When Romeo first sees Juliet: analysis.

Romeo and Juliet is one of the most famous tragedies among those produced by Shakespeare. It was composed in 1595 and, like many other works of the poet, is a retelling of a story told above, always in the Renaissance, by Italian poets. In this scene, as can be seen from a first look at the text, there are only three characters, which interact among themselves: Romeo, who initially speak with a servant and then with Juliet, the servant who accompanies Romeo and Juliet the same.

The title of the work, "Romeo and Juliet", allows the reader to understand the identity of the two protagonists and the feeling that binds them together: love. This second point is made ​​plausible by the nature of the two names compounding the title: Romeo is a male name, while Juliet is a female name. In addition, the coordinating conjunction that links them makes plausible a strong feeling among themselves that puts them in a relationship of "coordination" that is of union. In addition to all this, the version of the text proposed for the analysis has a second title: "When Romeo first sees Juliet." The second part of this subtitle allows the intelligent reader to understand the point at which the scene find setting and the main character protagonist of the facts described: the instant narrated here is the first meeting between Romeo and Juliet and the protagonist, who is involved in both the dialogues is Romeo himself. The exact point of the narrative in which this first meeting takes place is made ​​explicit by the brief introduction proposed before the title itself, according to which Romeo attends a masked ball held by the Capulet family. These two components carry the intelligent reader to ask two specific questions: how it will react Romeo to the sight of Juliet? and how the meeting between the two will take place?

The structure of the extract makes immediate, eyes of those who reads, a subdivision of the scene into two parts:

· The first includes the first three bars (two spoken by Romeo and one by his servant);

· The second, divided by the first through a third title (The ball), which extends along the entire remaining part of the text (an exchange of ten bars between the two protagonists of the work their homonymous).

The first of the two sequences detected opens with a question addressed to Romeo's servant. The protagonist asks the servant if he knows the identity of one of the ladies and expresses a first consideration about to the lady herself, derived only from its instinctive reaction to her view. This consideration is expressed by the young through a metonymy ("Which doth enrich the hand of yonder knight") highlighted by the alliteration of the consonant "h". Romeo here, citing the hand of Juliet, will probably refer to the entire figure of the girl, who with her presence, both physically and spiritually, enriches morally and elevates the figure of the knight. In this way are placed in the foreground the physical characteristics of Juliet, is the first time that Romeo sees and is not able to make judgments. Despite this the positive features of the moral of Juliet emerge, however, as her mere presence enriches that of her companion. The servant does not answer the request posed by Romeo, and this allows the young to give free play to the feelings that the mere sight of the girl has sparked in him. This outburst occurs through a variety of stylistic devices: three figures of speech, two similarities and hyperbole, and a rhetorical question. The first simile ("like and rich jewel in an ethiop's ear") compares the entire figure of Juliet to a gem that shines in the night and that could teach how to shine to a torch. This second part of similarity could be considered hyperbolic as the physical beauty of Juliet is elevated to the level of the light of the fire itself, the primary source of light. Immediately after the similitude is located hyperbole, which is also interested in the beauty of Juliet and says that even the earth would be unworthy to possess it. The physical beauty of the girl is then elevated to the level of that of the stars, consideration which will be later taken inside the soliloquy of Romeo in the famous balcony scene through a series of metaphors. The second simile highlights the figure of Juliet among those of her contemporaries and is made through a metaphor contained in it: "So shows a snowy where trooping with crows, as yonder lady o'er her fellows shows." Here Juliet is likened to a dove while her companions to a flock of crows. The reflection of Romeo ends with a rhetorical question ("Did my heart love till now?"). Thanks to this stylistic device, this first part of the extract suggested, reports the response to the first of the two questions that the intelligent reader had placed after the analysis of the title. At the sight of Juliet Romeo is entranced by her beauty out of the common (such as displayed similarities and hyperbole) and tries an immediate feeling of love towards her (such as the rhetorical question leaves to understand).

The second part of the extract, the one containing the first dialogue between the two protagonists of the play, thus contains the answer to the second question that the reader was placed: how will the meeting between Romeo and Juliet be? This response, however, can only be found through the analysis of the second sequence. The conversation between Romeo and Juliet, as the two are not known, takes place through two recurring metaphors both included in the speech by Romeo. He introduces himself, right from the first instance, through the figure of a pilgrim who goes in search of redemption; instead defines Juliet as a saint, thanks to the contact with whom the pilgrim can reach his objective of forgiveness of sins.  Juliet, on the other hand, does not condemn the two combinations and she uses them to refer to their figure and that of the young man who approached her. The fact that Romeo uses the figure of a saint to refer to Juliet is a novelty compared to previous messages supported by the figures of speech: first Romeo was limited to praise the physical beauty of the girl, but now places an emphasis on spirituality and her morality. The figure of the saint who can grant redemption from sin brings out a feature that Juliet possesses from the perspective of Romeo: the ability to grant the bliss and then to elevate the soul of man. This particular woman's ability refers to the concept of woman-angel proposed by the philosophical and poetic current of the Dolce Stilnovo: the woman was viewed as an entity the love for which could bring man to a higher level and elevate it to God. The love expressed here is thus both carnal (previous tribute to the physical beauty of Juliet) and spiritual (as planned in ethics of the Stilnovo). A link with the first textual sequence is recognized, however, in the second half of the first simile occurred in the text: the first few lines of the second sequence resume the metonymy / simile of the hands of Juliet and her knight proposal at the beginning of the first sequence from Romeo. In this case, however, the hands taken into account are those of Romeo and Juliet. Another point of detachment from the first half of the text consists of the physical contact between Romeo and Juliet, as opposed to the distance from which Romeo was looking at her previously. The two young exchange two kisses: the first seen as the means by which Romeo uses to obtain the forgiveness of his sins, the latter seen as the recovery from the young of the sins because they do not impose themselves on the shoulders of the girl. The last sentence of Juliet, the final judgment of the extract, clarifies the nature of these kisses, defined by herself chaste and devoid of feeling. The reader can therefore be assumed that the true feeling of love blossoms between the two only after they first met and that therefore it is not yet at its height at this time of the story. The second question that the intelligent reader had set at the start of reading can then be answered as the dialogue between the two young takes place in the form of metaphors and ends on two physical contact (kissing by Romeo) employed still, however, by the feeling of love understood as passion.