Sudhir Kakar and John Munder Ross
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198072560
- eISBN:
- 9780199082124
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198072560.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a classic verging on a latter-day myth. The story of the star-crossed young lovers, whose purity of feeling and spirit were betrayed by cruel fate and ...
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William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a classic verging on a latter-day myth. The story of the star-crossed young lovers, whose purity of feeling and spirit were betrayed by cruel fate and misguided relatives, is seen as an archetype of passion laid low by petty vanity masquerading as kinship honour. This chapter argues that Romeo and Juliet is neither about innocence (betrayed) nor about the romantic absorption and tenderness of young love, as depicted in the Western cultural tradition. Rather, the play has as its theme a singular aspect of erotic union: its savagery when denied. It also shows the violence inherent in the frustrated femininity of men and of their carnivorousness once they taste a woman's beauty and are then prevented from experiencing it again.Less
William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a classic verging on a latter-day myth. The story of the star-crossed young lovers, whose purity of feeling and spirit were betrayed by cruel fate and misguided relatives, is seen as an archetype of passion laid low by petty vanity masquerading as kinship honour. This chapter argues that Romeo and Juliet is neither about innocence (betrayed) nor about the romantic absorption and tenderness of young love, as depicted in the Western cultural tradition. Rather, the play has as its theme a singular aspect of erotic union: its savagery when denied. It also shows the violence inherent in the frustrated femininity of men and of their carnivorousness once they taste a woman's beauty and are then prevented from experiencing it again.
Beatrice Groves
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199208982
- eISBN:
- 9780191706158
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199208982.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
This chapter establishes a previously unrecognized allusion to Easter, and the Easter sepulchre, in Romeo and Juliet. It argues that the religious echoes confer sanctity on the young couple and ...
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This chapter establishes a previously unrecognized allusion to Easter, and the Easter sepulchre, in Romeo and Juliet. It argues that the religious echoes confer sanctity on the young couple and encourages the audience expectation that Juliet will rise from her tomb. The paschal motif strengthens the comedic impulse of the play, created through comic characters and the subject matter of young love, and so increases the powerful shock of the tragic ending.Less
This chapter establishes a previously unrecognized allusion to Easter, and the Easter sepulchre, in Romeo and Juliet. It argues that the religious echoes confer sanctity on the young couple and encourages the audience expectation that Juliet will rise from her tomb. The paschal motif strengthens the comedic impulse of the play, created through comic characters and the subject matter of young love, and so increases the powerful shock of the tragic ending.
Ramie Targoff
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226789590
- eISBN:
- 9780226110462
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226110462.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter addresses Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the single literary work that best captures the mortal poetics at the center of this book. In Shakespeare’s sources for the play—Italian stories ...
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This chapter addresses Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the single literary work that best captures the mortal poetics at the center of this book. In Shakespeare’s sources for the play—Italian stories that circulated widely both on the continent and in England—the characters Romeo and Giulietta anticipated that, following their deaths, their souls would immediately be reunited in heaven. The tragedy in these versions was at least partially softened by the idea that the lovers would share some form of meaningful afterlife. When Shakespeare reworked these materials, he stripped away any expectation that Romeo and Juliet’s love might continue posthumously. The profoundly terminal nature of Romeo and Juliet’s love is not simply understood as a loss, however: it is also their love’s enabling condition. This play is the period’s strongest example of both the poetic and emotional power that comes from denying any form of erotic transcendence. The chapter concludes with a brief consideration of Antony and Cleopatra, in which Shakespeare revisits the question of two lovers’ suicides and their prospects for the afterlife within a pagan, not Christian, context.Less
This chapter addresses Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the single literary work that best captures the mortal poetics at the center of this book. In Shakespeare’s sources for the play—Italian stories that circulated widely both on the continent and in England—the characters Romeo and Giulietta anticipated that, following their deaths, their souls would immediately be reunited in heaven. The tragedy in these versions was at least partially softened by the idea that the lovers would share some form of meaningful afterlife. When Shakespeare reworked these materials, he stripped away any expectation that Romeo and Juliet’s love might continue posthumously. The profoundly terminal nature of Romeo and Juliet’s love is not simply understood as a loss, however: it is also their love’s enabling condition. This play is the period’s strongest example of both the poetic and emotional power that comes from denying any form of erotic transcendence. The chapter concludes with a brief consideration of Antony and Cleopatra, in which Shakespeare revisits the question of two lovers’ suicides and their prospects for the afterlife within a pagan, not Christian, context.
