that.  One time my Dad and I went to Nashville to watch a Shakespeare in the Park event there of a Midsummer’s Night Dream, and they had this Western theme going with all kinds of amazing musical things going on- and it was totally legit and probably my favorite Shakespeare performance to date.  It was not a parody or a travesty of his work- all the words were there- the language was even traditional- it was a celebration of his idea and an exploration of how we could look at it.  There is just an endless number of ways to do Shakespeare.  And it makes it exciting and fun.

 

Well, for the non-literary person, what do you have to say about the fact that the language is actually difficult.  Your friend was not wrong about that.  Is it really enjoyable if you have to study it or know about it ahead of time to be fun?  Because, for me, that’s a real drawback.

 

Well, I would say there is that problem- no doubt- but I would also say- there’s a nerdy fun side to the language and the more you know about the play and all the fun lines- the more fun it is- because I think we can all agree- you don’t really watch a Shakespeare play for the suspense of the surprise end.  But  I think it’s also fair to say you can still enjoy it without understanding everything- I don’t understand everything when I watch any play- sometimes even when I’ve really studied the play, but there’s slapstick humor, there’s action, there are even double-entendre’s for those who enjoy a good sexual innuendo from time to time.  Shakespeare literally wrote for all the audiences of his day.  Lots of his audience members were literally illiterate, but he also wrote for the cultured nobility- so he did have everyone in mind- and honestly, it seems there is something about people that hasn’t changed in 400 years- so we all fit within his range- and that’s kind of fun too.  The idea that some of these lines are just as true today as they were in the 1590’s is pretty crazy if you think about it.

 

Shakespeare asks questions about love and death that we ask.  He says things that we say or think, but he says them in a pretty way.  I know this sounds nerdy and unbelievable, but I actually don’t get tired of teaching Shakespeare plays, and when I teach them (which I don’t every year),but when I do I read the same lines six times a day and I don’t get tired of them- and I promise you_ I’m not that intellectual.  I’m really not.  I’m going to point this out when we read the text- the words move all of us- and I’ve seen these words move students from small town Arkansas as young as ages 14 all the way to sophisticated doctorate professors in the Globe theater. 

 

Well, I have to be honest, I’m reading these with you for the first time, and since we’re just getting started, you’re going to have to make this case for me…and although you keep trying to persuade me to stick with the original text,  I am very thankful for the good people at No Fear Shakespeare.

 

Well, I think I can bring you around, but Garry, before we swing all the way down to the land of love, Verona, Italy, and I know we need to get into the text, but since we didn’t get into Shakespeare’s life when we did Julius Caesar, without getting too into the weeds give us the short version of Shakespeare’s life and times at least as it pertains to understanding this piece.

 

Honestly, it’s super-surprising, considering how legendary he is, that he’s very much a mystery.  Some people actually think he didn’t even exist.

 

True- there is that conspiracy, but I don’t buy it- the main reason being that in 2015, my dad took me to London for a short but wonderful week long Shakespeare vacstion- and on that trip we visited Stratford upon Avon, saw the house they think he was born in, the place where his fancy house used to be, the home where his daughter lived AND his tombstone.  I walked away convinced he was a real person.

 

Well, there is a conspiracy theory for that, but I’ll let people google it, the fact remains that we know very little of any certainty about this man except for a few basic historical documents.  WE know he was born on April 23rd in 1568 in a small town called Stratford upon Avon to man named John Shakespeare, a relatively successful wool dealer and to a woman named Mary Arden (who supposedliy was of noble birth, but that’s all we know about her).  We don’t know much about his education, his youth, or childhood (there is one scandalous rumor that he got in trouble for hanging out with some local hoodlums and got into trouble for deer-steeling).

 

Oh my- that can’t be good, but maybe it indicates he’s as playful as some of his most loveable characters. 

 

We do know for sure that he married Anne Hathaway before he was even 18, a girl seven years older than he was, but we don’t know for sure if there was true love. 

