CRITICAL REVIEW OF SHAKESPEARES ROMEO AND JULIET

This story of star-crossed lovers is one of William Shakespeares tenderest dramas.

Shakespeare is sympathetic toward Romeo and Juliet, and in attributing their tragedy to
fate, rather than to a flaw in their characters, he raises them to heights near perfection, as
well as running the risk of creating pathos, not tragedy. They are both sincere, kind,
brave, loyal, virtuous, and desperately in love, and their tragedy is greater because of
their innocence. The feud between the lovers families represents the fate that Romeo and
Juliet are powerless to overcome. The lines capture in poetry the youthful and simple
passion that characterizes the play. One of the most popular plays of all time, Romeo and
Juliet was Shakespeares second tragedy (after Titus Andronicus ).Consequently, the play
shows the sometimes artificial lyricism of early comedies such as Loves Labours
Lost (pr. c. 1594-1595, pb. 1598) and A Midsummer Nights Dream (pr. c. 1595-1596,
pb. 1600), while its character development predicts the direction of the playwrights
artistic maturity. In Shakespeares usual fashion, he based his story on sources that were
well known in his day: Masuccio Salernitanos Novellino (1475), William Painters The
Palace of Pleasure (1566-1567), and, especially, Arthur Brookes poetic The Tragical
History of Romeus and Juliet (1562). Shakespeare reduces the time of the action from the
months it takes in Brookes work to a few compact days.
In addition to following the conventional five-part structure of a tragedy, Shakespeare
employs his characteristic alternation, from scene to scene, between taking the action
forward and retarding it, often with comic relief, to heighten the dramatic impact.
Although in many respects the plays structure recalls that of the genre of the fall of
powerful men, its true prototype is tragedy as employed by Geoffrey Chaucer in Troilus
and Criseyde (c. 1382)a fall into unhappiness, on the part of more or less ordinary
people, after a fleeting period of happiness. The fall is caused traditionally and in
Shakespeares play by the workings of fortune. Insofar as Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy,
it is a tragedy of fate rather than of a tragic flaw. Although the two lovers have
weaknesses, it is not their faults, but their unlucky stars, that destroy them. As the friar
comments at the end, A greater power than we can contradict/ Hath thwarted our
intents.

Shakespeare succeeds in having the thematic structure closely parallel the dramatic form
of the play. The principal theme is that of the tension between the two houses, and all the
other oppositions of the play derive from that central one. Thus, romance is set against
revenge, love against hate, day against night, sex against war, youth against age, and
tears to fire. Juliets soliloquy in act 3, scene 2 makes it clear that it is the strife
between her family and Romeos that has turned Romeos love to death. If, at times,
Shakespeare seems to forget the family theme in his lyrical fascination with the lovers,
that fact only sets off their suffering all the more poignantly against the background of the
senseless and arbitrary strife between the Capulets and Montagues. For the families, after
all, the story has a classically comic ending; their feud is buried with the loverswhich
seems to be the intention of the fate that compels the action.
The lovers never forget their families; their consciousness of the conflict leads to another
central theme in the play, that of identity. Romeo questions his identity to Benvolio early
in the play, and Juliet asks him, Wherefore art thou Romeo? At her request he offers to
change his name and to be defined only as one star-crossed with her. Juliet, too, questions
her identity, when she speaks to the nurse after Romeos slaying of Tybalt. Romeo later
asks the friar to help him locate the lodging of his name so that he may cast it from his
hateful mansion, bringing a plague upon his own house in an ironic fulfillment of
Mercutios dying curse. Only when they are in their graves, together, do the two lovers
find peace from the persecution of being Capulet and Montague; they are remembered by
their first names only, an ironic proof that their story has the beneficial political influence
the Prince, who wants the feud to end, wishes.
Likewise, the style of the play alternates between poetic gymnastics and pure and simple
lines of deep emotion. The unrhymed iambic pentameter is filled with conceits, puns, and
wordplay, presenting both lovers as very well-spoken youngsters. Their verbal wit, in
fact, is not Shakespeares rhetorical excess but part of their characters. It fortifies the
impression the audience has of their spiritual natures, showing their love as an intellectual
appreciation of beauty combined with physical passion. Their first dialogue, for example,
is a sonnet divided between them. In no other early play is the imagery as lush and
complex, making unforgettable the balcony speech in which Romeo describes Juliet as
the sun, Juliets nightingale-lark speech, her comparison of Romeo to the day in night,

which Romeo then develops as he observes, at dawn, more light and light, more dark
and dark our woes.
At the beginning of the play Benvolio describes Romeo as a love-struck swain in the
typical pastoral fashion. He is, as the clich has it, in love with love (Rosalines name is
not even mentioned until much later). He is youthful energy seeking an outlet, sensitive
appreciation seeking a beautiful object. Mercutio and the friar comment on his fickleness.
The sight of Juliet immediately transforms Romeos immature and erotic infatuation to
true and constant love. He matures more quickly than anyone around him realizes; only
the audience understands the process, since Shakespeare makes Romeo introspective and
articulate in his monologues. Even in love, however, Romeo does not reject his former
romantic ideals. When Juliet comments, You kiss by th book, she is being astutely
perceptive; Romeos death is the death of an idealist, not of a foolhardy youth. He knows
what he is doing, his awareness growing from his comment after slaying Tybalt, O, I am
Fortunes fool.
Juliet is equally quick-witted and also has early premonitions of their sudden loves end.
She is made uniquely charming by her combination of girlish innocence with a winsome
foresight that is wise when compared to the superficial feelings expressed by her father,
mother, and Count Paris. Juliet, moreover, is realistic as well as romantic. She knows how
to exploit her womanly softness, making the audience feel both poignancy and irony
when the friar remarks, at her arrival in the wedding chapel, O, so light a foot/ Will neer
wear out the everlasting flint! It takes a strong person to carry out the friars stratagem,
after all; Juliet succeeds in the ruse partly because everyone else considers her weak in
body and in will. She is a subtle actor, telling the audience after dismissing her mother
and the nurse, My dismal scene I needs must act alone. Her quiet intelligence makes
the audiences tragic pity all the stronger when her scene becomes reality.
Shakespeare provides his lovers with effective dramatic foils in the characters of
Mercutio, the nurse, and the friar. The play, nevertheless, remains forever that of Juliet
and her Romeo.

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