Tanya Pollard
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199270835
- eISBN:
- 9780191710322
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199270835.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter considers the juxtaposition of sleeping potions and poisons, and their parallels with the uneasy relationship between comedy and tragedy in two plays by Shakespeare. In Romeo and Juliet, ...
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This chapter considers the juxtaposition of sleeping potions and poisons, and their parallels with the uneasy relationship between comedy and tragedy in two plays by Shakespeare. In Romeo and Juliet, the typically comic devices of the sleeping potion and the false death meet with fatal complications. Similarly, in Antony and Cleopatra, references to narcotically induced oblivion are identified with the seductive pleasures of Egypt and Cleopatra, yet ultimately lead to the lovers’ deaths rather than the happy ending of comedy. The chapter frames its readings of the plays around contemporary medical debates about narcotic drugs such as opium and mandragora. Looking at complaints from anti-theatrical tracts about the theater’s capacity to lull spectators into sleepy oblivion, it shows how the escapism of the theater was identified with the dangers of pleasurable narcotics.Less
This chapter considers the juxtaposition of sleeping potions and poisons, and their parallels with the uneasy relationship between comedy and tragedy in two plays by Shakespeare. In Romeo and Juliet, the typically comic devices of the sleeping potion and the false death meet with fatal complications. Similarly, in Antony and Cleopatra, references to narcotically induced oblivion are identified with the seductive pleasures of Egypt and Cleopatra, yet ultimately lead to the lovers’ deaths rather than the happy ending of comedy. The chapter frames its readings of the plays around contemporary medical debates about narcotic drugs such as opium and mandragora. Looking at complaints from anti-theatrical tracts about the theater’s capacity to lull spectators into sleepy oblivion, it shows how the escapism of the theater was identified with the dangers of pleasurable narcotics.
R. S. White
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719099748
- eISBN:
- 9781526121165
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719099748.003.0007
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Romeo and Juliet is the most obvious example of a single play by Shakespeare influencing a myriad of movies, to the extent that we can recognize a ‘romeo-and-juliet’ genre film even when Shakespeare ...
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Romeo and Juliet is the most obvious example of a single play by Shakespeare influencing a myriad of movies, to the extent that we can recognize a ‘romeo-and-juliet’ genre film even when Shakespeare is not referenced. Although the tales of romantic tragedy go much further back than Shakespeare, it is his version which has proved the most durable in its specific conventions and the kind of love represented in it. There have been a series of watershed film adaptations of the play itself, such as those by Cukor, Zeffirelli, and Luhrman, but this chapter takes the occasion to trace the play’s more subtle and indirect influence into films made in a range of countries, the United States, the Czech Republic, Wales, and India.Less
Romeo and Juliet is the most obvious example of a single play by Shakespeare influencing a myriad of movies, to the extent that we can recognize a ‘romeo-and-juliet’ genre film even when Shakespeare is not referenced. Although the tales of romantic tragedy go much further back than Shakespeare, it is his version which has proved the most durable in its specific conventions and the kind of love represented in it. There have been a series of watershed film adaptations of the play itself, such as those by Cukor, Zeffirelli, and Luhrman, but this chapter takes the occasion to trace the play’s more subtle and indirect influence into films made in a range of countries, the United States, the Czech Republic, Wales, and India.
Eric Langley
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199541232
- eISBN:
- 9780191716072
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199541232.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, Shakespeare Studies
This chapter moves discussion from the self‐reflections of Narcissus to the self‐destructive action of the suicidal subject. It examines rhetorical figures of repetition in Shakespeare's Romeo and ...
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This chapter moves discussion from the self‐reflections of Narcissus to the self‐destructive action of the suicidal subject. It examines rhetorical figures of repetition in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and its source‐texts to show how a dynamic of sympathy, reciprocation, or bandying has dangerous and aggressive potential. The eroticized suicide of the loving couple is understood in relation to its civil war context, blurring distinctions between the martial and erotic.Less
This chapter moves discussion from the self‐reflections of Narcissus to the self‐destructive action of the suicidal subject. It examines rhetorical figures of repetition in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and its source‐texts to show how a dynamic of sympathy, reciprocation, or bandying has dangerous and aggressive potential. The eroticized suicide of the loving couple is understood in relation to its civil war context, blurring distinctions between the martial and erotic.