 

Indeed- and people have been speculating ever since that he didn’t like her very much- which I wonder about myself.  In his will he left her his “second best bed”- which doesn’t sound nice. Also, there’s also the famous lines from 12th Night where he says, “Let still the woman take an elder than herself; so wears she to him, so sways she level in her husband’s heart: for boy, however, we do praise ourselves, our fancies are more giddy and unfirm.  More longing, wavering sooner lost and worn than women’s are.  Then let thy love be younger than thyself or they affection cannot hold the bent.”  - he seems to be saying- you’ll get tired of older womem, which all modern women would find offensive!

 

Well, and there’s the detail that she lived in Stratford and he in London for  most of the years of their married life. 

 

True, but he did go back every year and when he got rich, in 1597, he did build a really nice home there.  So, who knows.  It’s fun to speculate, and I really don’t think Shakespeare would mind at all.  In fact, I think he’d love to think that his life inspired millions of rumors. 

 

It’s just amazing that a man who enjoyed the favor of Elizabeth the first and then James the First never mind many other extremely important people would have such little documentation about his life.  His signature is on a couple of deeds, on a mortgage, on his will and that’s about it.  We don’t really even know exactly what year he retired.  We know he died on April 23rd, his birthday, ironically in 1616- but not even really of what.  The record says this, “Shakespeare, Drayton and Ben Jonson had a merie meeting, and it seems drank too hard.  Shakespeare died of a fevour there contracted.” 

 

I know, a kind of funny way to go, for a man so famous for making people merry.  It was his life’s calling, if you want to look at it that way.  If you go to Stratford, which is a darling place to go, you can go to the church to visit his grave.  It’s actually a really nice and fancy space for a little village church.  There’s a flat stone that marks the spot where he’s buried.  There are four lines that supposedly he wrote.  He said this, “Good friend, for jesus’ sake, forbeare, to dig the dust enclosed here.  Blessed be he that spares these stones, and curst be he that moves my bones.”  So it seems he didn’t want to be moved after death. 

 

And it seems no one wants to challenge or risk getting involved with that curse.  There was some discussion at one point of moving him to Westminster Abbey, but that didn’t happen.  At one point they were renovating the church, the was a place where the earth caved in and created this big problem because someone could have gotten to the bones.  No one wanted to risk getting the Shakespeare curse, so the Sexton watched over the hole in the ground for two days until they could finish the repair and seal the ground properly. 

 

That’s kind of a funny story- and sort of speaks to me of the allure, the romance, the myth- I don’t know the aura that is Shakespeare.  Well, I guess we’ve made enough of his life, we need to get to the play- Romeo and Juliet actually is one of his earlier plays.  It’s interesting, for some of us anyway, to watch Shakespeare grow up- his earlier plays are light- a lot about love, more fun, more comedy- in fact besides Titus Andronicus which is just a crazy violent unemotional play where they literally murder someone and put them in a pie to be eaten (which is its own dark comedy really)- almost all of his first 25 plays are comedies.  Of course, it could be just growing up and maturing, but if we look what was happening in his personal life, we can see that tragedy hit him and if you want to think of it this way, a shadow kind of fell on him.  The same man who was saying a “rose by any other rose would smell as well” was now saying, “To be or not to be- that is the question.”  His greatest plays, his most mature plays, of course, are considered the great tragedies: Othello, Hamlet, King Lear- and he wrote those later in life.  But Romeo and Juliet was an early play- and we can see it’s far lighter.  In fact, half of it is a comedy.  I think many scholars agree, until Tybalt’s death, there’s kind of a lightheartedness that makes you think, maybe this could go another way.

 

Well, of course, you know it won’t go another way- I’m not sure there’s a story more recognizable.  We all know it’s going to end badly, even those of us who slept through most of the classes where we read it.  Everyone knows the story.

 

So, true, but it doesn’t take away from any of it- in some sense, it’s comforting and unstressful to know they are going to die at the end.  There’s nothing worse than getting attached to a character, falling in love with them, and then the author breaking your heart by killing them unexpectedly.  So, we can detach from getting too absorbed in these two teens. Shakespeare wrote it that way on purpose- it’s like just in case, you didn’t know the story, I’m going to write a 14 spoiler read it to your right at the very first, and make sure we are all on the same page about what is going to happen before we take one step into Verona .   

