Textuality » 4A Interacting
Questions of Shakespeare's Interview about Romeo and Juliet
- When do you write Romeo and Juliet?
- Why do you decide to write it?
- What is the storyline?
- Could you tell me about the main characters of your work?
- Do you borrow ideas from others?
- Does the audience appreciate your work?
- Why do you think it appreciate/ doesn't appreciate?
- What are the main important themes?
The Article:
"Shakespeare's presentation about Romeo and Juliet"
Shakespeare talks about one of his last play
Romeo and Juliet: the tragedy of two lovers united by death
Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, a play with a dramatic structure and features of the comedy and the tragedy, between the 1591 and 1595.
He wanted to move the audience telling the story of two lovers not allowed to live their love because of a feud between their families.
And just the families, Montague (Romeo's family) and Capulet (Juliet's family) were pacified by the sacrifice of the young children, that had committed suicide because of the impossibility to live their relationship.
It's clear that Romeo and Juliet are the main important character's of the play.
They are typical Shakespearian heroes: subdued by the Fate, unable to renounce at their love, but they are also different from the classical character of Shakespeare's play because they tried to take away themselves from the Fate control.
This is an impossible action, so at the end, the Destiny won and they died together loving themselves.
Shakespeare takes inspiration by others works, for example: Phyramus and Thrisbe, Ovid's Metamorphoses; Romeo and Juliet of Mariotto and Gianozza by Masuccio Salernitano; Giulietta e Romeo, Luigi da Porto; Giulietta e Romeo by Matteo Bandello; The Tragical Hystory of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke and also other stories by Christopher Marlowe, Hero and Leander and Dido, Queen of Carthage.
The audience appreciated Shakespeare's works, as this is proved by the frequent performances realized.
The playwright thinks that the success of this work must be attributed to the powerful of feelings and emotions that the spectator lives during the performance. Who isn't able to feel compassion seeing the scene of two young lovers killing themselves because there are sure that their love is dead?
Love is a universal theme that everyone is able to understand and everyone knows something about it. The play is popular also because this is the main argument, able to involve everyone.
The "star-cross'd" lovers aren't so appreciated by critics that gave a negative sentence to the work, but it is a love tragedy survived for a lot of time, the most famous and performed, so probably the critics should revalue Shakespere's work.