Jürgen Pieters
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- January 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781474456555
- eISBN:
- 9781399501996
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474456555.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The chapter starts off from Laura Bates’ Shakespeare saved my Life, the story of murder convict Larry Newton’s salutary encounter with the works of Shakespeare. It then moves on to a sustained ...
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The chapter starts off from Laura Bates’ Shakespeare saved my Life, the story of murder convict Larry Newton’s salutary encounter with the works of Shakespeare. It then moves on to a sustained reading of a number of scenes in four different plays by Shakespeare in which attempts at consolation significantly fail (Hamlet, Richard II, Measure for Measure and Romeo and Juliet). Drawing on writings by German philosopher Hans Blumenberg and Swedish author Stig Dagerman, the experience of failed consolation and inconsolability are identified as typical of the modern regime of comfort.Less
The chapter starts off from Laura Bates’ Shakespeare saved my Life, the story of murder convict Larry Newton’s salutary encounter with the works of Shakespeare. It then moves on to a sustained reading of a number of scenes in four different plays by Shakespeare in which attempts at consolation significantly fail (Hamlet, Richard II, Measure for Measure and Romeo and Juliet). Drawing on writings by German philosopher Hans Blumenberg and Swedish author Stig Dagerman, the experience of failed consolation and inconsolability are identified as typical of the modern regime of comfort.
Pamela Allen Brown
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- December 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780198867838
- eISBN:
- 9780191904523
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198867838.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature, European Literature
Shakespeareans stereotype the comici as bawdy masked clowns, not knowing that leading Italian companies played prestigious tragedy as well as comedy and pastoral. The unmasked actress capable of ...
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Shakespeareans stereotype the comici as bawdy masked clowns, not knowing that leading Italian companies played prestigious tragedy as well as comedy and pastoral. The unmasked actress capable of stirring pathos and desire enabled them to change their repertory and their fortunes. Most Italian tragedies had female heroines, but they were long and static, so the diva set about cutting and adapting them; they also borrowed tragic stories from romance epics and the novella. They produced showpieces full of extreme passions, plangent laments, and violent words and deeds. This new style reached England and altered tragic playwriting in works by Marlowe, Marston, Webster, and others. Two groundbreaking roles—Bel-imperia in Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, worlds apart in most ways—share the profile of the audacious, strong-willed, eloquent, and artful innamorata whose spectacular life and death reflect the unusual autonomy and theatrical brilliance of the tragic diva.Less
Shakespeareans stereotype the comici as bawdy masked clowns, not knowing that leading Italian companies played prestigious tragedy as well as comedy and pastoral. The unmasked actress capable of stirring pathos and desire enabled them to change their repertory and their fortunes. Most Italian tragedies had female heroines, but they were long and static, so the diva set about cutting and adapting them; they also borrowed tragic stories from romance epics and the novella. They produced showpieces full of extreme passions, plangent laments, and violent words and deeds. This new style reached England and altered tragic playwriting in works by Marlowe, Marston, Webster, and others. Two groundbreaking roles—Bel-imperia in Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, worlds apart in most ways—share the profile of the audacious, strong-willed, eloquent, and artful innamorata whose spectacular life and death reflect the unusual autonomy and theatrical brilliance of the tragic diva.
Julia Reinhard Lupton
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226266015
- eISBN:
- 9780226266152
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226266152.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter argues that Romeo and Juliet stages architecture in the dynamic mode of dramaturgy, using the scripts of hospitality and urban space. In Romeo and Juliet, hospitality plots the gestures ...