 

Which to me, seems a little risky for a writer.  Was it different back in the day, did people like to know the ending (like the Greeks did)?  Because most of us get really annoyed when movie trailers give away the whole movie.  In fact, I always think if a movie producer thinks he needs to tell you the whole movie in the trailer for you to see it, then the movie must not be worth watching. 

 

Good question- and of course, in cse you don’t know what Garry’s talking about- Romeo and Juliet opens up with a prologue, and in the prologue, Shakespeare tells us the whole story.  We’re going to read it in just a minute.  For one thing, everyone DID already know the story of Romeo and Juliet.  The original creator was Matteo Bandello, an Italian writer, but Shakespeare’s source was Arthur Brooke, an English poet who had written a very popular poem called The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet which was published about 30 years before Shakespeare wrote the play version.  But that aside, There seems to be many thematic reasons for telling us the whole story first, and reasons worth thinking about,

 

 a few of which I really think we should have in our minds from the beginning before we read the play- and of course, it’s these reasons that I believe make this play particulary one of the most popular he wrote- although that’s arguable.

 

But First, to set up the story,  I want to talk about what is the difference between a comedy and a tragedy- the obvious difference being one ends in death and the other marriage.  But there’s a second difference between comedy and tragedy, that we all really feel when we read comedies and tragedies, but we don’t really notice or pay attention to.  In a tragedy- the person who experiences the sad thing is better than us.  He or she is of noble birth.  They make hard decisions and overcome things maybe we couldn’t overcome.  We feel sad because they don’t deserve what happens to them.  They are BETTER than us. The author must build the character so that we feel like they were such good people, why did they have to die. And in fact, the world is worse because a great person has fallen- if you’re American, think Abraham Lincoln- a true American tragedy.  We grieved because a great man doing a great thing was cut off.    If the protagonist isn’t noble, it’s not a tragedy becase in the words of Catherine Zeta Jones in Chicago- they had it coming.  Now let’s think about a comedy, we laugh because WE as viewers are better than the people in the play- and we can laugh AT them.  One of my favorite comedians is Jack Black, and he does such ridiculous things, and there is a sense that he does things I have thought about doing, or have done, but not in my better moments- in the moments I’m afraid to admit.  That’s what makes it funny.  Will Ferrell, your favorite comedian, does the same thing.  He’s absolutely ridiculous and in some sense every viewer who finds it funny sees himself as better than the character being created on the screen.

 

So- this is what is so unique about Romeo and Juliet- Shakespeare makes a half/comedy half/tragedy- at the beginning of this play- and pay attention to this, because Shakespeare goes to a lot of trouble of pointing this out specifically with the character of Romeo- these two are NOT better than us.  I know they are of noble birth and all that, but in reality, the first scene of the play, we laugh st Romeo.  He’s a ridiculous love-stricken teenager doing what we’ve all done in our worst moments- he pines.  His friends make horrible fun of him, and the jokes are really bawdy and inppropriate.  So, in a sense we’re better than him and we can laugh at both he and Juliet for being so impetuous.  It feels silly and something we’ve all experienced.  Juliet, although it’s more subtle has been created also in this extreme version.  One thing to find interesting, in Arthur Brooke’s original version of Romeus and Juliette- Juliette is 16- in other contemporary versions performed during that time, she was usually 18.  When Shakespeare created his version, he lowered her age significantly- he’s making these characters very specifically to be relatable and in the beginning it’s sweet, it’s endearing, but it’s also funny.  However, by the end of the play, things have changed; we have found nobility of another kind in them- and they’ve become something of heroes.  They were forced to make grown up choices, which they didn’t do very well (and we’ll talk about that), but they did pursue the right kind of things- I’ll show what that means and how that is somewhat inspirational when we get there- but it’s worth thinking about all the way thorugh.  This is a half comedy and a half tragedy. 

 

 Romeo and Juliet is one of the few Shakespeare plays that has a prologue- I think only six do, and Romeo and Juliet is the only one with the big Spoiler.  Most prologues are setting up the story in some way- but here Shakepeare just gives away the whole story.  So, don’t think these prologue things are just  think Shakespeare did.  The Romeo and Juliet prologue is unique- although I will say not every version includes it. 

