1. Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare
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Introduction
Background
Discussion Starters

2. Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare

3. Romeo and Juliet: Introduction
Does falling in love make the rest of life easier?
In Romeo and Juliet, life makes love more complicated than it should be.

4. Romeo and Juliet: Introduction
The Italian town Verona is beautiful, yet nothing can hide the ugliness of the feud between its two most prominent families.
The Montagues and the Capulets hate each other.

5. Romeo and Juliet: Introduction
Even though Prince Escalus has warned the families to avoid each other,
Romeo Montague joins friends who are determined to sneak into a party at the Capulet home, where he meets Juliet Capulet.

6. Romeo and Juliet: Introduction
Is there such a thing as love at first sight?
Romeo and Juliet can’t take their eyes off each other.
And that’s before their romantic exchange on her balcony.

7. Romeo and Juliet: Introduction
As happy as the two are together, neither family would be pleased to learn of their sudden love.
But the couple has a friend in the local priest—if only Friar Laurence can coax the families toward peace.

8. Romeo and Juliet: Introduction
But meanwhile, the feud between the families is getting worse
and even leads to a death.
Can love overcome the desire for revenge?

9. Romeo and Juliet: Background
William Shakespeare, born in 1564, is known as the greatest writer in the English language.
Yet not much is known about the man’s early years.

10. Romeo and Juliet: Background
We do know that Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on-Avon, England.
He was christened April 26, 1564.
His father was a merchant; his mother was from a prominent family.
His subjects at Stratford Grammar School included Latin and English composition.
At 18, he married 27-year-old Anne Hathaway.

11. Romeo and Juliet: Background
Shakespeare arrived in London in 1587 or 1588.
By 1592, he was already a successful dramatist
By 1599, he was a member of an acting company called Lord Chamberlain’s Men
He regularly performed for the aristocracy, including Queen Elizabeth.

12. Romeo and Juliet: Background
Shakespeare prospered even more under Elizabeth’s successor, King James of Scotland.
During the plague outbreak of 1603, he performed for the new king in places outside London.
Under the patronage of King James, the acting company was renamed The King’s Men.

13. Romeo and Juliet: Background
In addition to writing and acting, Shakespeare became a shareholder in a new London theater: the Globe. This theater
held well over a thousand spectators
flew flags to announce plays
allowed spectators to stand in the yard for a one-penny fee

14. Romeo and Juliet: Background
London theaters like the Globe provided theatergoers with entertainment they expected.
elaborate costumes
singing, swordplay, and acrobatics
boys playing female parts boys since women were not allowed onstage
ceilings painted like the sky, trapdoors, wires to suggest flying

15. Romeo and Juliet: Background
Wordplay, bawdy jokes, and lofty language appealed to Elizabethan audiences.
In Romeo and Juliet a prologue in sonnet form summarizes the play for the audience.
Most lines in the play, like the lines of a sonnet, are in iambic pentameter—ten syllables of a steady unaccented/accented pattern.
Monologues—long speeches by a single actor onstage—let the audience understand the thoughts of characters.

16. Romeo and Juliet: Background
English has changed in the hundreds of years since Shakespeare’s writing. In his day
wherefore meant “why”
I would often meant “I wish”
Hast thou meant “Have you”
true shrift meant “true confession”

17. Romeo and Juliet: Background
The Elizabethan audience expected a drama to unfold in five predictable segments.
Act III
Crisis, or turning point
Rising action
Act IV
Act II
Falling action
Act I
Act V
Introduction
Climactic moment, resolution

18. Romeo and Juliet: Background
By the time William Shakespeare retired from London theater life and returned to Stratford-on-Avon,
he had written thirty-seven plays and well over a hundred and fifty poems.
Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616.

19. Romeo and Juliet: Discussion Starters
During the 1300s in Verona, Italy—the setting for Romeo and Juliet—it was customary for a father to arrange a suitable marriage for his daughter.
Whom do you think this custom would have benefitted?
What reaction might parents have had to children unwilling to marry the person the parents chose?

20. Romeo and Juliet: Discussion Starters
Several characters in the play try to “fix” the crisis for Romeo and Juliet by deceiving others.
If you try to make a friend’s troubles go away, are you helping or meddling?
Do lies and deception usually help a crisis or make it worse?
What kind of connection might there be between time pressure and the impulse to deceive?