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This chapter argues that Romeo and Juliet stages architecture in the dynamic mode of dramaturgy, using the scripts of hospitality and urban space. In Romeo and Juliet, hospitality plots the gestures of entry, exit, offering, and encounter and orchestrates the local affordances of the objects that erect and maintain the environments of entertainment. Throughout the play, Shakespeare’s poetic imagery cues action and inspires future scenographic invention. Reading dramaturgy in Romeo and Juliet encompasses a range of entries into the play, from concrete moments of staging and their immediate thematization in the text to the more diffuse spatial sensibilities manifested by Romeo, Juliet, Capulet, and the Nurse as they move through their affordance-laden world. The chapter draws on spatial studies by Kevin Lynch and Edward T. Hall.Less
This chapter argues that Romeo and Juliet stages architecture in the dynamic mode of dramaturgy, using the scripts of hospitality and urban space. In Romeo and Juliet, hospitality plots the gestures of entry, exit, offering, and encounter and orchestrates the local affordances of the objects that erect and maintain the environments of entertainment. Throughout the play, Shakespeare’s poetic imagery cues action and inspires future scenographic invention. Reading dramaturgy in Romeo and Juliet encompasses a range of entries into the play, from concrete moments of staging and their immediate thematization in the text to the more diffuse spatial sensibilities manifested by Romeo, Juliet, Capulet, and the Nurse as they move through their affordance-laden world. The chapter draws on spatial studies by Kevin Lynch and Edward T. Hall.
Simon Morrison
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195181678
- eISBN:
- 9780199870806
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195181678.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
In 1936, Sergey Prokofiev relocated from France to Soviet Russia, a period marked by the marshalling of musical activities under the auspices of the All-Union Committee on Arts Affairs. The composer, ...
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In 1936, Sergey Prokofiev relocated from France to Soviet Russia, a period marked by the marshalling of musical activities under the auspices of the All-Union Committee on Arts Affairs. The composer, an international celebrity, perplexed his Parisian colleagues by migrating to a totalitarian state whose cultural institutions discouraged creative experiment and fulminated against Western modernism. And indeed while valued by the Stalinist regime and supported by its cultural institutions, he suffered correction and censorship, the result being a gradual sapping of his creating energies. Prokofiev revised and re-revised his theatrical works in an effort to see them staged, but his labors often went to waste. Following his official censure in a political and financial scandal in 1948, jittery concert and theater managers pulled his works from the repertoire. This book provides a detailed chronicle of Prokofiev's career from 1932 to 1953 based on research conducted at the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, the Russian State Archive of Social-Political History, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, and several other Russian archives. Beyond furnishing new information about Prokofiev's 1936 relocation and the devastating loss of his ability to travel abroad, the book documents the composer's negative and positive interactions with Stalinist officials, the mandated rewriting of such major works as Romeo and Juliet and War and Peace, and his spiritual and aesthetic views.Less
In 1936, Sergey Prokofiev relocated from France to Soviet Russia, a period marked by the marshalling of musical activities under the auspices of the All-Union Committee on Arts Affairs. The composer, an international celebrity, perplexed his Parisian colleagues by migrating to a totalitarian state whose cultural institutions discouraged creative experiment and fulminated against Western modernism. And indeed while valued by the Stalinist regime and supported by its cultural institutions, he suffered correction and censorship, the result being a gradual sapping of his creating energies. Prokofiev revised and re-revised his theatrical works in an effort to see them staged, but his labors often went to waste. Following his official censure in a political and financial scandal in 1948, jittery concert and theater managers pulled his works from the repertoire. This book provides a detailed chronicle of Prokofiev's career from 1932 to 1953 based on research conducted at the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, the Russian State Archive of Social-Political History, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, and several other Russian archives. Beyond furnishing new information about Prokofiev's 1936 relocation and the devastating loss of his ability to travel abroad, the book documents the composer's negative and positive interactions with Stalinist officials, the mandated rewriting of such major works as Romeo and Juliet and War and Peace, and his spiritual and aesthetic views.
Sophie Chiari
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474442527
- eISBN:
- 9781474459709
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474442527.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
In Romeo and Juliet (1595-96), weather and humoural determinism play a central role with the background references to the dog days that may, up to a certain extent, be held responsible for both ...