 

Well, I’m afraid we’re letting the time get away so I think this may be a good place to start with the text- there’s more to set up- but why not let the Bard of Avon have a say and set it up for us?

 

Okay- but one more thing- why we do call Shakespeare the Bard.  Where did that come from? 

 

Well, FYI- of course, as with all things-it’s a little contested.  The Scots will tell you that Robert Burns is the Bard (go listen to our podcast on him for that discussion)- so there is a little saltiness perhaps in giving that title solely to Shakespeare.  He’s definitely the Bard of Avon-but Avon is kind of a little place- he’s somewhat outgrown it. The word Bard means poet. Some say this actor  David Garrik gave him the title when he said'For the bard of all bards was a Warwickshire Bard'. I really don’t know.  He’s the poet of poets- so to speak, but honestly-- it is all part of the myth and mystery which is Shakespeare.

 

Okay- let’s do the prologue

 

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

 

 

Well, there’s a lot here- in fact- all the major themes are here- but we’ll take those one episode at a time.  But the first thing to say is that this prologue is written as a sonnet.  That means a lot of things, and I’m sure we’ll do way more podcasts on sonnets in general, but if you’re interested go back and listen to the one we did on Ozymandias by Percy Shelley.  But what to take away here- for one thing- Sonnets are really regimented- they have lots of rules to follow- and that is one thing that connects them to what this play is about.  For starters, remember how you just called Shakespeare the Bard- he considered himself a poet- and remember what poets do- they use structure, punctuation all the details of every word to take you to their main idea.  Well, this play is about love (as sonnets most always are) (sonnets are from Italy too, btw as is our play, but that may be going one step too far- but- Rome and juliet the play is about the rules of love- but it’s also about what happens when you break those rules of love. If we just take a cursory look at just the words- look at all the contrasts- there’s a lot about death in this sonnet about love…there’s. grudge, a misadventure, death-marked love- rage, toil…but the underlying motivating theme of a sonnet is love and so is this play.  The word love itself is uttered 128 times (mostly by Romeo, btw, 44 times but Juliet isn’t far behind with 33 utterances of the word.  This is play about the nature of love- and not just any kind of love, not the love of God, the love of a mother, the love of country- we’re talking about the good stuff- eros, to use the Greek word- romantic love.

 

 Another point to take away from structure and points to love is that Almost all of this play is written in Blank Verse

 

- what does that mean?

 

It means it’s written in iambic pentameter- just like this sonnet is- ba-rump barpum barpum and  Pretty much every single dang line in this entire play has ten syllables to it, AND every other syllable is accented.  The whole thing beats to the beat of the human heart- true true love indeed. Oh and one more detail

 

Listen to the line “Two households, both alike in dignity.- it beats from the very beginning to the beat of our hearts- all of our hearts- isn’t that sweet.

 

It’s also sweet that this play is set in the beautiful Italian city of Verona- what a romantic setting.  Want to tell us about Verona?

 

Of course, I do, although you’re the one who’s been there.  It’s one of the most romantic cities in the world- a setting for not one but two Shakespeare plays, even though the town isn’t all that large, today a quarter of a million people call it home, about the same size as Venice, if you want to compare it to something.  Also, like Venice, People flock there literally by the millions.  It’s in Northern Italy, about halfway between, Milan,a larger city and the center of the fashion world, and Venice- the city with all the canals, another one of the world’s most romantic places as well as another setting for a different Shakespeare play. A Merchant in Venice.  But what’s fun about the whole Verona thing is that the town has a kind of magic about it that in part has to do with Romeo and Juliet although even without all the magic of Romeo and Juliet, it has its own amazing history.  There’s actually a very large Roman amphitheater there- it’s fairly well preserved and they have outdoor operas there every year, as many as 15,000 people can fit inside.  But of course, what it’s most famous for, at least for Americans, but I think for lots of people around the world is Juliet’s house.

