Mitt engelska tal - Romeo and Juliet, The Renaissance and William Shakespeare
Have you ever felt a love worth dying for? That is what Romeo and Juliet shared. They fell in love the minute they laid eyes on each other. The love they shared was forbidden. But that didn’t stop them. Because they did everything they could just to be together. The original title of the tragic love story is “The most Excellent and Lamentable tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.” Which in a small way reveals what kind of story it is. The play is written by William Shakespeare, who lived during the period of time that is known as the Renaissance.
William Shakespeare was born in April 1564 in Stratford-Upon-Avon in England. Already at the early age of eighteen he got married. But the marriage didn’t last very long, because Shakespeare soon left his wife and the kids to move to London, where he quickly worked up as an actor and a play writer. Shakespeare wrote over 30 different plays, and they were all either chronicle, comedies or tragedies. The first really well known tragedy that Shakespeare wrote was the story of Hamlet. Which was written in the year of 1599. Not too long after that he had another successful story written, which was the story of Romeo and Juliet. In the end of his life he returned to his hometown and got buried in the same church, where he had been baptized. He died the year of 1616.
The play takes place in the city of Verona, where the families Montague and Capulet are supposed to live in peace, but every time they meet there is a certain tension in the air. The story is about Romeo, a man with very friendly purposes who does not support his father’s feud with the Capulet’s. And Juliet, the daughter of a Capulet, who is arranged to marry a man named Paris that her parents chose for her. On the evening of Capulet’s mascaraed, where she for the first time met Paris, was also the evening she saw Romeo. At the moment they saw each other they fell in love and knew that they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together. Which in the play turns out to be very short since both of them killed themselves after a supposed death of one and another.
Forbidden love, hate, revenge, life, death, those are the main themes in the play. But I think that one, not maybe counted as a theme, but as a relevant matter to why this play is so unique, is the way they speak. It’s like listening to a long dialogue with poems and not so much as just ordinary lines written in a script. The fact that this play is fictional also makes it adjusted to the epoch it was written in.
Fiction was a big part of what the literature during the Renaissance was all about. In the last epoch, which is known as the Middle Ages, they did everything based on facts and as far from fiction as possible. So in the beginning of the Renaissance that is known as a time of “rebirth” they did most things differently from the earlier epochs. This was the time for the fiction-writing authors to step forward and embrace the fact that writing about feelings, fantasies and ideas were what the literature part of the epoch was all about. According to my sources, the renaissance began in the late 14th century in Italy and spread among other things, thanks to the art of printing. The epoch ended at the early 17th century. And the tragic story of Romeo and Juliet fits into this epoch perfectly.
The reason why this play has got so well known and still is appreciated can be out of many reasons. According to me, there are two main reasons why that is. The first is probably because of the love they share. How they fall in love just by getting a glimpse at each other and from that moment knowing that they want to spend the rest of their lives together and do everything they ever possibly can to make assure of it. I mean think about it, Titanic for example, also a pretty well known story, also happened to be true. Well, at least some parts of it. But how Jack and Rose only on a few days of spending time together, fall in love and then feel that their love is worth risking their lives for. Kind of similar don’t you think? And with almost the same tragic ending. But here only one of them dies, and not from suicide but apart from that the whole kind of forbidden love-hate-death-life themes are in that story too. The other main reason is probably the language. It is so different from many other plays or books or movies and is quite interesting and beautiful to read and listen to. So I thought it would be a good idea to listen to it. * Listening to clip from 36.11 – 36.55 *. As I said earlier it sounds a lot like a long poem. Which isn’t something we see, read or hear on daily basis and I think that is what keeps it interesting and is also a reason why it is a part of the literary canon.
Nevertheless William Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet and was the first author to ever combine both tragedy and romance in a story. One can easily see that this story fit perfectly into the Renaissance that is the epoch it was written in. It is a fiction where both the love they share and the way they speak is what makes it extraordinaire and interesting. To end, I will use the quote that they use in the end of the play. That sums up most of the story in a perfect way. “For never was a story of more woe, than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”
THANK YOU!
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