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In Romeo and Juliet (1595-96), weather and humoural determinism play a central role with the background references to the dog days that may, up to a certain extent, be held responsible for both plague and misrule so that, beyond bad luck or misfortune, the influence of the stars turns out to be preponderant in the lovers’ fate. In such a context, the play’s heavenly signs take on an importance almost equal to that of the earthly events, to the point that heat may be considered as a major actor in the tragedy. As an anagram of ‘hate’, ‘heat’ overdetermines the climate of the play. Both words foreshadow the flare up of violence in Verona, leading Romeo and Juliet to be trapped in an overall astronomical, humoural, and climatic pattern giving them virtually no chance to escape the stifling air of Verona. Besides, the chapter suggests that light and lightning, omnipresent in the tragedy, also emphasise the violence of passions and reinforce the inevitability of the lovers’ final death march inscribed in the sonnet prologue.Less
In Romeo and Juliet (1595-96), weather and humoural determinism play a central role with the background references to the dog days that may, up to a certain extent, be held responsible for both plague and misrule so that, beyond bad luck or misfortune, the influence of the stars turns out to be preponderant in the lovers’ fate. In such a context, the play’s heavenly signs take on an importance almost equal to that of the earthly events, to the point that heat may be considered as a major actor in the tragedy. As an anagram of ‘hate’, ‘heat’ overdetermines the climate of the play. Both words foreshadow the flare up of violence in Verona, leading Romeo and Juliet to be trapped in an overall astronomical, humoural, and climatic pattern giving them virtually no chance to escape the stifling air of Verona. Besides, the chapter suggests that light and lightning, omnipresent in the tragedy, also emphasise the violence of passions and reinforce the inevitability of the lovers’ final death march inscribed in the sonnet prologue.
Suparna Roychoudhury
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781501726552
- eISBN:
- 9781501726569
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501726552.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
In early modern religious discourse, the fantasy is often associated with vanity and nothingness. Yet, notions of matter and void would become complicated by sixteenth-century atomism—including the ...
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In early modern religious discourse, the fantasy is often associated with vanity and nothingness. Yet, notions of matter and void would become complicated by sixteenth-century atomism—including the revived materialist philosophy of Lucretius—which posited a universe made up of invisible whirling particles. This chapter notes that phantasms in Renaissance literature are often figured as flies and worms, echoing the language of Lucretius. Accordingly, Romeo and Juliet imagines the particulate texture of dreams and death in terms of webs and fumes; the culmination of this play’s pervasive imagery of thin substances is Mercutio’s portrait of the fairy queen Mab. Only through metaphor, suggests Shakespeare, can we grasp the fundamental, insensible realities of the material universe.Less
In early modern religious discourse, the fantasy is often associated with vanity and nothingness. Yet, notions of matter and void would become complicated by sixteenth-century atomism—including the revived materialist philosophy of Lucretius—which posited a universe made up of invisible whirling particles. This chapter notes that phantasms in Renaissance literature are often figured as flies and worms, echoing the language of Lucretius. Accordingly, Romeo and Juliet imagines the particulate texture of dreams and death in terms of webs and fumes; the culmination of this play’s pervasive imagery of thin substances is Mercutio’s portrait of the fairy queen Mab. Only through metaphor, suggests Shakespeare, can we grasp the fundamental, insensible realities of the material universe.
Lynette Hunter and Peter Lichtenfels
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780853236740
- eISBN:
- 9781846314285
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9780853236740.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter explores the nature of ‘character’ and its translation and transposition in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In particular, it looks at the translation of the characters' roles ...
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This chapter explores the nature of ‘character’ and its translation and transposition in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In particular, it looks at the translation of the characters' roles from the page to the stage and a reversed translation from stage practice to reading strategy. It discusses methods used by the actor for translating a part from the page into an engaged and engaging individual on the stage. The two versions of Romeo and Juliet, Quarto one (Q1) and Quarto two (Q2), offer different approaches to character as well as differing resources to the actor developing an individual. The chapter argues that, like some readings, many productions founder on the idea of type and stereotype. It then considers how the process of acting and directing can insist on character rather than stereotype.Less
This chapter explores the nature of ‘character’ and its translation and transposition in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In particular, it looks at the translation of the characters' roles from the page to the stage and a reversed translation from stage practice to reading strategy. It discusses methods used by the actor for translating a part from the page into an engaged and engaging individual on the stage. The two versions of Romeo and Juliet, Quarto one (Q1) and Quarto two (Q2), offer different approaches to character as well as differing resources to the actor developing an individual. The chapter argues that, like some readings, many productions founder on the idea of type and stereotype. It then considers how the process of acting and directing can insist on character rather than stereotype.