 

Well, I have to be honest, that’s where my daughters and I wanted to go- and we went there because of that other wonderful movie “Letters to Juliet”- I had no idea before watching that movie that there are so many people who write letters to Juliet and there are women who actually write you back.  It’s one of the things about the world that makes you love humanity.  So kind and so fun.  And going there did not disappoint.  It's amazingly romantic. 

 

Which is even more incredible, considering Juliet is a fictional character!!!!  She never lived at all, but people write her and she writes them back.  You can see her balcony, her courtyard, even her tomb.  That’s impressive for someone who didn’t exist.

 

Now back up, we don’t know that for sure  Matteo Badello, the originator of the story, was a monk from the late 1400s, and what we know about Bodello is that most of his stories were actually TRUE.  So, I’m saying she’s real.  If you take the Verona walking tour they will tell you as much. There was a family named the Del Capelli’s and they had a daughter and a residience in Verona in the 1300’s.  I’m not just saying that because I’m being romantic about it, although, as you know, I’m not above that, but I really kind of bought the narrative and I’m sticking with the story that these were real people at one time.

 

HA!  Okay- fair enough.  Now, I know I’m not a Shakespearean scholar, and I’m talking out of my area of expertise, but another thing I noticed in the literature is that Shakespeare’s tragedies are mostly political- think Julius Caesar, Hamlet, King Lear, McBeth, all those Henrys and Richards. They are about political themes and happenings in the context of big world events like taking over Rome, in the case of Julius Caesar. And his comedies are about love- and they are usually set OUTSIDE politics, sometimes outside the entire world like in the woods- I’m thinking Midsummer’s Night Dream- but they all seem like that.  But with Romeo and Juliet, we seem to be seeing both-in a sense- it’s not political, like there are no wars going on, there are no kings or generals- but there is drama- and there is the context of some politics in the story- it’s not us versus an outside invader, it’s an ancient grudge- family stuff- stuff that in some sense- didn’t’ really need to happen…or maybe it did- it’s fate- there’s that mention.  But it seems like there is a political context to this story.

 

And here we get into the good stuff- and things to think about as we move forward.  At the time of Shakespeare love/ marriage- all that stuff is looked at differently than today.  Garry give us a little history on how Shakespeare and his audiences would have thought about the politics of love and marriage.

 

 For one thing, women were nothing in the world- literally property.  You could fall in love with the person you were married to, but that would be lucky, and definitely not a requirement.  Women had zero way of supporting themselves except through marriage, so this was the main concern of any loving father.  You legitimized and created higher social rank through marriage.  It was actually legal to get married if you were a girl at the age of 12, for a boy at the age of 14.  However, having said that- that didn’t happen very much.  Most people waited and the average age for a girl to get married was between 20-29- that’s not all that different than America today where the average is 27 (although I will say, for our British audiences, you guys have changed a bit, the average age in England is 37.  The main difference between marriage today and marriage in Elizabeth England is that today we DO marry for love, and not for politics- or social status.

 

Well, I think that is one ide that really resonates today with so many across time and place. How many children today fall in love with someone who is not their social status: either because of money, religion, even race.  I was at Kroger during the quarantine and a couple of former students were there.  They were getting groceries for a picnic and we got to tlking.  I asked what they were up to and they flst out said, Mrs. Shriver, we’re Romeo and Juliet.  What they meant by thst was not that they were planning their own deaths, but that their families did not accept their relationship and the reasons were social, political, however you want to view it in the traditional sense.  So, you can see this play as challenging the traditional norms of the relationship between love and politics with what we might today call more modern ones. 

 

So, getting back to the love thing- I would assume then, that Shakespeare dropping Juliet’s age down to 13 would have caught the attention of the audiences- and they would have had a grossed out reaction- like – oh that’s just wrong.  That attitude being- too much- that’s too far.

 

 I think that’s absolutely the right reaction.  The father has traded in his daughter for politics- what he’s doing is not a sign of taking care of her, but of using her and tht gets us back to politics.  The play doesn’t really start off tlking about love, it starts off tslking about politics.

