Romeo & Juliet - The Complete Play with Annotations, Audio and Knowledge Organisers

Product Information

The vast majority of Elizabethans would have been Christian, and the Church played a central role in a family’s life Romeo is so overwhelmed by her beauty that he tells himself that when that dance is over, he will watch her where she stands and will touch her hand and make his coarse hand (compared to Juliet’s) blessed. Then he asks himself a question whether his heart loved anyone before that moment. Then he tells himself that if it was true then he would renounce it because he had never felt so much in love because he had never seen anyone truly beautiful like Juliet until that night. This line, taken from the Prologue , warns audiences that the young lovers will defy the status quo

Act 2, scene 3 Determined to marry Juliet, Romeo hurries to Friar Lawrence. The Friar agrees to marry them, expressing the hope that the marriage may end the feud between their families. Act 5, scene 2 Friar John enters, bringing with him the letter that he was to have delivered to Romeo. He tells why he was unable to deliver the letter. Friar Lawrence anxiously goes to the tomb to be there when Juliet comes out of her trance. Once the night arrives, and along with it Romeo, their love gets consummated. After her death she expects Romeo to go to the heavens like a star. She believes that her Romeo will make the face of heaven so fine that the whole world will fall in love with night.

SparkNotes—the stress-free way to a better GPA

Whose misadventured piteous overthrows do with their death bury their parent's strife ” The chorus, The Prologue The chorus tells audiences that Romeo and Juliet will rebel attempting to overthrow the authority and that their deaths will end their parents’ “strife” or war Lord Capulet tells Paris to wait two more summers, until Juliet is “ripe to be a bride”, suggesting her duty to become a mother and bear fruit (have children)

Juliet’s s oliloquy is spoken alone, making this scene dramatic and highlighting its serious themes Elizabethan audiences would understand the sacrifice Juliet makes when she denies a secure and honourable future with Paris Juliet’s nurse represents this bond as she is Juliet’s first source of advice and comfort rather than her mother His t riple , in a list which emphasises his hatred, links religion to violence and stresses that these ideas are opposed to peaceThe moment Romeo catches sight of Juliet, he is enchanted with her flawless beauty. Immediately he exclaims in wonder and says that she teaches the torches (that have lit up the room) to bum bright. Then noticing her conspicuous brightness in the night, he says that she appears like a precious jewel hanging in the ears of an Ethiopian. Finally, seeing that she outshone every other lady in the room, he says that she was like a snowy white dove trooping with crows. He tells himself that he had never felt so much in love because he had never seen anyone truly beautiful like Juliet until that night.

Juliet is dominant, not submissive : she proposes to Romeo, insisting he take the marriage seriously Romeo and Juliet are known for its theme of love. However, as the play’s ending suggests, it is a tragic tale of woe and conflict, a tale about a love that was forbidden because of a family grudge. The Adjective describing this rebellion (“misadventured piteous”) suggest it will fail and the audience will feel pity for the young loversThe obvious function of the Prologue as an introduction to the Verona of Romeo and Juliet can obscure its deeper, more important function. The Prologue does not merely set the scene of Romeo and Juliet, it tells the audience exactly what is going to happen in the play. The Prologue refers to an ill-fated couple with its use of the word “star-crossed,” which means, literally, against the stars. Stars were thought to control people’s destinies. But the Prologue itself creates this sense of fate by providing the audience with the knowledge that Romeo and Juliet will die even before the play has begun. The audience therefore watches the play with the expectation that it must fulfill the terms set in the Prologue. The structure of the play itself is the fate from which Romeo and Juliet cannot escape.