The earliest known critic of the
play was diarist Samuel Pepys, who wrote in 1662: "it is a play of itself
the worst that I ever heard in my life."[57] Poet John Dryden
wrote 10 years later in praise of the play and its comic character Mercutio:
"Shakespear show'd the best of his skill in his Mercutio, and he
said himself, that he was forc'd to kill him in the third Act, to prevent being
killed by him."[57] Criticism of the play in the 18th century
was less sparse, but no less divided. Publisher Nicholas Rowe was the first
critic to ponder the theme of the play, which he saw as the just punishment of
the two feuding families. In mid-century, writer Charles Gildon and philosopher
Lord Kames argued that the play was a failure in that it did not follow the
classical rules of drama: the tragedy must occur because of some character
flaw, not an accident of fate. Writer and critic Samuel Johnson, however, considered
it one of Shakespeare's "most pleasing" plays.[58]
In the later part of the 18th and
through the 19th century, criticism centred on debates over the moral message
of the play. Actor and playwright David Garrick's 1748 adaptation excluded
Rosaline: Romeo abandoning her for Juliet was seen as fickle and reckless.
Critics such as Charles Dibdin argued that Rosaline had been purposely included
in the play to show how reckless the hero was, and that this was the reason for
his tragic end. Others argued that Friar Laurence might be Shakespeare's
spokesman in his warnings against undue haste. With the advent of the 20th
century, these moral arguments were disputed by critics such as Richard Green
Moulton: he argued that accident, and not some character flaw, led to the
lovers' deaths.[59]
Dramatic structure
In Romeo and Juliet,
Shakespeare employs several dramatic techniques that have garnered praise from
critics; most notably the abrupt shifts from comedy to tragedy (an example is
the punning exchange between Benvolio and Mercutio just before Tybalt arrives).
Before Mercutio's death in Act three, the play is largely a comedy.[60]
After his accidental demise, the play suddenly becomes serious and takes on a
tragic tone. When Romeo is banished, rather than executed, and Friar Laurence
offers Juliet a plan to reunite her with Romeo, the audience can still hope
that all will end well. They are in a "breathless state of suspense"
by the opening of the last scene in the tomb: If Romeo is delayed long enough
for the Friar to arrive, he and Juliet may yet be saved.[61] These
shifts from hope to despair, reprieve, and new hope, serve to emphasise the
tragedy when the final hope fails and both the lovers die at the end.[62]
Shakespeare also uses sub-plots to
offer a clearer view of the actions of the main characters. For example, when
the play begins, Romeo is in love with Rosaline, who has refused all of his
advances. Romeo's infatuation with her stands in obvious contrast to his later
love for Juliet. This provides a comparison through which the audience can see
the seriousness of Romeo and Juliet's love and marriage. Paris' love for Juliet
also sets up a contrast between Juliet's feelings for him and her feelings for
Romeo. The formal language she uses around Paris, as well as the way she talks
about him to her Nurse, show that her feelings clearly lie with Romeo. Beyond
this, the sub-plot of the Montague–Capulet feud overarches the whole play,
providing an atmosphere of hate that is the main contributor to the play's
tragic end.[62]
Language
Shakespeare uses a variety of poetic
forms throughout the play. He begins with a 14-line prologue in the form of a
Shakespearean sonnet, spoken by a Chorus. Most of Romeo and Juliet is,
however, written in blank verse, and much of it in strict iambic pentameter,
with less rhythmic variation than in most of Shakespeare's later plays.[63]
In choosing forms, Shakespeare matches the poetry to the character who uses it.