Barbara M. Kennedy
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748611348
- eISBN:
- 9780748652310
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748611348.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
This chapter examines the film Romeo and Juliet in the context of Gilles Deleuze's concept of sensations, suggesting that at the narrative and ideological level, the film seems to discredit romantic ...
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This chapter examines the film Romeo and Juliet in the context of Gilles Deleuze's concept of sensations, suggesting that at the narrative and ideological level, the film seems to discredit romantic love premised on a self–other relational. It argues that despite the film's exemplification as a post-modern parody of romantic love, it simultaneously valorises love through a neo-aesthetic beyond subjectivity.Less
This chapter examines the film Romeo and Juliet in the context of Gilles Deleuze's concept of sensations, suggesting that at the narrative and ideological level, the film seems to discredit romantic love premised on a self–other relational. It argues that despite the film's exemplification as a post-modern parody of romantic love, it simultaneously valorises love through a neo-aesthetic beyond subjectivity.
Richard Dutton
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- April 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198777748
- eISBN:
- 9780191823169
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198777748.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies, Drama
Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and The Merry Wives of Windsor all show a similar progression from a shorter, less satisfactory first-published version to a longer, more accomplished version (for Hamlet, ...
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Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and The Merry Wives of Windsor all show a similar progression from a shorter, less satisfactory first-published version to a longer, more accomplished version (for Hamlet, two later versions). Editors of the plays still widely disagree with this. But Romeo and Juliet shows changes in the characters of Juliet and Friar Lawrence and in the comic roles of Will Kemp in the play that can hardly be accounted for by cuts. Progressive changes in Hamlet can be followed in the changing explanations for why the actors are travelling and in the role of Fortinbras, highlighting the issue of succession to the throne—critical until James I peacefully succeeded the childless Elizabeth; Merry Wives is beset by myths, notably a dating as early as 1597, but the identification of Henry Brook, Lord Cobham, with Falstaff gives us a more credible chronology and a version adapted for Jacobean court performance.Less
Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and The Merry Wives of Windsor all show a similar progression from a shorter, less satisfactory first-published version to a longer, more accomplished version (for Hamlet, two later versions). Editors of the plays still widely disagree with this. But Romeo and Juliet shows changes in the characters of Juliet and Friar Lawrence and in the comic roles of Will Kemp in the play that can hardly be accounted for by cuts. Progressive changes in Hamlet can be followed in the changing explanations for why the actors are travelling and in the role of Fortinbras, highlighting the issue of succession to the throne—critical until James I peacefully succeeded the childless Elizabeth; Merry Wives is beset by myths, notably a dating as early as 1597, but the identification of Henry Brook, Lord Cobham, with Falstaff gives us a more credible chronology and a version adapted for Jacobean court performance.
Alice Fox
- Published in print:
- 1990
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198129882
- eISBN:
- 9780191671876
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198129882.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter discusses works of Shakespeare and the subsequent influences they had on those of Virginia Woolf as a writer. Although reluctant and resistant to reading Shakespeare, as she often deemed ...
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This chapter discusses works of Shakespeare and the subsequent influences they had on those of Virginia Woolf as a writer. Although reluctant and resistant to reading Shakespeare, as she often deemed his work as belonging to others, the chapter discusses the slow metamorphosis from Woolf's reluctance to Shakespeare, to a lifetime devotion of reading his plays and works. In late 1908, Woolf began reading five Shakespearian plays: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Macbeth. Her reading of the plays led her to writing critical essays on the works of Shakespeare. Woolf found in the plays the perfect expression of ideas applicable to her own life, to society, and to the lives portrayed in her fiction. Among those of her novels which were founded on Shakespearian manner are Night and Day, Mrs. Dalloway, and The Waves, among others.Less
This chapter discusses works of Shakespeare and the subsequent influences they had on those of Virginia Woolf as a writer. Although reluctant and resistant to reading Shakespeare, as she often deemed his work as belonging to others, the chapter discusses the slow metamorphosis from Woolf's reluctance to Shakespeare, to a lifetime devotion of reading his plays and works. In late 1908, Woolf began reading five Shakespearian plays: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Macbeth. Her reading of the plays led her to writing critical essays on the works of Shakespeare. Woolf found in the plays the perfect expression of ideas applicable to her own life, to society, and to the lives portrayed in her fiction. Among those of her novels which were founded on Shakespearian manner are Night and Day, Mrs. Dalloway, and The Waves, among others.
