Shakespeare

Shakespeare had heard the phrase “Gallop apace” in Marlowe’s Edward the Second, and had remembered it; he gives it to Juliet as she yearns for the end of the day. “Enter Juliet,” Shakespeare puts in a stage-direction, “somewhat fast, and embraceth Romeo.” It is a play of youthfulness, of youthful impulsiveness and of youthful extravagance; it is a play of dancing and of sword-play, both measuring out an arena of energy with sudden violence and swift transitions. In this play he incorporates sudden changes of mood and of thought; he follows the quicksilver thread of consciousness in expression. But if it is seized by transitoriness it is also touched by mystery. As Juliet and her Nurse converse on Romeo, an unnamed and unknown voice off-stage calls out “Juliet”; it is as if some guardian spirit were entreating her.

It has often been stated that Romeo and Juliet are all that lovers were, and all that lovers ever will be, but it is important to notice the sheer artistry with which Shakespeare entwines them. They echo each other’s speech, as if they saw their souls shining in each other’s faces, and in one wonderful passage a formal sonnet emerges out of their dialogue like Aphrodite rising out of the sea (666-9):

If I prophane with my vnworthiest hand,

This holy shrine, the gentler sin is this,

My lips two blushing Pylgrims readie stand

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kis.

This had never been achieved on the English stage before, and must have been as miraculous for the first auditors as it has been for subsequent generations. Shakespeare had taken the conventions and traditions of courtly love poetry, and had dramatised them for London audiences that had probably never picked up a sonnet sequence from the stationers’ stalls. There are other themes that seem to exfoliate through Shakespeare’s drama – the theme of banishment, of inequality in love, of honour and reputation – but the dramatic invocation of love remains the central and abiding impression.

The play ends in a house of tears, but that is where all dreams end. It concluded formally with a funeral procession, one of the standard spectacles of Elizabethan drama, but the dirge was succeeded by a merry jig. This was assisted by the presence of Will Kempe in the final tragic scene. He accompanied Romeo to his rendezvous with mortality at the tomb, and no doubt clowned his way through the soliloquies on dust and death. It is another indication of the essential stridency of Elizabethan drama, where there is no necessary composure or middle tone. All extremes are possible. Romeo and Juliet can be interpreted as a comedy as much as a tragedy, but of course it can also represent both.

Shakespeare had taken the story from a poem by Arthur Brooke, entitled The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet, but he condensed it; he shortened the time span, from nine months into five days, and imposed upon the narrative a careful and intricate pattern of symmetries. More significantly, perhaps, he alters the moral scheme and burden of the narrative by overtly sympathising with the lovers. That is the difference between poetry and drama. The religious imagery of the play has often been discussed, in particular its atmosphere of the old faith. Any play set in Italy is bound to be mingled with Catholicism, of course, but there is a larger point. It is characteristic of those who have forsworn their faith to cling to its vocabulary, and never more so than when describing the profane. Shakespeare also introduced far more bawdry and comedy, giving Mercutio in particular a greater role. He also changed Juliet’s age from sixteen, in Brooke’s poem, to thirteen. He was aware that he was thereby catering to the lasciviousness of the citizens, but he was a shameless master of effects. He recognised, too, that the crowds would enjoy the sword-fight that opens Romeo and Juliet.