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Romeo And Juliet by William Shakespeare

Decent Essays

Romeo And Juliet by William Shakespeare In Romeo and Juliet the beauty and ardour of young love is seen by Shakespeare as the irradiating glory of sunlight and starlight in a dark work. Discuss the techniques that Shakespeare would have used to capture this dominating image of light. In the time of Shakespeare, his plays would have been performed during the day, using natural light from the open centre of the theatre. Since there could be no dramatic lighting and there was very little scenery or props, Shakespeare used actors' lines and stage directions to supply the time of day and year, the weather, location and mood of the scenes. Props would also be used for this purpose. For example, if …show more content…

Nearly all the elements of the play; conflict, death, poison are dark, while the love between Romeo and Juliet is the only element which could be described as light in the play. Romeo speaks of Juliet as a "bright angle shining in the night", again the vision that the love is the only light in the play and is surrounded by darkness. Also, Juliet describes Romeo as "whiter than new snow upon a raven's back". The language throughout the play also makes this comparison between light and dark. Shakespeare's characters are continually cursing and banishing each other throughout the play, even in the very first scene when Tybalt says "What drawn and talk of peace? I hate the word as I hate heel and all Montagues and thee!". (Act 1, scene 1) However, this is contrasted by the beautiful language between Romeo and Juliet. In the famous balcony scene Romeo says "It is the east and Juliet is the sun, Arise, fair sun and kill the envious moon". This further illustrates the idea that their young love is seen as the light in the play, as Romeo refers Juliet to the sun. When Romeo meets Juliet he uses a metaphor to describe her "She doth teach the torches to burn bright" He is saying that she is so beautiful her beauty outshines the torches. This tells the audience that she is supposed to be very beautiful.

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