Beatrice Groves
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199208982
- eISBN:
- 9780191706158
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199208982.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
This book explores Shakespeare's thoroughgoing engagement with the religious culture of his time. In the wake of the recent resurgence of interest in Shakespeare's Catholicism, the book eschews a ...
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This book explores Shakespeare's thoroughgoing engagement with the religious culture of his time. In the wake of the recent resurgence of interest in Shakespeare's Catholicism, the book eschews a reductively biographical approach and considers instead the ways in which Shakespeare's borrowing from both the visual culture of Catholicism and the linguistic wealth of the Protestant English Bible enriched his drama. Through close readings of a number of plays — Romeo and Juliet, King John, Henry IV, Henry V, and Measure for Measure — the author unearths and explains previously unrecognised allusions to the Bible, the Church's liturgy, and to the mystery plays performed in England in Shakespeare's boyhood. The book provides new evidence of the way in which Shakespeare exploited his audience's cultural memory and biblical knowledge in order to enrich his ostensibly secular drama and argues that we need to unravel the interpretative possibilities of these religious nuances in order fully to grasp the implications of his plays.Less
This book explores Shakespeare's thoroughgoing engagement with the religious culture of his time. In the wake of the recent resurgence of interest in Shakespeare's Catholicism, the book eschews a reductively biographical approach and considers instead the ways in which Shakespeare's borrowing from both the visual culture of Catholicism and the linguistic wealth of the Protestant English Bible enriched his drama. Through close readings of a number of plays — Romeo and Juliet, King John, Henry IV, Henry V, and Measure for Measure — the author unearths and explains previously unrecognised allusions to the Bible, the Church's liturgy, and to the mystery plays performed in England in Shakespeare's boyhood. The book provides new evidence of the way in which Shakespeare exploited his audience's cultural memory and biblical knowledge in order to enrich his ostensibly secular drama and argues that we need to unravel the interpretative possibilities of these religious nuances in order fully to grasp the implications of his plays.
Sudhir Kakar and John Munder Ross
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198072560
- eISBN:
- 9780199082124
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198072560.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
First published in 1986, this ground-breaking work addresses two complex and very human emotions—love and erotic passion—as these appear in the great love stories of the world. Starting with the ...
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First published in 1986, this ground-breaking work addresses two complex and very human emotions—love and erotic passion—as these appear in the great love stories of the world. Starting with the story of Romeo and Juliet and its roots in European Christianity, the authors uncover hidden depths of cultural and universal significance in famous romantic tales of the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent—‘Layla and Majnun’, ‘Heer and Ranjha’, ‘Sohni and Mahinwal’, ‘Vis and Ramin’, and ‘Radha and Krishna’. Moving westward again, the authors look at the Greek myth of Oedipus, the Celtic saga of Tristan and Isolde, the tragic drama of Hamlet, the legend of Phaedra and Hippolytus, and a contemporary handling of the love theme in the writings of Vladimir Nabokov. With each love story including within its gambit all of love’s paradoxical associations and radii—from conquest and possession to surrender, sensuality and sensuousness, time held still in a poised nostalgia, and the loss of visual, distal perceptions in another mode of knowing—this book elaborates on the phenomenology and what it calls the ontogeny of love, sex, and danger. In this second edition, the authors revisit their earlier assertions about romantic and erotic love in the light of contemporary psychoanalysis and literary theory.Less
First published in 1986, this ground-breaking work addresses two complex and very human emotions—love and erotic passion—as these appear in the great love stories of the world. Starting with the story of Romeo and Juliet and its roots in European Christianity, the authors uncover hidden depths of cultural and universal significance in famous romantic tales of the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent—‘Layla and Majnun’, ‘Heer and Ranjha’, ‘Sohni and Mahinwal’, ‘Vis and Ramin’, and ‘Radha and Krishna’. Moving westward again, the authors look at the Greek myth of Oedipus, the Celtic saga of Tristan and Isolde, the tragic drama of Hamlet, the legend of Phaedra and Hippolytus, and a contemporary handling of the love theme in the writings of Vladimir Nabokov. With each love story including within its gambit all of love’s paradoxical associations and radii—from conquest and possession to surrender, sensuality and sensuousness, time held still in a poised nostalgia, and the loss of visual, distal perceptions in another mode of knowing—this book elaborates on the phenomenology and what it calls the ontogeny of love, sex, and danger. In this second edition, the authors revisit their earlier assertions about romantic and erotic love in the light of contemporary psychoanalysis and literary theory.