 

Very true- we begin, just like in Julius Caesar, with common people.  In Julius Caesar, there were working guys out partying in this play, they’re servants- and one thing that I thought was weird is that they have British names- whereas the noble families have Italian names- explain that.

 

Yeah, I’m not really sure- but since we’re moving into the play (although I may want to bounce back to the prologue in a bit)- we see that these servants somewhat show us that this grudge isn’t something that isn’t or shouldn’t be a big deal.  The grudge is called “Ancient” with no explanation as to the reason for it- and the servants fight for apparently no reason at all.  Also, when the servants talk about it, it’s just a bunch of silly mouthing. 

 

It reminds me of teenagers in the halls, “A dog of that house shall move me to stand”. I will take the wall of any man of maid of Montagues.”  Then they start talking about thrusting the maidens to the walls- this is trash talk.

 

Total trash talk, they talk about their tools- their naked weapons- double-entendres abound- although my favorite line is this one and not sexual in nature.  GREGORY says this, I will rom as I pass by (talking about when the Montagues are passing by)- and then they pass by- let’s read it.  Remember, by the way that biting your thumb at someone is the same as flipping them off for us.  But it does make it sounds the more silly. 

Read page nine

 

And here we’re introduced to two main characters besides Romeo and Juliet- and I want to make one more mention of a change Shakespeare made from the original Romeo and Juliet story- he changed the names of these two characters

 

We have Benvolio- Ben means Good- that’s the root of the word.

And then he changed this name Tybalt- which had to do with another populsr play at the time, but it was synonomous with being a rat- he’s just not a nice guy.  So, we have a clear distinction between who is the good guy and who is the bad.  Who wants peace, and who is just angry for. No reason.

 

And here is where I want us to end for today, we will get into the plot of the play next week, and hopefully gain some ground.  Romeo is dropped into this political world, but he doesn’t want it- just like a lot of young people.    He doesn’t care anything about anybody’s feud.  He doesn’t even have a sense or interest in right and wrong like Benvolio or Tybalt.  Let’s read his lines a short while later after the Prince breaks up the fight with the servants – while everyone else is worrying about the outside world, Romeo has locked himself into a room to make an “artificial night” (which by the way will be a motif through the play)- but he’s in the dark hiding away from everything – pining over his love for Rosaline, a cousin of Juliet.  He’s all sad, Benvolio asks what’s wrong and he says this

 

(page 19)- Garry reads

 

So many oxymorons- brawling love, loving hate, feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health.  And it gets better read on

 

Garry reads the next lines.

 

And here we have Romeo and the comedic character- he’s hilarious.  It’s all the end of the world for him because Rosaline won’t sleep with him.  “She is rich in beauty, only poor that when she dies, with beauty dies her store.”  Benvolio says, “She hath sworn that she will still live chaste?”  to which Romeo says…..page 21

 

Well, Benvolio gives him the best advice ever- “Forget to think of her...”Romeo asks how and he says, “By giving liberty unto thine eyes.  Examine other beauties.”

 

And of course, scene one ends with them off to the chase.  The Barney character, if you like that show How I Met Your Mother- let me get you a girl!!!

 

And here’s the point I want to make by way of closing us out today.  Romeo is a kid.  He’s an average kid, not ambitious, not necessarily super virtuous obviously, definitely not evil.  He’s someone we can laugh at- but this, as we are told in the prologue, is not a comedy. This is not a story that will end in marriage.  It’s a tragedy, it’s about someone who is noble, and so we have to ask- why we do love this play- here’s my final thought on thst for today- we love this play- because one of the big ideas that pervades this play- is that there is nobility in all of us.  And I think there really is.  This is a true idea.  But where does it come from, and how do we awaken it- somehow that is the idea that connects us to love.  It is love, in this case, eros- romantic love, but maybe it broadens out father than that- but in this play it is eros- that can turn us into a hero.  We are just average, but when we are in love, we can dream great things, fight great fights, stand up to great authorities, and in the end, we don’t even care how it ends- it was worth it.  And that is the sweet endearing idea we are going to think about for the next five acts.  The language is hard, it will definitely take us more than the two hours Shakespere promises in the prologue- but if we too have patience, “What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.” 

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