Friar Laurence, for example, uses sermon and sententiae forms, and the Nurse
uses a unique blank verse form that closely matches colloquial speech.[63]
Each of these forms is also moulded and matched to the emotion of the scene the
character occupies. For example, when Romeo talks about Rosaline earlier in the
play, he attempts to use the Petrarchan sonnet form. Petrarchan sonnets were
often used by men to exaggerate the beauty of women who were impossible for
them to attain, as in Romeo's situation with Rosaline. This sonnet form is used
by Lady Capulet to describe Count Paris to Juliet as a handsome man.[64]
When Romeo and Juliet meet, the poetic form changes from the Petrarchan (which
was becoming archaic in Shakespeare's day) to a then more contemporary sonnet
form, using "pilgrims" and "saints" as metaphors.[65]
Finally, when the two meet on the balcony, Romeo attempts to use the sonnet
form to pledge his love, but Juliet breaks it by saying "Dost thou love
me?"[66] By doing this, she searches for true expression, rather
than a poetic exaggeration of their love.[67] Juliet uses
monosyllabic words with Romeo, but uses formal language with Paris.[68]
Other forms in the play include an epithalamium by Juliet, a rhapsody in
Mercutio's Queen Mab speech, and an elegy by Paris.[69] Shakespeare
saves his prose style most often for the common people in the play, though at
times he uses it for other characters, such as Mercutio.[70] Humour,
also, is important: scholar Molly Mahood identifies at least 175 puns and
wordplays in the text.[71] Many of these jokes are sexual in nature,
especially those involving Mercutio and the Nurse.[72]
Psychoanalytic criticism
Early psychoanalytic critics saw the
problem of Romeo and Juliet in terms of Romeo's impulsiveness, deriving
from "ill-controlled, partially disguised aggression", which leads
both to Mercutio's death and to the double suicide.[73] Romeo and
Juliet is not considered to be exceedingly psychologically complex, and
sympathetic psychoanalytic readings of the play make the tragic male experience
equivalent with sicknesses.[74] Norman Holland, writing in 1966,
considers Romeo's dream[75] as a realistic "wish fulfilling
fantasy both in terms of Romeo's adult world and his hypothetical childhood at
stages oral, phallic and oedipal" – while acknowledging that a dramatic
character is not a human being with mental processes separate from those of the
author.[76] Critics such as Julia Kristeva focus on the hatred
between the families, arguing that this hatred is the cause of Romeo and
Juliet's passion for each other. That hatred manifests itself directly in the
lovers' language: Juliet, for example, speaks of "my only love sprung from
my only hate"[77] and often expresses her passion through an
anticipation of Romeo's death.[78] This leads on to speculation as
to the playwright's psychology, in particular to a consideration of
Shakespeare's grief for the death of his son, Hamnet.[79]
Feminist criticism
Feminist literary critics argue that
the blame for the family feud lies in Verona's patriarchal society. For
Coppélia Kahn, for example, the strict, masculine code of violence imposed on
Romeo is the main force driving the tragedy to its end. When Tybalt kills
Mercutio, Romeo shifts into this violent mode, regretting that Juliet has made
him so "effeminate".[80] In this view, the younger males
"become men" by engaging in violence on behalf of their fathers, or
in the case of the servants, their masters. The feud is also linked to male
virility, as the numerous jokes about maidenheads aptly demonstrate.[81]
Juliet also submits to a female code of docility by allowing others, such as
the Friar, to solve her problems for her. Other critics, such as Dympna
Callaghan, look at the play's feminism from a historicist angle, stressing that
when the play was written the feudal order was being challenged by increasingly
centralised government and the advent of capitalism. At the same time, emerging
Puritan ideas about marriage were less concerned with the "evils of female
sexuality" than those of earlier eras, and more sympathetic towards
love-matches: when Juliet dodges her father's attempt to force her to marry a
man she has no feeling for, she is challenging the patriarchal order in a way
that would not have been possible at an earlier time.[82]
Queer theory
A number of critics have found the
character of Mercutio to have unacknowledged homoerotic desire for Romeo.[83]
Jonathan Goldberg examined the sexuality of Mercutio and Romeo utilising
"queer theory" in Queering the Renaissance, comparing their
friendship with sexual love. Mercutio, in friendly conversation, mentions
Romeo's phallus, suggesting traces of homoeroticism.[84] An example
is his joking wish "To raise a spirit in his mistress' circle ... letting
it there stand / Till she had laid it and conjured it down."[85][86]
Romeo's homoeroticism can also be found in his attitude to Rosaline, a woman
who is distant and unavailable and brings no hope of offspring. As Benvolio
argues, she is best replaced by someone who will reciprocate. Shakespeare's
procreation sonnets describe another young man who, like Romeo, is having
trouble creating offspring and who may be seen as being a homosexual. Goldberg
believes that Shakespeare may have used Rosaline as a way to express homosexual
problems of procreation in an acceptable way. In this view, when Juliet says
"...that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as
sweet",[87] she may be raising the question of whether there is
any difference between the beauty of a man and the beauty of a woman.[88]
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