Anne Searcy
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- October 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190945107
- eISBN:
- 9780190945138
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190945107.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
Chapter 1 discusses the Bolshoi Theater’s first tour of the United States in 1959. While the popular response was rapturous, critics were more cautious. They praised the company’s dancers, ...
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Chapter 1 discusses the Bolshoi Theater’s first tour of the United States in 1959. While the popular response was rapturous, critics were more cautious. They praised the company’s dancers, particularly the Soviet ballerinas, but disparaged the choreography and music. This split was gendered and allowed critics and audiences to sympathize with the performers while condemning the ostensibly more political works themselves. The chapter focuses on Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and Stone Flower. Because Prokofiev’s music was so well known in the West, tour organizers hoped that his music could mediate between American expectations for Russian ballet and newer Soviet models. However, the Soviet performers failed to convince Western critics that their ballet was sufficiently “modern,” a complaint that would permeate American criticisms of the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War.Less
Chapter 1 discusses the Bolshoi Theater’s first tour of the United States in 1959. While the popular response was rapturous, critics were more cautious. They praised the company’s dancers, particularly the Soviet ballerinas, but disparaged the choreography and music. This split was gendered and allowed critics and audiences to sympathize with the performers while condemning the ostensibly more political works themselves. The chapter focuses on Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and Stone Flower. Because Prokofiev’s music was so well known in the West, tour organizers hoped that his music could mediate between American expectations for Russian ballet and newer Soviet models. However, the Soviet performers failed to convince Western critics that their ballet was sufficiently “modern,” a complaint that would permeate American criticisms of the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War.
Lorna Hutson
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199657100
- eISBN:
- 9780191808692
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199657100.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies, Drama
This chapter shows how belief in the autonomy and depth (or plenitude) of Shakespearean character has been inseparable from an assumption that Shakespeare’s plots are relatively informal, merely ...
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This chapter shows how belief in the autonomy and depth (or plenitude) of Shakespearean character has been inseparable from an assumption that Shakespeare’s plots are relatively informal, merely following the order of events as given in his source texts. The chapter shows how this belief has lasted from the eighteenth century (Samuel Johnson, Charlotte Lennox) to the present. It has survived the ‘unediting’ deconstruction of ‘Authentic Shakespeare’. The chapter analyses the plot of Romeo and Juliet, showing that Shakespeare does not merely follow his sources (Boaistuau and Arthur Brooke) but rather identifies a key circumstantial topic of argument—the question of Time, of whether the time is ripe for Juliet’s marriage—and goes on to build dialogue, scenes, and action around this question. A circumstantial question thus implies an offstage world and helps create our sense of Juliet’s ‘unconscious’ and of adolescent ‘sexuality’.Less
This chapter shows how belief in the autonomy and depth (or plenitude) of Shakespearean character has been inseparable from an assumption that Shakespeare’s plots are relatively informal, merely following the order of events as given in his source texts. The chapter shows how this belief has lasted from the eighteenth century (Samuel Johnson, Charlotte Lennox) to the present. It has survived the ‘unediting’ deconstruction of ‘Authentic Shakespeare’. The chapter analyses the plot of Romeo and Juliet, showing that Shakespeare does not merely follow his sources (Boaistuau and Arthur Brooke) but rather identifies a key circumstantial topic of argument—the question of Time, of whether the time is ripe for Juliet’s marriage—and goes on to build dialogue, scenes, and action around this question. A circumstantial question thus implies an offstage world and helps create our sense of Juliet’s ‘unconscious’ and of adolescent ‘sexuality’.