Romeo and Juliet was probably written in 1595 and printed for the first time in 1597. It was written before The Merchant of Venice and after Richard II. The story of Romeo and Juliet was developed by a number of European writers in the 15th and 16th centuries.



prova===The tragedy of communication
Shakespeare makes the plot depend crucially on the messages: Juliet's Nurse brings her a happy reply from Romeo in Act 2, Scene 4; then she brings Juliet the news of Tybalt's death and Romeo's banishment. In both scenes Shakespeare stresses the ease with which messages can go wrong.
The pattern of action is marked by simple gestures: the hands of Montague and Capulet are first seen brandishing weapons; Romeo takes Juliet's hand as a sacrament when he first speaks to her; Capulet takes Montague's hand in reconciliation.



In a similar pattern, Romeo kisses Juliet four times: at the feast, at the Friar's cell, at dawn after the wedding night and at death.



The two fundamental elements of the play are the lack of knowledge, and the reflection upon language made on the part of Juliet.
The lack of knowledge necessarily derives from bad communication: Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy of unawareness and not knowing. It cannot be summed up as the tragedy of "old hate" and "young love", since the tragic final destruction results from a pattern which includes the elements of chance and the more pervading one of unawareness. This work is thus characterized by elements of comedy and tragedy:

• it is a comedy because of the theme of equivocation
• it is a tragedy because of the tragic role of chance despite the absence of a character who plays the role of the villain.

However, Romeo and Juliet differs from the conventional comedy because at the end knowledge is not for everybody, but only fot the characters which have suffered and, even then, not completely. Speed is the medium of "fate": in the last scene time achieves a triumph because less than a minute's hesitation would have saved Romeo's and Juliet's lives.



Juliet shows a tendency to be concrete and realisitic in her use of language. Though she is set within the courtly love convention and she stands for innocence, she returns Romeo's love. She belongs to no characterisation, classification or idealisation:
she is a real woman. Her language is not only influenced by her being atypical, but also by the plot. She is in love with Romeo, and the first obstacle to their love is "his name", a name which does not correspond to the "real Romeo". Therefore she reflects upon language, its symbolical order, and its links to "reality".

In Romeo and Juliet the best and the worst traits of Shakespeare's immature style are to be seen.
His rhythms are regular; rhymes are common, often used in "couplets". Occasionally he even inserts a sonnet in the dialogue. There is much clever language; imagery is often used for its own sake and not to clarify o intensify thought.



Act 3, Scene 2: Juliet longs for her wedding night

Elisa Spadavecchia has freely adapted this text from "Only Connect" by Marina Spiazzi and Marina Tavella.